Cold comfort

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

And Tom bears logs into the hall

And milk comes frozen home in pail,

When blood is nipped and ways be foul

Then nightly sings the staring owl,

Tu-who,

Tu-whit, tu-who – a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

– William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost

IT IS impossible in a foot of snow to visit a place like the Scotch Corner Hotel without recalling the old joke – first heard of the Bowes Moor – about the HGV man who abandons his vehicle in a blizzard, presents a bedraggled figure at reception and asks if they do low terms for lorry drivers.

The punch-line, of course, will have to be imagined.

Scotch Corner’s just over a mile, a steady climb, from where we live.

Like the Little Engine That Could, I’m quite good at snowy hills. The Boss, and thus the car, are not.

If not exactly Cornered, we have perforce been restricted. Uphill all the way, we hoofed off to call on the neighbours.

It was Saturday afternoon, 2pm, no football. The barmaid, pleasant and welcoming, literally danced a little jig on our appearance. “I’ve been here since nine o’clock and you’re my third customers,” she said. It might have helped had they made the least effort to clear the car park.

Icicles hung from the roof outside, which may help explain the lost labours at the head of the column; inside, the mute television showed highlights – the term is loosely used – from the Scottish parliament two days earlier.

“Scottish executive’s zero waste policy,” sighed the silent sub-titles, and not even a scaffie in Scrabster may get over-excited about that one.

A helpful information sheet offered a short history of both Scotch Corner and its hotel. There’d been an inn, the Three Tuns, since at least 1856, a resting place for Scottish drovers as they headed towards the Yorkshire markets.

It’s reckoned, indeed, that the inn was one of the last places in the country to shoe bullocks, and since there were an awful lot of drovers there must have been a load of bullocks.

The Scotch Corner opened in 1939, could offer a chauffeur or a servant as part of its package, en suite from around a guinea. These days it’s owned by an Irish company who’ve spent a lot of money smartening it up. If only they’d do something about the food.

The “bistro” menu almost palpably lacks freshness, both in ideas and ingredients. Had it been a roadside burger van it might just have been just about acceptable: it wasn’t, tight Corner.

I ordered tomato soup, £3.95. A blind tasting would almost certainly not have identified it, the best guess perhaps liquidised papiermache.

The bread, some achievement, was worse yet.

The Tex-Mex consisted of decent onion rings, garlic-flavoured potato wedges (aka chips), chicken wings which may most generously be described as vile and great bulking wodges of pallid, comatose garlic bread.

There’s something in the Parable of the Prodigal Son about him having to eat the husks intended for the pigs. For some reason it came to mind. If there’s really so little Vitamin C in the diet around the 49th parallel, the Tex-Mexicans may run the greatest risk of scurvy since the Queen’s navy, circa 1750.

The Boss, after some anguished debate, had the stir-fried vegetables, with salmon, £11.50. Chiefly it was peppers, manifestly it was overpriced.

“A horrid gloop,” she said.

As ineffable as they were inedible, more than half of both main courses were returned whence so egregiously they had emerged. With a bottle of mineral water and a pint of beer as cold and comfortless as a dental injection, the bill was nearly £29.

It is neither this column’s wish or habit to kick a man who’s lying face down in a snow drift.

If the Scotch Corner is to be anything more than a venue for package holidays, however, it needs to compete for custom with the multichoice and multi-national services across the roundabout.

If it wants truly to be the A1 and not the B6283 it needs to become distinctive, not just another fast-food joint with an absurd mark-up.

What of local sourcing? Of dishes of the day? Of pies, of salads, of fresh bread, of anything with a provenance other than a balance sheet?

Back outside, an arrant motorist hooted angrily because we walked single file by the side of the road instead of six-inches deep on the pavement.

The ensuing exchange, mute and mutual, doubtless echoed the line about low terms, and doubtless reached a nadir.

UP from the village, the notice board advertised the local Burns Night – £17.50, including a lot of whisky. It was only on the return journey that a re-reading revealed it to be not a lot but a tot. Nipped in the bud once again.

SO the following afternoon, Sunday, we walked the four miles south to Scorton in search of a more uplifting experience (and thus hadn’t far to go at all.) The road was filthy, a slush fund job, so that on arrival at the Heifer we resembled a couple of speedway drivers after a bad dose of the bends.

There’d even been a Good Samaritan, though we declined the offer, and these days there are precious few of those. Not this side of Samaria, anyway.

Scorton’s a pleasant place, best known for its raised village green, its annual archery contest and for the former St John of God hospital.

The crowded village noticeboard contained everything from minutes of the parish council to two dozen regulations for running the cemetery.

We didn’t bother reading them: life’s too short.

The Heifer, formerly the White Heifer, will have been run for ten years in April – real licensed trade longevity these days – by Pauline Billau and her son Adrian.

It’s now fashionably described as a bar/restaurant, the atmosphere relaxed, informal and friendly. The chap on the next table, clearly a regular, was mopping up the last drop of his gravy as we took a seat.

“That was dreadful,” he said, jocularly.

“We aim for consistency,” said Adrian.

Someone else had a birthday, with candles. Half the restaurant joined in, like all their birthdays had come at once.

Lunch is served Tuesday to Saturday and, from a different menu, on Sunday. Whatever the day, one course is £7, two £10, three £12. It was impossible not to compare it with the £11.50 stir-fry the day previously.

She began with garlic mushrooms, I with pate, proper toast, good chutney.

Nice bread, too, and butter in a bowl.

Nine main courses included two vegetarian options – Yorkshire pudding filled with fresh vegetables with vegetable gravy and a hot honey and mustard sauce and a spinach and ricotta cannelloni – and a substantial, cheesy, delicious fish pie.

The Boss, role reversal, had the beef. While not as good as that at home the week previously – Marks & Spencer, hung for 28 days, wonderful – it made for a thoroughly good meal.

Well cooked Yorkshires, too.

Puddings included raspberry and chocolate sponge and quality ice cream. Real ales might have been Copper Dragon or the equally enjoyable Thwaites Original.

The bar area also had a mute flatscreen television, this one showing snooker. It seemed pretty pointless, no one watching, but still beat the hell out of lip-reading the Scottish parliament.

It was really just about everything a good Sunday lunch should be. We headed home with the wind in our faces – and at our backs, simultaneously.

■ The Heifer, Scorton, near Richmond, North Yorkshire. Tel: 01748-811357. Lunch Tuesday to Sunday, dinner Monday to Saturday. Closed Monday lunchtime. No problem for the disabled.

THOUGH the suggestion was flippant, several more readers have essayed limericks about that porter at Battersby Junction.

Sadly, today’s column overflows. Before the load gets yet heavier, we may return to those next week.

… and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew the fruit that was a great Greek warrior.

Alexander the Grape.