Milly Mossop

The Blue Bell, York

I am hanging my head in disgrace (whilst trying to watch Graham Bell climb Mont Blanc on some new BBC2 programme about trying to kill yourself, which is something of a challenge. Hanging my head and watching telly I mean, Mont Blanc looks like a piece of piste.)

The reason for my shame (mollified it has to be said by chuckling quietly at my piste pun) is that I just said to Mozz, "have I even been to a pub recently?" whilst struggling to think what I could contribute here for the first time in an old age.

I mean, I have been to a pub recently. I went to one behind Oxford St yesterday but only to recover from shopping for wedding shoes - I don't even know what it was called. But I drank St Austell's Tribue which was very nice. And last Saturday I had a couple of pleasnat pints (Doom Bar) at the Manor Arms off Clapham High St with Katherine and the Saturday before at the Old Sergeant on Garratt Lane (London SW18).

But these are all pubs I've been to many times, what happened to my Search for the Perfect Pub? I have to cast my mind back as far as November for some genuine discovery work.

We spent a weekend in York - me, Mozz and the Hunts - us girls having got our men a drive in some fast car or other at Elvington Airfield (the one where Richard Hammond nearly lost his head) for their birthday / wedding anniversary. And I had my eye on exploring a few olde pubs...

Unfortunately the only one I can remember now is the Blue Bell on Fossgate, but what a special memory it is.  A Teensy weensy, hokey pokey, holy grail for ale. That's it, that's my review. Partly because I'm hugely distracted by the presenters of High Altitude dancing with death on very high mountains, partly because some pubs are beyond analysis -  you just have to enjoy them in the moment. And that is my perfect pub. Not the Blue Bell, not necessarily - for a start it's in a city centre surrounded by a wobbling mass of tourists, chavs and students - but a pub that defies explanation. It just is.

And I think I might have seen such a pub on telly recently, specifically the marvellous new series 'Oz and James Drink to Britain'. This is televisual heaven for me and Mozz, he loves cars, I love pubs. Oz Clarke and James May drive around Britain in a Rolls Royce Cornische convertible checking out different pubs and ales - it literally couldn't be more perfect.

Anyway, on epsiode one they visited The Tan Hill Inn high atop the Yorkshire Dales. It was on the edge of the middle of nowhere, had sheep walking around inside the pub and looked like a place where time stands still, in fact time and space don't exist. The pub just is.

And boy do I want to go.

Right now though I just want to go to bed, Mozz has turned over to what I call a bang bang movie, not in the blonde triple D, subtitled sense, but in the loud gunfire, fake looking aliens, lots of indecipherable shouting sense. Not very calming basically so I think I'll leave him to it... (I think it's X Men in case anyone was wondering and yes, there's a joke about Ex Men in there somewhere but I'm not that cruel).

N'night O' faithful few!

Chicken, leek and red pepper risotto in 22 simple steps

I just want to post this recipe (can't really call it a recipe, I made it up as I went along - when does a recipe become a recipe? Discuss. See, every now and then a whiff of that English degree sails tantalisingly past my nose... I can almost smell it...But back to food) - oh yes, so I just want to post this before I forget because, if you'll excuse my French arrogance, it was fucking tasty.

1. Pot roast a chicken with lots of thyme (I also stuck a halved lemon up its bottom, poured on some stock made with a Knorr chicken stock cube - didn't have any white wine or would have used that - smeared butter on its breast and scattered it with onion, leek and root veg. The lucky bird.
2. Eat almost as much of the chicken as you'd like but not actually as much as you'd really like because you need to keep about half the breast meat and all the stuff on the back (poke around between the bones, get it all out) - put this under lock and key / in the fridge, depending on your level of resistance to temptation until the next day
3. Meanwhile make the stock, cover the chicken carcass in its cooking pot with water, add some more thyme, pepper corns, leek ends, droopy carrots / whatever's lying around etc (I'm sure you  know how to make stock) - bring to boil, simmer for a couple of hours, strain into big jug / bowl, leave to cool overnight and put into fridge in morning (do not ask boyfriend to put into fridge in morning. He will forget.)
4. Next day, just as you're about to leave the office instigate the mother of all email debates amongst foodie colleagues about the merit of parmesan cheese and white wine in a risotto. My dilemma - making a cheap and tasy supper of Sunday leftover's without the two ingredients that make it taste really yummy but will together cost £10 from the nearest food shop, which happens to be M&S. Leave colleagues to disagree (Ed says cheese unimportant, Nik says I'll die without it but could substitute white wine vinegar for white wine, Dom says funnily enough his girlfriend is making him pancetta and mushroom risotto tonight. I think to myself 'I bet Dom's girlfriend isn't kicking off a fuss in her office about how to make a risotto' and then think 'probably because she knows exactly what she's doing and has all the right ingredients'. Give up, start to walk home.
5. Half way home on South Lambeth Road, remember Tony's Italian Deli... Pop in, big cheery (if sweaty from walking in synthetic clothing) smile "hello! Do you have any parmesan cheese?" Tony looks at me like I am mental and walks to great big, glass fronted fridge full of cheese. "How much you want?" "Ohhh just a bit, 100g?" (thinking 'fuck! how much is 100g? I've only got £40 on me!') Tony slices off a modest amount and says "Is £1.60 ok?" I feel so relieved I decide to really go for it and ask Tony if I can substitute white wine vinegar for white wine in a risotto. Again he looks at me rather warily and after a little bit of that shop keeper / customer banter that I'm really crap at (if the world were a stage then I would not be asked to play a regular, normal customer) we agree that I should go for a half bottle of Frascati at £3.40. Having implied that I don't want a full bottle because I'd then have to drink it all, I now realise Tony thinks I am a struggling alcoholic. With an interpersonal skills deficit. I weigh up pros and cons of sailing out with a cheery "ciao!" (as I have seen other customers do), gurn my thanks, turn around, walk into another customer and exit stage Stockwell.
6. Home sweet (paint smelling) home - discover exciting veg box on doorstep (yes I know there's a credit crunch but it tastes ten times better than supermarket plastic and forces you to eat veg. Not that I've ever had to be forced to eat anything in my life). Inside awaits, amongst other delights, a lush leek and a juicy red pepper. Take this upstairs to kitchen (which is meant to be downstairs by now but that's another story)
7. Chop yesterday's leftover chicken into little bits and put aside
8. Slice onion, 2-3 garlic clooves and a leek, put to one side
9. Oh almost forgot, get stock from fridge, scrape fatty crust from top, tip remainder into a pan and heat on the hob
10. Heat olive oil and butter in a deep saucepan / casserole dish and chop juicy red pepper
11. Cook onions, garlic, leek and then pepper in the oil & butter for a few minutes - oh and add some thyme leaves as well
12. On a whim add about half a teaspoon, or a little more - whatever you fancy really - each of ground turmeric and paprika, and then a pinch of dried chilli flakes or something similar
13. Keep stirring til it's lovely and soft and orangeish
14. Add arborio / risotto rice (about 300g I think), stir til rice is coated in oil and transluscent
15. Then add a glass of white wine, stir until absorbed
16. Forgot to mention, you should have Radio 4 on, particularly if they're broadcasting Just a Minute. That Sue Perkins is so funny. Hollyoaks, I have learnt, is no good for making risotto because something attention grabbing, like an abandoned son killing his long lost brother's boyfriend who used to be a priest, will happen and before you know it you've been sat on the sofa for ten minutes neglecting your risotto - far from the constant stirring insisted upon by  Valentino Harris. No, risotto making requires the radio. Not the television. If you time it right you might even catch The Archers.
17. Now add the stock, ladle by ladle, stirring (see above) continuously until you're happy with the texture - this always takes me at least half an hour, although most recipes say about 20 minutes
18. Finally (almost) stir in a knob of butter and a handful of (cheap from the local deli) parmesan cheese, put the lid on the pot and leave for 2 minutes whilst you bark at boyfriend and switch from Radio 4 to Corrie (remember, radio for risotto making, telly for risotto eating)
19. Finally, finally, spoon onto warm plates and then (this is the bit that I think could earn my first Michelin star) drizzle with Belazu Argan oil ('a unique oil with a mildly toasted, nutty flavour'), sprinkle on a bit more grated parmesan, a grind of black pepper and tuck in.
20. Go back for seconds
21. Go back for thirds
22. Feel fat but happy

I am the worst blogger in the world

I quite literally can't believe that I last posted in October of last year. 10 months ago! If this blog were a child it would be handed over to social services quicker than you could say "oopsie".

Anyway, so what I'm going to do is re-design the site, learn how to upload photos and stuff and then do a big re-launch, as if that was the idea all along and I've just spent the last 10 months coming up with a really good plan. Downside of course being that whatever I come up with will seem like a shit plan for 10 months work.

For now I just wanted to share some news, except I don't think I've got any readers left, so this is going to feel a bit like talking to a wall. I'm getting married! Woo hoo! (Wall stares back impassively and thinks 'what, you expect me to go out and buy a hat?')

Well, Wall, just in case you grow some ears and a sense of romance, let me tell you it was incredibly exciting. May 18th in Montgomery, Wales, overlooking beautiful countryside. I laughed then I cried, then I laughed again (then he said "are you going to say yes?" so I did) then we went for a pint in the Crown Inn. Good pub.

The date's fixed for May next year in Northumberland and so far no one involved has fallen out with anyone else which by all accounts is a minor miracle. Still, plenty of time yet.  I have 5 wonderful bridesmaids, recently re-branded boozemaids after our latest attempt at wedding dress shopping (in fairness this time we looked at dresses before drinking our body weight in Chardonnay. Although I wish someone had spotted the cow muck on my jeans before we went into the posh Pimlico bridal shop, I'm sure the lady noticed). And I have a Mate of Honour - Gandolf - who I have to say I'm congratulating myself on appointing. He's just like a Maid of Honour - supportive, encouraging, reassuring, wise - without being a girl about it. With Gandolf it's all short, pithy emails and colour coded spreadsheets. I can't write an email of less than 200 words and spreadsheets scare me. So hurrah for boozemaids and mates of honour! I'm hoping I get to keep them after the wedding.

So, pubs.... Wall, how would you feel if this blog took on more of a bridal tone than a 'pubs I've been to' tone for the next 9 months?... It's just that a) hard not to think about the wedding when I have 20 minutes downtime in front of the computer and b) the pretty wedding dress I saw on Tuesday will look even prettier without a 9 month London Pride baby filling it out.

But I will try, I promise. Ok, what pubs have I been to recently?... The Grosvenor, Sidney Road, SW9 - brilliant and bad as ever. The Warwick, Warwick Way, Pimlico - really like that actually (not that I can remember it after the 3rd bottle of Chardonnay) and the food smelled good too (just wish I'd had some). The Oddfellow Arms in Alnwick has had a change of management again and doesn't do ale at all at the moment - I really hope they do by next May because it's the ideal pub for wedding guests to congregate in before the service, near the church and HUGE beer garden. See, couldn't last 3 pubs before I brought the wedding up again. Sorry.

Mozz is round at Macbeth's doing a Battlestar Galactica marathon (remember they used to live together in Balham? Now they live 500 metres apart in Stockwell. It's sweet in a slightly disturbing way. I don't think Mozz ever grew out of boarding school). When he's not here our sofa is always broken (it only works if we're both on it together) so really I should be grateful for his childish interest in '70s science fiction bad remakes because it gets me in front of the computer with an empty head.

But maybe I should take a good book to bed with me instead. Which reminds me, I read a genuinely excellent laugh-and-cry-out-loud book the other day, Wife in the North by Judith O'Reilly. She's got a blog as well which I'm going to add to my side bar in a gently sycophantic, fawning way (*I want to be like you when I grow up and have babies and live in the back of beyond and write books*).

And that's all, Wall. See you again in another 10 months. Or the next time the boys are watching Battlestar Galactica, which will be hopefully sooner.

And another thing! (that has precious little to do with pubs...)

...Although it forms the basis for a conversation I'm sure I'll have in the next pub I'm in. Did you see Ewan McGregor and 'best mate' Charley Boormans' ego fest Long Way Down last night?

I had to check the TV guide to make sure it wasn't intended as a parody; it was almost as if McGregor had spent his career thus far praying for a part of a self indulgent, moronic but ultimately harmless famous Scottish actor, and eventually gave up waiting and wrote it himself.

The concept had so much potential - two best mates, two motorbikes, one continent. But this potential was flushed away by the addition of two 'Long Way Down' heavily branded 4X4s, a producer / director with delusions of celebrity, a back office crew given the brief "right, you're on visa applications. Now make it look challenging, impossible even", a doctor, two survival trainers, most of McGregor's extended family, and his wife.

David Brentesque moments (if you can imagine a good looking, Scottish Brent) kicked in early. McGregor greets the two back office girls with a generous hug and the question "are you married yet?" to which the first girl giggles coquettishly and says "no... not yet". Warming to his theme, our dashing hero hugs the second girl and asks "how about you, are you married yet?" to which she responds rather more sharply "no", then remembering the cameras and her raison d'etre, "you still haven't asked me!" more demurely. Ewan really is the ultimate smug married. The happy little tit.

Later, 'best mate' Charley explains the common stereotype of Africa that he wants to challenge; "Everyone thinks Africa is just one country and everyone's got AIDs". All the more surprising then that a significant part of the programme is given over to extreme survival training, ensuring the boys know how to handle the inevitable muggings, robberies and kidnappings. Because of course that's the first thing that happens when you step foot in Africa - the savages will steal your motorbike and kill your 'best mate'.

What struck me most about the boys' relationship is that, well, there's not much honesty in it. Ewan's wife Eve wants to join them for part of the trip. Every single person bar Ewan can see this isn't a very good idea, but it still falls to the producer / director to urge Charley to talk to his 'best mate' about it. So here we see Charley confiding in the producer about his 'best mate' and the producer attempting to paint a veneer of buddiness over the whole thing. This probably also accounted for the relentless hugs in front of the camera and attempts at horseplay that are less convincing than Britney Spears in a Convent.

Anyway, finally, the boys begin their intrepid adventure. On a plane to Inverness. Which Charley misses because he "said the 'bomb' word" confides a dramatic producer / director, and ended up in a police cell. I take it back boys, maybe you do need 10 people to hold your hands through Africa.

The four day drive from John O'Groats back to London seems to have been planned a) to fit in some fairly camp footage of Ewan hugging his family in his duck egg blue leather jump suit, b) to check in on the local children's hospice which the project is raising funds for (how funds are being raised hasn't been made clear but I do hope no one's actually sponsoring this luxury trip) and take a photo of a grinning Ewan holding up a, presumably dying, little boy in a Superman costume, c) so Ewan and Charley can spend a night camping in Silverstone Race Track half way down, cue much comedy putting up of tents and pushing each other over and d), and ostensibly, to "test that everything works". Because obviously those spanking new BMW bikes shipped over from Germany two days ago could go at any moment. And of course once you've erected a tent in the rain at Silverstone, the Sahara will be a doddle.

Thing is, I will watch the next instalment, because painful though the experience is there's nothing I wouldn't endure to see Charley finally snap at McGregor "look just because you're a better actor than me and better looking, and it's your name that got this project off the ground, and I know the BBC would never have been interested if it was 'Charley and real best mate Dave from the pub' - don't think for a second that I wouldn't throw you to the next gang of gun toting savages we see. And if for any reason we never see a gang of gun toting savages I'll just steal your tent poles when you're not looking".

The Jolly Fisherman, Craster, Northumberland

No visit to Northumberland is alreet without a crab sandwich and a pint in The Jolly Fisherman in the unspoilt fishing village of Craster (Cornish fishermen weep tears of nostalgia when they hear its name).

First though, work up a thirst by walking to Dunstanburgh Castle and back, taking in some of the most dramatic castle-coast views (especially at high tide)this country has to offer. The only thing that will ruin this outing for you is forgetting that the pub shuts at 3.00pm (and stops serving food a short while before then) so really you want to be setting off no later than 1.00pm if you want to fit the walk in, which takes about an hour depending on how long you dally at the castle admiring the views.

On return to the pub, face slapped by the salty wind, you should order as many different snack dishes as the size of your party will manage. In an ideal world this will mean a round of Craster crab sandwiches, crab soup (made with whiskey), chips (don't underestimate the chips, they're cooked in beef dripping, just like the good old days), and stottie cake pizza (Geordie cuisine special).

I note that the website also mentions Craster kipper pate; I've no doubt this is equally excellent (Craster being the home of some very famous kippers that you can buy from Robson's opposite the pub) but for some reason I've never eaten it. I think perhaps pate is only something I see on a menu when I'm in London, up here I'm blind to anything that doesn't have a whiff of fatty heart about it. Not that crab is bad for you in the slightest, it's the chips and general tendency to fry everything in cow fat that's probably not advisable 365 days a year.

The last few times I've been to the Jolly Fisherman, including yesterday, they've had Black Sheep on the one and only pump. Nothing wrong with that, I'm a big fan of Black Sheep. And besides, it's really a pub that you go to for the location, food, and excellent Northumbrian pubness. Charcoal sketches on the walls of ancient but immortal looking fisherman hung next to nets and other fishing paraphernalia give the place an air of history and authority. And overall 'cool'.

I have to leave The Jolly Fisherman there, although I could witter on a bit longer - the Battle of Britain service is about to kick off (my parents have a canny knack of waiting til I'm up here before casually mentioning that there are not one, but two 'must see' church services on Sunday. This one, and Evensong, at which dad is reading a lesson so being a dutiful daughter I must go along and cheer, or whatever the appropriate level of support is).

The shackles are off!

Dear loyal and occasional readers,

Some very exciting news from Mossop Manor: as of 1 hour ago I am officially unemployed!

This is exciting in the sense of an oil rig capsizing being exciting: not necessarily good news, but certainly consequential, and something to speculate on. (And no, I don't know if oil rigs can capsize either, perhaps I meant topple over, or just sway a bit dramatically).

Anyway, in the first instance, once I've had a cup of tea and a packet of Kit Kats (this being a very long break) I'm going to pick up my cyber pen and write 'til I can write no more (or 'til Mozz starts bleating for attention, whichever comes first).

Actually, I'll come clean. I'm not really going to have a packet of Kit Kats. I'm going to have a quiche Lorraine, it's in the oven now. But the strapline have a break, have a quiche Lorraine never really took off so I thought I'd pretend for the sake of easy association. Why does that phrase evoke prostitution?..

I'm hungry which is why I'm gabbling so I'm going to stop here and go and plant some snowdrops whilst waiting for the quiche to cook. I rather randomly bought a packet of a dozen snowdrop bulbs the last time I was in Waitrose, and now the romantic in me is using them as a measure of my new career success. By the time the snowdrops appear in early Spring, I want to be successful in my new career.

Just got to figure out what it's going to be...

And now for an interesting fact about Swallows

When swallows fly high, the weather will be fine. They're catching insects in the air, and the higher the insects, the drier the sky. So says Farmer Oscar.

Farmer Oscar also says he doesn't know about cows lying down when it's going to rain, but he does know that they go to the highest part of the field when it's not going to rain. Presumably to catch some rays I suggested, but he didn't like to speculate.

The Inn at Freshford, Bath

If you've been paying attention you may have clocked that my good friend Kitty got hitched last month. 07/07/07 to be precise, which I guess makes her and Mr Kitty very, very, very lucky.

I don't want you to blub over your keyboard so I'll spare you a detailed description of the heart stopping romance of the day, of the palpable love that filled the church and lifted the roof from the rafters, and the ear to ear perma-grins of the congregation.

No, I'll tell you about the pub instead.

The reception wasn't actually in the Inn at Freshford , it was in a marquee in Frisky's Field next door. But naturally one doesn't want to be late for a wedding, and since the pub is less than a 5 minute walk from St Peter's Church, almost everyone congregated in the Inn beforehand.

This is a classic English country pub, surrounded by fields, with a river gurgling just over there, and a large, safe beer garden for children to run riot in (not usually a criteria for me, but thought it worth mentioning in case it is for you).

Of particular note however, is the home brewed beer - Tunnel Vision - or at least the Inn at Freshford Manager also runs the Box Steam Brewery (a micro brewery) that brews it. Or something. To be honest I had to google quite extensively just to find that, all I remembered was an excellent ale that came with a matching T-shirt, and some marketing blurb behind the bar.

Also of particular note, now I come to think of it, was the outstanding professionalism of the main bar tender, who may well have been the landlady, or at least manageress. In the face of probably 50+ wedding guests, all gagging to get their last liquid sustenance before a dry patch in church, and a never ending trail of ramblers - many of whom, to my intense and unjustified frustration, ordered tea and coffee - this lady never stopped smiling, helping and serving. Later in the day I saw her personally escort an elderly customer to his car and wave him off before returning to the bar catching an order as she went. As impressive to me as juggling with no hands.

All in all, a perfect wedding, a perfect marriage, a perfect day, and a perfect pub? Perhaps too perfect. Nothing wrong with a few laughter lines and silver hairs. And after all, with so much perfection everywhere else that day, the bar was raised very high indeed.

The Royal Oak, Lower Bristol Road, Bath: PERFECT PUB CONTENDER ALERT

Often when Mozz and I are whizzing round country lanes in Wales, Shropshire, or wherever we might be, I encourage him to explore an especially tiny road-to-nowhere looking lane - not (just) because I want to test his tolerance and the savvy of Tom Tom lady, but because it is my firm belief that the holy grail, the Perfect Pub, hides down such a lane.

So it is with a mixture of confusion and confidence that I'm bumping The Royal Oak in Bath into, thus far, the top 5 of Best British Pubs. It's a pub in a city. Albeit on the edge of a quite diddy, picturesque city and equally on the edge of stunning countryside.

Keeping to a theme from the last post, I've skipped a month or so to the night before Kitty's wedding to the talented and charming Mr Kitty, more of which to come in the next post.

A gang of five of us, Mozz, me, Gandolf, Rhino and my brother Pinkerton, had begun our journey from London with high hopes of being in Bath by tea time (aka beer time). 2 punctured tyres and several very tiresome hours of arguing with the car hire firm later, we eventually arrived in time for last orders.

It being July in Bath, and me not being terribly organised, we were staying in a small B&B outside the city centre - luckily however, as we rounded the final (ish) corner to our destination, Pinkerton spotted a sign on the side of a pub that heralded 'CAMRA pub of the year 2007' and hope tugged at our hearts like new born pups on their mother's teat.

After a swift check in at Ashley Villa (clean, sufficient, great value) we trotted down the hill and over the bridge to the Royal Oak.

What an array of ales! And what a perfect beer garden (especially for post 01/07 smokers). And what an agreeable extended licensing hour on Friday!

I wish I could tell you the ales we had, as they were all full of character and amusingly named. Perhaps Pinkerton could help me out here with a comment?..

I've always said that perfect pubs are circumstantial; what is perfect one day may not be the next, and indeed after our arduous journey perhaps a Wetherspoons would have felt perfect. So just to be sure, we returned to The Royal Oak on Sunday for a quick beer, and found it had lost none of its charm. Maybe charm isn't the right word though - a quaint, ivy clad, licensed stone cottage in Oldeworldville this ain't. But for a wide range (10 pumps) of locally brewed and guest ales, knowledgeable bar staff who demonstrably enjoy their work rather than suffer it, and modest but generous decor and furnishings, this place really can't be bettered.

My only regret is that we inadvertently, but briefly, upset the landlord - a mishap involving a full ashtray and his recently planted herb garden - and if he's reading this I can only apologise again on behalf of the five dickheads from London sitting under the patio heater. Friendliness soon resumed though, and that's further credit to the hospitality of this superb example of how a pub should be stocked and run.

The Sloop Inn, Bantham, Devon

A visit to The Sloop Inn in Bantham, Devon, was part of a hen weekend for Kitty planned perfectly by her bridesmaid, a Bantham local, and possibly the nicest girl you could meet.

This feels like a particularly outdated review because since we went there, Kitty has got married, come back from honeymoon, and had three kittens (last part may not be true). Anyway, it was back in June.

There's really just 5 things you need to know about The Sloop Inn, in no particular order:

1. It's a proper, settle-in-for-the-afternoon, wash your worries away with beer and banter pub
2. It's a long way from Clapham so you'd need to be in the area to contemplate going
3. From what I could tell (although bear in mind I was in a party of 20 hens) they're not in need of a marketing push (custom seemed pretty healthy)
4. Which kinda gets me off the hook because my custom extended to ordering 20 Sambuca shots and leaving very soon after - I'm afraid I couldn't even tell you what ale was on
5. However I'm hoping my otherwise comprehensive and informed critique of other pubs puts me in enough credit to say with credible confidence "this is a great pub. If you're within 15 miles of it and don't pay a visit you need your head testing. Or your Sat Nav."

I've just remembered another pub that we walked to earlier that day - and when I say walked, I don't mean we tottered across the road in our kitten heels (though in fairness that's how we arrived at the Sloop) - no, we trekked the coastline for 2 hours in each direction. Longer coming back, because a few of us decided to try the last stretch cross country, only to find a sequence of fields that interconnect on Rubik cube levels of complexity. Devon farmers really don't make trespass easy.

Anyway, that other pub, which we eventually arrived at, weary but happy, like cussing Enid Blyton characters, was The Hope and Anchor, in Hope Cove.

Again, this isn't really a pub I can do justice given the circumstances of our visit (we were too busy wondering how much of a tit we could make of Kitty later that evening -turns out, a lot of a tit, bless her incredibly up-for-it socks), but I'm more than happy to give it the Milly seal of approval, for what it's worth.

It was busy, so the food was slow, but then anyone who goes to the Devon coast in summer expecting a personalised, speedy service should be put in stocks and thoroughly laughed at. The food when it came was average, which for a very busy tourist pub is a bonus, the beer was fine (ok, I had Magners, so shoot me), and generally it fitted the bill for a pub at the end of a bracing walk. A drink, a fisherman's pie or similar, and you're ready to walk back again.

The Sloop Inn though, now that's a pub you wouldn't want to walk away from.