THE day was hot, the blonde was beautiful. The walk had been ten miles uphill, past Bog House and Hagg Common to Bransdale, for the final of the Lady Feversham Cricket Cup. There are no buses to Bransdale.

She stood six feet tall in shoeless feet - the blonde, not Lady Feversham - an unforgotten old acquaintance whose long hair stirred gently in the breeze and whose smile outshone the evening sunlight.

She'd already spread the picnic, found another chair, whispered words for which any man would happily hoof ten miles up a harvest heavy rural road: "I think there's a beer in the cool box."

Then she smiled and spoke again. "You haven't met my husband, have you...."

Bransdale is in North Yorkshire, about ten country miles north of Kirkbymoorside, with an entire population of approximately 37. The Lady Feversham was the only cricket played on that remote and utterly stunning ground atop the moor, sheep otherwise free to safely graze, and to be about their business.

It was August 1995, the horse flies - clegs, thereabouts - galloping like thoroughbreds. A union jack flew over the elderly hen hut which served both as pavilion and score box, sand castle flags marked a hillocky boundary, a drop-leaf dining table held the trophy, the scorers and raffle prizes which included some Peppercorn Assorted Toffee, 200 Tetley Tea Bags and a tin of sliced peaches.

"Star prize is't 'en 'ut," someone said.

That the secret, sacred cool bag had been so particularly welcome was because the Plough at Fadmoor, the only pub on the trek from Kirkbymoorside, had been taking a siesta. It looked pleasant enough, though, and seemed ever embraced by the Good Pub Guide.

One day, we decided, we'd follow that furrow again...

It was December 2005, a different and wholly incomparable blonde for company. "I remember coming up this road to pick you up once," she said.

Neil and Rachel Nicholson were welcoming, their pub fire lit, nooked and crannied, bright decked for Christmas. The seats were exceptionally comfortable. A notice by the netty gave details of the Beadlam and District Domino League; Cliff and them carolled quietly somewhere in the background.

Locals talked enthusiastically of David Cameron, of how best to deliver a calf and of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, whose name sounded both familiar and as if it might be commandeered as an expletive by Toad of Toad Hall, or by Jennings and Darbishire.

"Oh, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall..."

A table d'hote menu, early evening and lunchtimes except Sunday, offers two courses for £12.95. The carte talks of award winning pub, award winning chef and award winning, locally produced black pudding without saying what exactly any of them had won.

There's a Lottery backed community scheme called Awards For All for which I'm occasionally invited to write references. Though the Plough is doubtless deserving, it sometimes seems that Awards For All operates in the catering industry, as well.

The triangular black pudding was as inevitable as it was irresistible, arriving with a tomato coulis, warm croutons and "crispy, curly endive". It cost £5.95, not the blood and guts stuff beloved of North-East lads but perfectly pleasant for all that.

The beef Wellington (£12.95) offered aromatic pastry around a substantial cut of meat ("a bit like an upmarket Cornish pasty," said The Boss), but sandwiched between the two was something like mushroom pate which seemed to serve little purpose except to set the teeth on end. Black pudding might have been better.

The premium blonde rhapsodised over the choice on an imaginative fish section, started with "delicious" scallops with wild mushrooms and spring onions and followed with baked cod with basil and parmesan and a hot and spicy tomato sauce which, she considered, served its purpose admirably. The vegetables, she thought, weren't as freshly cooked as they should have been.

The Good Pub Guide recommends other dishes like sliced confit of belly pork on stewed apple and shallot risotto with a cider and cream sauce and chicken breast with cheddar cheese and mustard sauce.

A couple of enjoyable puddings, £4.95 apiece, included a great slab of white chocolate and Malibu terrine. The food bill with coffee reached £51, a couple of pints of Black Sheep, a glass of wine and some mineral water pushing it to £60.

Though the road to Bransdale looked inviting, we'd to head down dale to a football match at Pickering.

They no longer play cricket up there, the pitch having been deemed too dangerous even for the doughty denizens of Feversham country, though whether because of clegs or cow muck was never fully explained. The old hen house is gone, too, perhaps carried off by a zephyr.

The Plough's still worth pitching up for, though, and this column's word is its blonde.

* The Plough, Fadmoor, Ryedale (017510) 431515. Open seven lunchtimes and evenings, no smoking in eating areas, room for the disabled.

NOTHING more today about the sex life of Edward VII - nothing printable anyway - only a cry from a reader who for two weeks has vainly been trying to find the Station House Tea Rooms at Thorpe Thewles, where this improbable adventure began. The village is north of Stockton on the A177, the tea rooms east of the main road - turn left for Wynyard, then left again after a quarter of a mile or so to the Wynyard Woodland Park.

THE Chequers at Dalton, five miles south of Darlington, seems even more agreeable - and more attentive - since last we were there, a chap in the window eager to recommend the liver and onions.

"My wife won't cook them," he said. "It's the only way I can indulge."

Our old friend Jack Watson, once a cricket all-rounder for both Durham and Northumberland, followed the recommendation and seconded the motion. "Very good indeed," said Jack.

We'd both started with wholesome carrot and coriander soup, the column following with what was described as "proper" steak and ale pie - with short crust pastry, that is to say, and not the usual flaky farrago. Very good chips.

Good, too, to see Mr Peter Warrand, retired managing director of Dressers' the stationer's on Darlington High Row, at last reopened as a Waterstone's book store. All very nice, said Peter, but people still went there expecting to get a refill for their fountain pen.

We refilled the Marston's Bitter while Jack had his customary pot of tea. About £25 for two.

BACK in August we wrote of a brown ale tasting night at the Britannia in Darlington with Phil Atkinson, a Witton Park lad who's now president of the British Columbia branch of CAMRA and a speech writer in the provincial Prime Minister's office.

Phil's now sent the finished article from his CAMRA magazine, full of learned references to "vinosity" and "enosis", to the "wonderful" landlady and the "marvellous" pub.

There's also a bit about the landlady's "consort", a Newcastle United fan who swore by Newcastle Brown and who, at the subsequent blind tasting, declared it rubbish.

Phil, at any rate, is also writing a book on Northumbrian regional cooking and would love to hear from anyone who can describe a yetlin pan - the spelling's phonetic, he insists - used by Northumbrian farmers' wives to make stews and the like.

Brownie points, or brown ale points, for anyone who additionally can provide a photograph. We'll pass on any information.

...and finally, the bairns' typically exhaustive search suggests that this year's Christmas cracker is the one about what the beaver said to the tree.

It's been nice gnawing you.

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