The Spain attraction

There are problems with the Caf Society, and not just that folk suppose al fresco either to be Sunderland's new left back or the supermarket manager in Coronation Street.

Another is pests; what might be termed outside interference. Some are what the Palm Sunday hymnist (in a different connection) called the winged squadrons of the sky and what Yorkshiremen still call clegs. Others have two legs and one and a half fewer brains.

Amid last week's wonderful weather, the irresistible temptation was nonetheless to adjourn with a good book - the updated version of Willie Maddren's autobiography, launched tomorrow - and to sit, in solitary contentment, on the pavement outside the Tapas Bar in Darlington.

Before even a drink was ordered, however, a two legged cleg appeared and had to be swatted with poor Willie's memoirs.

Before even sitting down in the noonday sun, a passing archdeacon offered blessings and another pedestrian stopped in his tracks. He was an old school friend, Darlington solicitor, good egg.

Food forgotten, book unread, best intentions amiably interred, we talked about some old times and drank ourselves some beers. The brief encounter lasted an hour and a half.

OFFICIALLY it's the Old Yard Tapas Bar, named after one of the multitudinous town centre yards in which 15,000 people once lived cheek by jail.

The Old Yard, says the literature, housed more than 60 people in "the most squalid conditions," four to each corner of the room.

By no means squalid, it was still pretty well thronged when we returned the following day with Mr and Mrs Eric Smallwood, from Middlesbrough.

If the sun had got his hat on, he doffed it, from time to time, most handsomely.

Broadly, it's Mediterranean meets real ale bar, with pleasant staff who may be every bit as cosmopolitan. The piazza, as they call it, faces south - or, some would say, towards Skinnergate.

Perspiring, Mr Smallwood carried in his pocket a bar towel of the sort with which cricket umpires these days are festooned. The difference, of course, was that Eric only planned to wipe his forehead.

He also reckoned that Taylor's superlative pork pies from Darlington are now on sale at Middlesbrough bus station, perhaps to the consternation of Messrs Newboulds. If there is to be a pie war, we shall volunteer for the front line forthwith.

Thus moved, he ventured along conversation's butchery counter to sausages. "There's sausages and there's sausages," said Eric, ever the philosopher.

Four or five real ales included the very palatable and hitherto unknown Ashes Ale from Marstons. Cocktails ranged from Moscow Mule to Baltimore Zoo, though goodness only knows why.

Two days previously we'd been in Ashington Football Club. Cocktails include Coal Scuttle, Pit Pony and Dodgy Ref.

Hedged by two or three planter boxes, the pavement overflowed with those of casual clothes and elasticated lunch hours. There are several government offices nearby. Though a selection of tapas is £10.99 for two, we ate instead from a lunchtime specials menu from which three good meals cost just over £15, the lot.

Eric had kleftico - which is Greek - and chips, which probably aren't. He thought the lamb worth 11 out of ten, the whole meal excellent and isn't easily pleased. Patti, his vegetarian wife, ordered the tortilla Espanola - Spanish omelette - while we had chicken gyros, a pink and spicy affair which may have something to do with the Social Security office up the street.

The pavement thronged until 2pm, seats - like miners' beds - rarely cold thereafter. It's a very pleasant lunchtime alternative. Make hay.

FOR a couple of years in the column's youth, we awarded Jammies to the best places visited in the previous year.

There were those who thought the name ill-advised on the grounds that they implied the good fortune unearned, but they were highly, if briefly, regarded.

One went to Kristiansen's fish and chip restaurant and take-away on North Shields fish quay, where - again al fresco, and from a carton - we dined the other Saturday night.

Ample and inexpensive, the fish and chips weren't anywhere near as good. Too greasy for one thing, though the considerable number of riparian rats, brown and brazzened, suggested a ready market for left-overs.

Presumably when all that posh new Quayside housing is marketed, the whiskery neighbours rarely get a mention.

THEREAFTER to the Bell and Bucket, once North Shields fire station, splendid pictures of Trumptonesque firemen still hanging on the walls.

It's friendly, congenial, and though no longer in the Good Beer Guide still has a couple of hand pumps. The Bateman's XXXX was fruity to the point of over-ripeness.

Sadly, at 9.30pm on Saturday evening, there were just a dozen or so customers. If not an emergency, as they may have said in a previous incarnation, then clearly a cause for concern.

HAD Jammies been spread around more recently, an undoubted recipient would have been the Chapel Tea Room at Whaw - source of many a pun - at the top end of Arkengarthdale in North Yorkshire and run by Joyce Best. Sadly, this is her last season, though the bed and breakfast business will continue. Particularly given a day for sitting in the garden, readers have until September 28 - but not Tuesdays and Wednesdays in September - to discover its incomparable delights.

THE original plan that Tyneside Saturday was to dine at the Robin Hood, CAMRA's North-East regional pub of the year and home of the Jarrow Brewery. Sadly, Vincenzo's restaurant was fully booked.

Strictly it's not in Jarrow but in Primrose, near the Tyne Tunnel's southern approaches. Bob Wilson, the former Arsenal and Scotland goalkeeper, was christened Robert Primrose Wilson. Not many people know that.

A great phalanx of real ales includes Jarrow's own Rivet Catcher, recently awarded the silver medal for golden ale at CAMRA's national beer festival at Olympia and made from a recipe by Aldbrough St John based transport manager and home brewer Pete Fenwick, whose party we so greatly enjoyed last Christmas.

There's also a suit of armour, a ubiquitous pub dog and copies of the Shields Gazette, in order to underline which way the municipal allegiance lies. There may be more on Vincenzo's restaurant before long.

l Steve and Christine Gibbs, the former music teachers who began the Durham Brewery at Bowburn in 1994, won gold at Olympia for Evensong, in the real ale in a bottle category. The last time we tasted it, appropriately, was in the Cloisters restaurant at Durham Cathedral. The win was thoroughly deserved.

ANOTHER brew pub, the wonderful Grey Horse in Consett is presently regrouping after being taken over by John Taylor, who also has the pub at Beamish Museum and the Clarendon in Sunderland.

Arguably better than ever, it still offers up to a dozen real ales - largely local, always well kept - and a friendly welcome.

Music is live and acoustic or not at all, a notice by the bar asks mobile phone owners to switch to discreet. We had a couple before the match last Wednesday: a Desert Orchid among pubs, the Grey Horse remains a winner.

....and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you get by crossing a snake with a pig.

A boar constrictor, of course.

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