Day Four

Not quite correct to call this Day Four. Day Three was November 5th, so this is well, several days later, never mind, Blog Number Four.

The gap is due to the fact that I have been away. A dear friend of mine, eternally young I had thought, suddenly and inexplicably became 60 years old. Impossible! Then I realised that she was still twenty when I met her, so I have known her forty years. But she is a mere slip of a girl compared to me. And bless her, she invited a few select friends and family to celebrate her birthday at Ashbourne Hall in Derbyshire.

Wow, eighteen of us, two from New York, others from Wales, London, Peterborough, Whitstable, Leeds, all arrived at this very elegant house in Ashbourne. Young people still sound of limb carried the suitcases of us oldies up to our rooms where we found free sweeties and a neatly typed timetable. Tour of house, hugs with old friends, sun shining, huge drawing room with deep cushioned chairs, reminiscing chat, dishes full of chocolates. Lovely, but somehow avoided by me. I am already large enough.

Timetable said Light Lunch in the dining room, glass roofed, looking out on a back patio with hot tub, several young people already in the hot tub, glasses of something in their hands. I sought out my old friend from NY (birthday girl's brother) who as our chef for the evening was already busy in the kitchen. I guessed correctly that he would have access to red wine, which I much prefer to champagne. You always need red wine in the kitchen, for cooking, or you just need it, whatever. This was an elegant kitchen such as you see pictured in Country Life or the Sunday Times "Style" supplement, though if you are trying to cook a meal for 18, you become acutely aware that neither of the two ovens will accomodate a dish for more than a family of four. But brother from NY would cope, somehow. He used to cook in the kitchens of cruise liners, so this was easy.

Delightful salad lunch was followed by a two hour walk along the Tissington Trail. Those who could not contemplate a two hour walk were able to hire bicycles. I walked and managed to get a considerable way before the cyclists passed me by, but naturally they got to the pub a long time before I did.

As I staggered into the village of Thorpe, I was pleased to see the Dog and Partridge, imagined a pleasant hour in a traditional friendly bar, sipping drinks before a real fire, chatting with friends before making my mellow way back to afternoon tea and pre dinner drinks at the Hall. Then I saw the notice, "Open 11.00 am to 3.00 pm and 6.00 pm to 11.00 pm." It was five to three.

"A pint please."
"You do realise we close at three o'clock," said the landlady, noticeably hostile.
"Yes I do," I said. "I saw the sign outside, but it's only five to three and I've just walked all the way from Ashbourne, so I think I need a pint."

She served me without a hint of a smile. I sat down with the cycling party. A mobile phone rang. Our hostess's sister received a call from the rest of the walking party. Her conversation included the words "You'd better hurry up, they close at three." The landlady who was clearly listening, said to the barmaid, "Time to lock the front door." The walking party were therefore advised, "Don't bother. They've locked the door."

Thinking what a friendly pub this is, anxious not to make the landlady any more unhappy then she was already, I managed to down my pint by five past three. The cycling party finished their drinks and left. I made my way out of the back door into the yard where was the Gents. It was locked. I returned to the bar and said to the landlady, "Excuse me, is the Gents locked?" and she replied, "Yes, we lock it at three."

I said, "Well, are you not going to help me? I've just walked all the way from Ashbourne."
"We close at three. We lock the toilets at three."
"But you kindly served me with a pint. Are you now denying me toilet facilities?"
"Toilets are locked at three."
"But the law allows customers twenty minutes drinking up time, after the official closing time. There's still fifteen minutes to go. Surely it would be reasonable to expect a publican to provide toilet facilities during that time."

She looked at me with such venom that I believe she wished she possessed the power to shrivel me, then said to the barmaid, "Oh all right Jane, go and switch the alarm off and I'll let this gentleman into the toilet."

I went out of the back door and waited by the Gents, thinking how can the alarm be on when the back door is still open? I stood outside the toilet for ten minutes and no one came to unlock it. I went to the back door of the pub, only to find that it also was now locked. So I returned to the Tissington Trail and peed against a tree.

Please note. The Dog and Partridge, Thorpe, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire. To be avoided. Why do people keep pubs if their customers are such an inconvenience to them?

Afternoon tea at the Hall was as elegant as you would expect, though some of us lurked in the kitchen where hostess's brother was still preparing dinner. In the kitchen we drank beverages other than tea. Chef was drinking Jamieson's Irish Whiskey, not noticing that as the level in his glass went down, his wise American better half was topping it up with water, thus ensuring that we all enjoyed our dinner later. I continued to sample the excellent red wine, of which there seemed to be an inexaustible supply.

Then it was pre dinner drinks. Once again I had to escape to the kitchen to find red wine rather than champagne. But back to the drawing room for a fantastic cake cutting, all candles successfully extinguished in a single blowing. Conversation, reminiscances, memories, holidays we've had together down the years, some of us for many years, some of the younger ones only recently, thanks for this and that, family, friendship, lovely.

The dinner went on all evening. Food came, served by younger members of the family who worked tirelessly. Wine flowed. I could not believe that it would not run out, but it did not. I can tell you it costs a lot of money to make certain that the booze will not run out. Oh, and I don't usually bother with dessert, but those poached pears were heaven.

Later, foolish games, which I did not understand, being too old I suppose. I went to be a burden to my bed at two o'clock, so missed my brother in law trying to climb inside a cupboard to illustrate a word in a charade. He looked deservedly jaded at breakfast, which he arrived at when most of us had finished.

Breakfast was brilliant too. Everything, even black pudding. Of course eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, but little miniature mountains of baked mashed potato, soft and juicy, (nothing like the dried up hard hash browns of Little Chef and Wetherspoons) and bubble and squeak, and porridge and cereals, toast and preserves, prunes, fruit. You could have nibbled on for ever.

The official timetable said "Pub Lunch." I looked forward to that. But first I did a walk round a very pleasant park with a lake and lots of children out with their dads feeding ducks. London seemed very far away. At the corner of the park was the Ashbourne War Memorial, with a boys band playing and wreaths laid by dignified men wearing not just poppies, but also the medals they had won, remembering their friends who had not made it to join them on Remembrance Sunday 2009.

Chef, hostess and birthday friend's brother, had already told me that the best pub in Ashbourne was undoubtedly the Market Tavern, rather than the one the group had selected for pub lunch. He had never been in there, neither had I, but I also had looked round the town and come to the same conclusion. He may have emigrated to the Big Apple but he still retains the old instincts. He was right. A traditional English pub, with proper beams and real ale, or just "Ale" as his American consort correctly called it, as she supped a pint of Old Specked hen. But the real joy, and the reason I knew chef had instinctively chosen the right pub, was it was full of men of a certain age, wearing suits and ties, with poppies in their lapels and their medals on their chests. I had no medals, but I wore my poppy with pride.

Later that afternoon we went to Chesterfield, subject of another blog, another day.