HAD a ride out in North Yorkshire for a spot of lunch on Sunday. Stopped off for a big bowl of savoy cabbage and broccoli soup with a brown bread bun and a home-made sweet.

The soup was full of flavours, from carrots, swede, potatoes, tomatoes, split peas and lentils, and was delicious. The sweet, also made on the premises, consisted of a thick layer of a dried fruit and peel mixture on a crisp layer of pastry. It tasted like Christmas pudding and had a generous covering of proper custard. Lovely grub. You could not buy the likes in a can or from a convenience counter.

We took a roundabout road home and picked about half a pound of eating chestnuts from under the trees at the Bulmer crossroads on the main Castle Howard road through the estate.

Boiled them in a pan when we got home and enjoyed them while watching a cowboy film on the telly. My annual free treat to finish off a nice time had on a rainy day.

George Appleby, Clifton, York.