IT was a pleasant summer evening, which narrows it down to last Thursday or last August. Out-of-the-waymarks led us waist high through a barley field, as in childhood.

Roseberry Topping lorded a few acres away, Captain Cook monumentally nearby. A notice forbade horses and bikes, though one was impossible and the other insurmountable.

The Boss also swore that there were slugs. She has a phobia about slugs, sees them in her sleep when not on the front doorstep. Those of a nervous disposition should look away now.

Appetites awakened, we returned to Whinstone View, a spacious caravan park and "country club" about a mile on the Middlesbrough side of Great Ayton. Since it is to every intent a pub, it seems unwise to call it a country club - which implies membership requirements - but that, as they say, is their business.

A Middlesbrough reader had recommended it several years ago - "good food, well presented, at least two real ales". Perhaps we'd been awaiting a nice night.

The setting is tremendous, the roses and other fragrant plants carefully tended, the large verandah - a loggia, The Boss called it - offering lots of tables with the outside chance of al fresco dining.

The food, we considered, was only fair to overcast, however.

A huge sward stretches in front of the main building, perfect for the bairns to be Beckham, Butt or now (alas) Brazil. Two six-year-olds played nearby, the argument over who should retrieve the ball familiar to every father.

"You kicked it, you get it."

"It's your ball, you get it."

How often have we adults been invited to arbitrate on such intractable occasions? How often has the arbitrator finished up fetching the ball himself?

Younger still, there was a little lad called Zak and his friend Noah who clearly could have been born at any time during the past five winters, October-April.

Awaiting his ice cream, Zak amused himself by throwing handfuls of gravel at us.

"Say you're sorry," said his mother, half-heartedly. "Stones," said Zak, by way of contrition.

It was very pleasant in the seven o'clock shadows, nonetheless - bar or restaurant menu, Jennings' Cocker Hoop or Wychwood Hobgoblin from which to choose.

The beer was in excellent nick, the only worry that it was £2.20 a pint. We contemplated having a whisky in protest, if only to write something about a midsummer night's dram.

The bar menu, top whack about £7.50, included a couple of penne pasta dishes at £5.95, cajun chicken, scampi and several other old favourites. The carte was more expensive, a little hand bell rung in the kitchen - like a George Bernard Shaw stage play, or (for the faithful) at the solemn moment in Mass - whenever a dish was ready.

We began with "oriental" duck pancakes (£4.95), the sauce far too salty and the pancakes so thin as to be almost transparent and so tasteless they could have been torn from a kitchen roll.

The Boss's Caesar salad - Caesar buried - was topped almost as a makeweight by three slices of parma ham and in most other ways was like no Caesar salad she'd ever eaten. "Just a mound of lettuce and some soggy croutons submerged in a Caesar type dressing," she said.

The bell rang again; the pleasant waitress emerged into the open air with sea bass at £13.95 - "jolly decent, very well cooked," said The Boss - and with chicken in a "watercress and green ginger cream" with noodles (£10.95).

The sauce had lost interest between kitchen and verandah, the watercress utterly ineffectual, the concoction tepid. The chips were very good indeed, the vegetables unobjectionable.

The tiramisu, a single pudding, was described as "home made". People in these circumstances confuse "home made" with "docile". The coffee, she thought, was excellent.

The sun was just about to pack up for the day when we left at 8.45pm. It had been, as they say, a night out.

JOHN Briggs reports disappointment when trying to get a midday meal at his favourite Indian restaurant in Darlington. A sign on the door read: "Closed for lunch".

ELEVEN months after it was recommended by a family in Darlington, we finally caught a train to Saltburn to tackle O'Mara's Bistro. The sun shone on Saltburn, too.

The bistro is next to the Queen Hotel, formerly part of it, an attractive, wooden floored room with Radio Local playing at a fairly attuneable level.

The column's views on such intrusions are well broadcast, but it was at least gratifying not to be subjected to the besom brained buffoon who bawls "I love carpets, me".

Perhaps he has been pent up in a 24ft roll of Axminster and thrown off the Huntcliff at high tide. If not, it is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

The menu is inexpensive and straightforward, though with a longer than average vegetarian section and toasties (£2.60) with "complimentary" chips. A note on the door from Shaun O'Mara advises that alcohol can no longer be consumed on the premises.

We took a window seat, watched Saltburn totter by in the high 60s, ordered cod and chips and waited. Some would say cooked fresh, others that they'd been on the pier with a tin of worms.

It proved the only lunch in memory where the chips were almost as big as the fish - great muscular things, the sort of chips you cut in half. The cod, unfortunately, had little about it - more flesh, as they say, on a chip.

The spotted dick was fine. With a couple of Cokes, too long in the sun, the bill reached an entirely reasonably £7.10.

COSTA on platform two at Newcastle Central station, 9am. We'd supped there in 1998, the espresso - the column observed - "coming in the smallest cup this side of Wendy House World".

The "breakfast deal" this time embraces one of three baps - bacon, sausage, cheese and tomato - and any medium coffee for £3.20. It's when we've a mouthful of hot bacon butty that the bonny little waitress asks if we'd like the rubbish removing.

We expostulate, gesticulate and (probably) spit crumbs. The young lady smiles wonderfully, at once disarming the gesticulation. "Sorry sir," she says, "typical waitress." It's not, actually: full marks.

Costa at the MetroCentre, nine hours later. Large cappuccino and bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich £4.90. The visible staff are all male, the previous table occupant's garbage uncleared throughout. Transfer the charmer from the railway station - and double her money, at once.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew who led 10,000 pigs up to the top of the hill and down again .

The Grand Old Duke of Pork.

Published:25/06/2002