Tag Archives: Settle

Food and Flowerpots

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It’s been a lovely week with John. One of the things I never considered, when I fell joyfully into motherhood, was how lonely it could be when they all went away. Mostly, I have adjusted to a more solitary life, but that unique love never goes away.

We spent the first half of the week in Settle, staying in a rental close to Mum and Dad. It was a gentle week with a lot of cafés and coffee. It’s not very exotic, but I had this delicious ham and chutney sandwich at Country Harvest, which is a few miles outside Settle.

The bread was perfect. White and soft with a tasty crust that still allowed the flavour of the thick slices of country ham and generously spread butter to come through. I followed it up with a vanilla and strawberry scone with jam and cream. I actually shared half and half with John, who ordered the most wonderful lemon meringue pie. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of that, but if you can imagine a tangy, lemon tart, piled unfeasibly high with clouds of meringue, you’ll pretty much be there. The scone was delicious as well. I’d be hard pressed to say which I preferred.

John’s friend Ben came to stay over Tuesday night, which was also his birthday. He lives in a yurt in the Lake District and plays in a band, who have just finished doing seven music festivals over the summer. It was great to have him stay and Triar thought he was lovely too!

We went to Rind, which is a pizza restaurant attached to The Courtyard Dairy. The Courtyard is a wonderful cheese shop, which is becoming internationally renowned for its amazing selection of cheese. It’s also a great experience as they encourage you to try slivers of cheese, many of them local, but others sourced from around the world. We went in a couple of times and I still have some of the cheese in my fridge as we didn’t get through it all.

As you would expect, the pizzas in Rind are amazing too, topped with some very special cheeses. I should perhaps have gone for one of the more unusual cheese combinations. Last time, I had blue cheese, honey and walnut, a combo I later introduced to Lara’s family on my weekend in Northern Ireland, but the chorizo and honey sounded so delicious that I ordered that, and shared half and half with John, who ordered a cheese rarebit pizza. They were, of course, wood fired and wonderful and I definitely want to go back!

The original plan was that John and I would come up to Dumfries and he would stay in my almost complete spare bedroom, but it wasn’t to be. John and his partner Yoana run a small business creating websites and a new client rang him during the week. Her website had been hacked and the person who created it was no longer available, so she wanted John to help. The old website couldn’t be saved and the hackers were getting quite unpleasant, demanding client information, so John spent a considerable amount of time creating a new, temporary site for her to use while they set a new one up.

It was complex as her old emails needed to be transferred to the new site, but as the whole thing was time sensitive (and inevitably stressful for the lady whose business was under threat) it couldn’t really wait. Alongside that, on the morning we were meant to drive North, we also wanted to fit in a trip to Leeds to get something John had left at a friend’s house. By the time the work and trip were done, it was four in the afternoon and we decided we would try to find somewhere more local to stay instead.

We really landed on our feet as we found an apartment above The Railway bar in Cononley, just beyond Skipton. It was a lovely flat, restfully decorated in Scandinavian style, with Yorkshire touches, which made me feel very much at home. The bar was lovely too and having it just downstairs was very tempting on those two long, hot days.

I took John to the airport yesterday morning and he got home safely, as did I. Donna and I had a cuppa in the afternoon and (generous as ever) she invited me back for the evening. Triar enjoyed the visit too and spent some time in her paddling pool.

Next week, I’m off on a new adventure. I am going to be locumming at the PDSA in Glasgow. I’m genuinely excited as it’s in one of my old stomping grounds. I worked there for Vets Now, back in the early 2000s, so I am familiar with the building, even though I assume the workforce will have changed entirely as that is now twenty years ago. It’s mostly doing surgery, which I love, but I will also hopefully do some consulting days, which will get me back into the swing of small animal work.

I shall leave you with some pictures of the annual Settle Flowerpot Festival, which is just gearing up. There seemed to be a lot of new exhibits this year and the people of Settle are getting more and more inventive. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely week, wherever you are.

In Between

Blog, Food, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Vet, Yorkshire Dales, , , , , ,

Last weekend started with a lunch in The Bank – a restaurant in Dumfries that sells small plates. One of mine was loaded fries with Parmesan, truffle oil and garlic mayonnaise, which is at the too of the page. As well as those, I had some delicious scallops with a slice of bacon and a cauliflower purée, which perhaps was very marginally overpowering for serving with the subtle flavour of the scallops, but which still tasted almost as good as it looked.

Staying with the seafood theme, I also went for calamari. Again, the sauce was a little too piquant for the calamari rings, so I ate them alone (delicious) and dipped the less loaded fries instead.

I also tried some delicious mushrooms and some Katsu cauliflower and despite the marginally mismatched sauces, I will definitely be going back.

After that, Donna, I and several friends went and joined a crowd of bouncing middle aged women for a singalong showing of Mama Mia. Bring your own bottle was encouraged, so I took along some Swedish beer. By the end, I think most of us were singing.

A couple of days at home saw me quickly strimming the lawn and assembling a bed (thanks to Donna and Will for helping thread the bed base up the narrow staircase) before heading down to Yorkshire, to meet up with John.

We’re staying in Settle, where the annual Flowerpot Festival is just gearing up. The house we’ve rented is interesting. I’m in the front room at the moment and feel as if I’m sitting in a Jane Austen period house. There’s a wonderful, threadbare rug on the floorboards and faded books on the mantelpiece, propped between an old flat iron and a brown earthenware jar. Milton’s poems mingle with Enid Blyton’s, A Story Party at Green Hedges. Guess that one didn’t have the same ring to it as The Magic Faraway Tree!

I’m low carbing again, which is easy at home, but more challenging when eating out. Usually, I end up comparing Caesar Salad at every restaurant I visit, but this time I’ve been exploring Ploughman’s lunches and taking the bread home for someone else to eat. This was yesterday’s offering at a cafe in Halifax.


On the job front, I’m waiting to hear back from two possible locum positions and also hoping that it won’t take too much longer to find out whether I might get my old job back. One of the locum positions involves bashing on with lots of surgery, which is right up my street. The other has a bit of horse and farm work, but mostly small animal. That would also be a great challenge. I haven’t been in small animal practice since 2016 and that was in Norway, so it would be interesting to climb back into a set of scrubs and see how I get on.

So, as we go into Monday morning, I will be hoping to find out how the next few weeks will be spent. Maybe next week, there will be a progress report, but for now, I’m going to leave you with a few Flowerpots. Thanks for reading and have a good week all!

From Batty to Potty

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The week started well with a nocturnal walk at the local RSPB centre at Mersehead. My colleague, Cris, had mentioned it on Thursday and I jumped at the chance. We arrived at nine in the evening, when dusk was approaching. As you can see in the picture at the top of the page, the nature reserve has a few belted Galloway cattle on it for controlled grazing. That was the only photo I took, because the walk itself started in near darkness and ended at eleven, by which time it was properly dark.

Provided with hand held infra red cameras and instruments that converted bat sounds to a frequency audible to human ears, we set off for a wander. The first bats we heard, and then spotted, were noctule bats. I hadn’t seen these before and was surprised to see them crossing the sky at dusk, flying high, in straight lines. It took a bit longer to spot the more familiar pipistrelle bats, which flitted along the lane.

We took a detour into the butterfly field, where pathways had been cut through the waist high grass. There, our infrared cameras picked out a deer in the darkness. We watched for a while as it moved gently in the long grass. Back in the lane, more pipistrelles, then along to an old farm steading, where we failed to see badgers in the garden. There were barn owls in the shed on the other side of the lane though, letting loose their weird, screeching cries. They were sheltering high up in the corner, atop a pile of round bales, bright white outlines on the camera. Then on some more, a rabbit in a field, lolloping around, before a few drops of rain began to fall, then a flurry and before long, it was raining steadily. We made our way back to the centre. Our two hours had more than passed anyway. It had been a wonderful evening.

The builders moved in on Monday. They’re stripping out the rooms in my roof in order to put in insulation and hopefully a shower room and toilet. The rooms were light and bright before, with warm pinewood window frames and features, which I hope they can replicate, though I might end up with something more generic. I had thought that if the work went on into the winter, I could simply shut the doors at the top of the stairs to keep the heat in, but I was disabused of that misunderstanding when I came home on Wednesday or Thursday and glanced up the stairway to see a brick wall, wooden beams and the underside of the roof, stripped bare.

From this…

To this…

As far as I can see, that small amount of insulation in the last picture was the only insulation anywhere in the roof. Hopefully the difference in the heating bills will make it worthwhile.

With all that going on, and an uncharacteristically quiet week at work, I decided maybe it was time to use up some of the flexi time I had built up. Anna and Lauren had popped in to Dumfries at the end of their month-long tour of Scotland and were now back in Yorkshire, so I thought I’d join them for a long weekend.

So here I am in Yorkshire again. It’s mixed weather, but we managed a walk into town yesterday, as well as a visit to the cheese centre, which now features a pizza restaurant with a wood oven as well as the very stinky cheese shop. Annually in Settle, there is a plant pot festival, where people make models from plant pots. The three below my favourites, but I have two more days of the weekend left to find more.

Hope you have a good week all! Thank you for reading.

Holiday Reflections

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I thought I’d start with a few thoughts about my stay. Someone commented last time I was in the UK, that they were interested to find out what changes I’d noticed since I was last here, in 2019. I can’t say I’ve noticed too many, though of course my parents notice many things I haven’t, such as changes in the NHS. Prices have probably gone up, or portion sizes have shrunk, but that’s happened elsewhere too.

I think perhaps it’s me that has changed more, and that’s partly to do with the pandemic. Living in the north of Norway, along with general pandemic precautions, I am unused to being close to large numbers of people. In Glasgow I went to a Marks and Spencer Food Hall, which was (to me) heinously busy. I pretty much ran to the section I wanted, grabbed something, and rushed out. It was much the same when we stopped at a service station on the motorway. I escaped outside as soon as I possibly could. I also had a discussion with John about driving. He’s learned to drive in Norway in an area where there are relatively few cars on the road. He was watching the drivers on the A65 with a kind of horrified fascination as they drove in close convoys, with only a meter or two between each car.

Other things struck me anew, which I had forgotten because I hadn’t been here for so long. Nobody in Norway has a string light switch in their bathroom! Anna tells me one of her friends was mystified, trying to turn the light on when he visited. Then again, Norwegian houses seem to burn down quite often, which is probably because a lot of the electric wiring is DIY. That and all the candles, of course. Most of the taps (faucets) in Norway are mixer taps, so I was freshly frustrated trying to rinse my hands before the hot tap got too volcanic. Cash? There was consternation recently when the entire card network went down for one of the major Norwegian supermarket chains. I had to go and find an ATM. I’ve lived in Finnsnes for two years and didn’t know where it was. Lots of people still seem to use cash here. And for anyone who likes their floors to stay clean, Norway is the place to be. I still can’t adjust back to keeping my shoes on in the house. I kick them off at the door, every time.

Food wise, it’s been a frustrating holiday. I’ve been sticking to low fat foods throughout. Fortunately, there’s a fairly good selection, though it can’t have done my teeth much good eating so many iced buns and scones with jam. There has also been a glut of bacon and ham rolls, slathered in delicious chutney, but without butter. Eating out is difficult, though full marks to Rosa and Matteo’s Italian Restaurant in Settle, which made me a wonderful low fat Pasta e ceci – pasta with chickpeas – (twice) but there have been a few occasions where I’ve watched everyone else eating fish and chips or curry, and wished I could join in. Still, there’s much more choice here, even with my health limitations. I think I might get thinner when I go back.

What I would have liked to eat in The Golden Lion in Settle – sausage, mash, onion rings, peas and gravy
What I ate – noodle salad with mixed leaves, roasted courgettes, peppers, cherry tomatoes, sweetcorn, coriander and lime

Still, I managed to fit in a couple of walks this week. On Tuesday, Helen and I were driven over to Long Preston, and walked back to Settle over the fells. We also took a detour up to see Scaleber Force waterfall, though Force is a complete misnomer at the moment as there’s hardly any water in it. Still, it was a pleasant, 9km walk, taken early in the morning, before the day started to heat up.

The second walk was this afternoon, with Dad. We didn’t go far: just along the riverside in Settle itself, but I was glad to have the time together, before I have to leave tomorrow.

The Ribble as it runs along the back of Ribble Terrace

We’ve also managed a bit of shopping. Andrew took us on a hunt for Raven Forge in Crosshills. We almost missed it, as it looked like a unit in an industrial estate, but we stopped and asked someone who was working there, and found ourselves invited in to a wonderful display of swords and weaponry, from all kinds of games and films.

Weaponry display at Raven Forge

We also went upstairs in The Geek Side, a little gift shop in a rather magical arcade in Skipton, and discovered a veritable Harry Potter paradise.

Harry Potter merchandise in The Geek Side shop in Skipton

And if you want some sweets, you could do worse than The Dalesman Café in Gargrave.

An old-fashioned sweetshop in The Dalesman Café, Gargrave

But in the end of the day, it all comes down to the wonderful view from my parents’ garden. As the sun goes down, and the shadows lengthen on my last day in this golden oasis, I can only hope that it won’t be too long before I can return.

Wildflower garden with golden evening sunlight on the hillside behind

Narrow Lanes

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We flew out of Tromsø last Sunday. Despite the threat of strikes and potential airport chaos, for us everything went without a hitch. Flying out of Tromsø is spectacular. The island the city inhabits is still surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

Snow-capped mountain peaks and Tromsø from the air

Andrew and I arrived in Edinburgh in the evening, then the next day we took the train, via Carlisle, to Settle in the Yorkshire Dales. My dad met us as we climbed down onto the platform. It was both wonderful to see him after two and a half years, and jarring at the same time as he stood well back: the first time we’ve met and not hugged immediately in many years.

I had booked an AirBnb – an old workers’ cottage in Upper Settle. Our intention was to quarantine for a week before moving into my parents’ house, but our plans changed with the sad death of my mother-in-law. Instead of quarantining, Anna joined Andrew and me and we drove to Glasgow to attend her funeral two days ago.

Driving in the UK again was something of a challenge. When I bought my car two years ago in Norway, I went for a sturdy SUV. it had to be suitable for winter driving and potentially farm roads. I wasn’t looking for an automatic, but as luck had it, that was what I got. Mum and Dad’s manual, diesel Polo couldn’t be much different. Add in the fact that the national speed limit in Norway is 50mph and I hadn’t driven on the left for three years and starting out was something of a challenge. Our practice run into Skipton was … interesting! Sixty mph on the narrow, winding road seemed impossible. I kept slowing down to go through the towns and villages, only to realise I was already only doing forty. I was amused then, when Dad solemnly bade me not to drive too fast as I set off a couple of days later to drive to Glasgow.

John also flew over and joined us for the funeral, which was only very small, but which fortunately went well. He returned with us to Yorkshire, and so yesterday afternoon, for the first time in many years, John, Anna, Andrew and I all sat in my parents’ conservatory together.

Though I was in the UK in spring, with Anna, it’s different being back in Yorkshire. The contrast with the northern Norway summer is striking. Where the growth around Troms is short-lived, wild and uncontrolled, here the green has a quiet maturity, with its dry stone walls climbing the fellsides and the clustered grey houses on steep lanes. The rest of this entry then, will be a few of the photographs I’ve taken this week, in sunshine and showers, both in my parents’ garden and as I’ve wandered round the town.

Green fields and drystone walls – view from Ingfield Lane
Dry stone walls and graceful trees