Finding my Way Home: Abadan 2000, Part 1

I Have no Memories of the Town Where I was Born

Milestone birthdays tend to make us look back. This is the first of three birthday posts which do just that.

Tomorrow I will be 65 years old and become an OAP. How I reached this state is a mystery; ignoring the odd ache and a tendency to nod off mid-afternoon I feel no different from when I was twenty five.

Is that me? How did I get that way

I am not only (almost) an OAP, but also a migrant, one of the 8 million foreigners swamping the UK, according to our xenophobic gutter press. But, like Boris Johnson, Emma Watson, Bradley Wiggins and 3 million others, I might be foreign born – and therefore undoubtedly a migrant – but I am not, I think ‘foreign’.

Introducing my Dad

My father, John Eric Williams, Iran 1948

My father was a civil engineer and in 1945 he left his home in South Wales for the Iranian desert on a three-year contract with AIOC, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later called British Petroleum, now BP-Amoco). There he built the roads, culverts and bridges required for pipelines to bring oil from the wellheads to the Abadan refinery on the northern tip of the Persian Gulf.

Building bridges, Iran 1948

Introducing my Mum

In May 1948, after signing on for a further three years, he went home on leave. In June he was introduced to his future wife – my mother - by a mutual friend. She was swept off her feet by a young man she described in 2000 as lean, fit and brown. She neglected to add ‘balding’ as at thirty my father had less hair than I had a fifty, but I should allow romance a little discretion. After several weeks courtship they became engaged and three weeks later they married.

My parents at their wedding reception, 9th of September 1948
Bess Jones (Matron of Honour), my Father, Mother and Bob Hinton (Best Man, and the 'mutual friend')

Neither of my parents were impulsive people, indeed I doubt my mother took another rash and impulsive decision in her life, but if you only do something once, you might as well make it a biggie. Amid the inevitable ‘It’ll never last’ and ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure’, they embarked on a marriage that would last until my father’s death fifty one years later.

In November my father returned to Iran, taking his new wife with him.

Iran
I have ringed Tehran, the capital and Abadan, my place of birth. 'Up-country' means in the Abadan area

Up-country life had been rough, but became much easier when the company bungalows were completed in Mian Kuh.

Anglo Iran Oil Company staff bugalows, Mian Kuh, Iran 1948

Introducing Me

In 1950 they ceased to be ‘up-country’ and moved to Abadan where I was born on the 2nd of September that year in the AIOC nursing home.

I am in one of those
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company nursing home, Abadan, 1950

In 1951 my father signed on again, but the storm clouds were gathering. Shortly after we all arrived home on inter-contract leave the Iranians nationalised their oil industry and told the British that their services were no longer required. I left my place of birth in April 1951, far too young to have formed any memories.

A Desire to Return

Like most migrants I have always felt a desire to return (if only for a bried visit) and, in my case specifically, a need to see the place I came from. For many years it was unimaginably far away, then too expensive and then, in 1979 came the revolution and Britain was dubbed the ‘Little Satan’. When the reform minded Mohammad Khatami was elected president in 1997 a window of opportunity opened. I thought summer 2000, the year of my fiftieth birthday, would be a fitting time to return. I mentioned it to Lynne and she was up for it and then, in September 1999, my father died suddenly. I started making plans.

Mohammad Khatami at the World Ecnomic Conference in Davis, 2007
Photo stolen from Wikipedia

I Make a Plan

I contacted BP on the off chance. They were magnificent. They put me in touch with their office chief in Tehran and provided a day pass and the services of a charming young librarian at the BP-Amoco archive, conveniently situated at Warwick University only forty minutes from home. The librarian had done her homework and when I arrived she presented me with my father’s work record and copious maps and photographs of 1950s Abadan.

I had my own photographs of my parents distinctive-looking house and knew the ‘address’, SQ (Staff Quarters) 1495. With surprising ease we narrowed the search down to the Bawarda district and to one of two houses, but would it still be there?

SQ1495, Bawarda, Abadan in 1950

Arriving in Iran

Lynne and I landed in Tehran on 24th of July 2000. We were met by a young man who would be our driver, guide and almost constant companion for the next two weeks. I shall call him N, his father had been of some importance under the Shah and they had problems with the new regime. I expect, though do not know, that N has now joined his sister in California.

'N', Tehran, 2000

N knew we were not just ordinary tourists as he was carrying a pass for us to enter the restricted, and distinctly un-touristy, Abadan area. The problem with Abadan was that it is almost on the Iraqi border, and the problem with that was not the first Gulf War, then ten years in the past, nor the forthcoming second Gulf War, but the Iran-Iraq conflict, which Iranians call the Imposed War. It raged throughout the 1980s but is largely forgotten in the west, conveniently so as the Americans were cheer leading, probably even arming, Saddam Hussein. A million Iranians died so they cannot forget so easily.

Portraits of martyrs of the Imposed War
Everywhere we went, portraits of young men who had died in the Imposed War lined the roads and covered the walls of buildings

Ordinary tourists or not, N was taken aback when we suggested that rather than starting with a visit to the former Shah’s Palace, we would like to visit an office in north Tehran. AIOC once effectively ruled the south and had great influence in the capital but by 2000 BP-Amoco had only one small office in Tehran. The boss was away but we were warmly welcomed by his PA, Nadia.

Lynne and me with Nadia, BP office Tehran, July 2000
If I had know those clocks would turn me into a bad impression of Mickey Mouse I would have stood somewhere else,

She introduced us to Hossein Afshar who worked, she said, in an office elsewhere in the building. Mr Afshar (he was an impressive elderly man, and a degree of formality seems appropriate) had been accommodation manager in Abadan around the time my parents and I left. He knew the city well and volunteered to fly down to show us around; an offer of extraordinary generosity.

Hossein Afshar in Khorramshahr, July 2000

I gave Nadia several hundred thousand rials (which sounds impressive but was little more than loose change) to buy his plane ticket and we set off with N to be proper tourists for a while.

The Karkeh Valley north of Ahvaz
Scene of much fighting in the Imposed War

We headed south via Hamadan, Kermanshah (marked on the map as Bakhtaran) and Khorramabad, reaching Ahvaz on the 27th of July. The next day we set off on the last leg of our journey to Abadan.

The Abadan Posts

Part 1: Finding my Way Home
Part 2: Return of the Native
Part 3: Standing on the Sod

Up a Mountain down Memory Lane: Taff's Well, Pentyrch and Tongwynlais

Sat 22-Aug-2015

A Plan to Climb the Garth

Wales
The Garth is in the County of Cardiff (red)
north of the city

'For my sixtieth birthday' Lynne's sister Julia had said, 'I want to climb the Garth - and we could gather as many of our cousins as possible to do it with us.'

And so, some months before her birthday, while the weather was still amenable, we met in Pentyrch to set off on this not quite epic ascent. The gathering of cousins though was not a great success; Lynne and Julia have six cousins, but only cousin Nick was available. Even so with partners, offspring and offspring’s offspring, 11 people gathered for the team photo outside the cemetery on the corner of Heol-y-Bryn and Temperance Court (yes it really is called that) and Julia’s daughter Alison became the twelfth when she caught us up twenty minutes later.

Team photo, Pentyrch
(only ten people? Well, I'm behind the camera.)

And why climb the Garth? Because for Lynne and Julia it is a trip down (or perhaps, up) memory lane. It is a hill or mountain they climbed many times in their childhood, and it is a mountain or hill with a story.

Taff's Well and Doctor Ifor Monger

That story starts with Dr Monger. Lynne spent the first nine years of her life (and Julia the first four) in Tongwynlais. The village, a little to the north of Cardiff, is a line of shops and dwellings beside what was once the main road north from Cardiff up the valley of the River Taff to Merthyr. The modern A470 is a dual carriageway that by-passes all the villages that once straggled along it, though the valley topography means it does not always by-pass them by much.

Dr Monger was their family doctor though his surgery was in Taff’s Well, the next village/straggle to the north. Everyone thought highly of Dr Monger and Lynne used to share his homespun philosophy with me, sometimes quite forcefully. Much of it involved ‘wrapping up warm in cold weather’ - to which I have always taken a cavalier attitude. Although I never met him I developed quite a healthy dislike for Dr Monger, though to be fair, it was probably not his fault; he was, by all accounts, a first class, old-school, family doctor.

Lynne thinks this was Dr Monger's house and surgery, Taff's Well

The Garth stands above Taff’s Well and Tongwynlais, but we set off from Pentyrch on the other side of the hill as the climb is much easier. Sitting higher on the hillside, Pentyrch is less linear and more upmarket than Taff’s Well and Tongwynlais. Lynne’s father was born and brought up here and his brother (Lynne’s Uncle Lynn) lived here until his death last year.

The Garth above Taff's Well

Setting off from Pentrych

We walked up Temperance Court and turned into Mountain Road.

Up the Mountain Road, Lynne, Small, Julia, Arthur

Where the minor road swings left to cross the pass and descend into Efail Isaf, we turned right towards the open hillside.

Onto the open hillside

Christopher Monger and 'The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain'

Dr Monger was more than just a doctor; he was a talented amateur artist and a writer with several novels and short stories to his credit, some of which are still in print. His son Christopher inherited the artistic streak, becoming a professional artist, writer and film director. His best known film The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain starred Hugh Grant as the Englishman of the title with the Irish Colm Meaney (taking time off from keeping the Deep Space 9 space station functioning) and Anglo-Irish Tara Fitzgerald both pretending to be Welsh.

The Englishman Who Went up a Hill and Came down a Mountain, (Borrowed from Wikipedia)

The film, a whimsical romantic comedy, is based on a story told to Christopher Monger by his grandfather, and the writer’s credit goes jointly to Christopher Monger, his father (Dr) Ifor David Monger, and grandfather Ivor Monger, though both the elder Mongers were long dead when the film was released in 1995. It is set in 1917 when an arrogant English surveyor arrives in Taff’s Well (Ffynnon Taf) which is fictionalized as Ffynnon Garw (Rough Well). The name might be inspired by Nantgarw a mile or two up the valley, or it may be a little dig at Taff’s Well. Although it is hardly a picture postcard village….

Taff's Well

…. it does have some fine, sturdy Edwardian buildings as well as many of the 19th century workers cottages that abound throughout industrial South Wales.

Sturdy Edwardian buildings, Taff's Well

He surveyed the local mountain, 'Our mountain, the first mountain in Wales' and discovers to the horror of the locals that it was just under 1000ft and therefore not a mountain but a hill. As ‘the grandfather’ says:Is it a hill, is it a mountain? Perhaps it wouldn't matter anywhere else, but this is Wales. The Egyptians built pyramids, the Greeks built temples, but we did none of that, because we had mountains. Yes, the Welsh were created by mountains: where the mountain starts, there starts Wales. If this isn't a mountain well… then Anson [the surveyor] might just as well redraw the border and put us all in England, God forbid.’

The wily and, it must be said, eccentric, locals devise a plan to delay the surveyor’s departure while they build an earthwork on the summit. The hill is resurveyed and now, lo and behold, it is over 1000ft and secure in its classification as a mountain.

The pimple on the broad back of the Garth

The Summit of the Garth, the the Truth about its Height

It is a steady climb, but not very steep and it does not go on for too long, indeed the youngest member of the party was among the first to reach the top of the hog’s back. The summit sits on a pimple at, according to the Ordnance Survey, 307m. The magical 1000ft mark has disappeared with metrication - and it is a fiction that this modest height ever ‘officially’ defined a mountain.

'I've climbed my first mountain. Now, which way is Everest?'

But 307m is 1,007ft, and if 1000ft makes a mountain then the Garth is a mountain only because of the pimple. So it happened just as the Mongers, grandfather, father and son told it and the pimple exists solely to make the Garth a mountain. Sadly, Pentyrch Community Council and the Pentyrch Local Historical Association disagree. According to their plaque at its base, the pimple is the largest of four Early-Middle Bronze Age Circular Burial mounds on the Garth dating not from 1917 but around 2000BC. You may believe whichever story pleases you.

Nick, Lucy, Henry and Anne on the summit

The youngest member of the party was the first to leave the pimple and lead us to the end of the ridge where there is a 20th century earthwork of non-obvious purpose.

Come on you lot, let's get on

There are fine views south over the city of Cardiff and the Bristol Channel, reputedly as far east as the Severn Bridge, though that was hiding in the mist. The view north to the Treforest Industrial Estate, Church Village and Llantwit Fadre is less pleasing though the Brecon Beacons were perhaps visible in the far distance.

Cardiff and the Bristol Channel from the Garth

At the very end of the ridge looking down on Taff’s Well the linear nature of settlement in the Welsh valleys was obvious….

Taff's Well from the Garth

… and, looking a little south, the turrets of Castell Coch could be seen poking out from the trees on the opposite side of the valley.

Castell Coch from the Garth

We returned through the bracken on the flank of the hill, at one point braving an infestation of midges which for a few yards meant the air was so thick with insects they got down your neck, up your nose and into your mouth. Thereafter the descent was straightforward.

Turning back through the bracken, the Garth

Dinner in the Cwrt Rawlin Inn

All 12 of us met again for dinner in the Cwrt Rawlin Inn on the edge of Caerphilly. It is a large family pub that Lynne and I have visited before and were impressed by the friendliness and efficiency of the young staff. They did not disappoint, and while the Cwrt Rawlin could never be accused of being a gastropub, their food is wholesome enough and very reasonably priced. Thereafter Nick and family returned to Bristol while the rest of us crossed the road to the Caerphilly Travelodge.

Julia and Alison.
I know this picture is in the wrong place, but Alison did catch us up, and as there is no other picture of her.....

Sunday 23-Aug-2015

Castell Coch

Friday had been a day of rain. On Saturday we had walked in a window of glorious sunshine, but it rained while we were in the pub, rained overnight and was still raining in the morning, the mist sitting low on the hills.

Castell Coch, Tongwynlais

Anyone who has driven down the M4 past Cardiff will have noticed the turrets of a fairy tale castle rising above the trees just north of the road. This is Castell Coch; it sits in the woods above Tongwynlais and is exactly the sort of place an imaginative four year old would like to visit on a wet Sunday morning. It also has a family connection - Lynne's grandmother was once a cleaner here.

On the drawbridge of Castell Coch, where an imaginative four year old would want to be

It looks like a fairy tale castle because, for the most part,it is. The foundations and the first metre or two of the towers were built by Gilbert de Clare in the 13th century, everything above that is Victorian.

The Coutyard, Castell Coch

Gilbert de Clare, the Norman Earl of Gloucester, has appeared in this blog before as the builder of castles at Llantrisant and Caerphilly. He was known as ‘Red Gilbert’ because of his hair colour or his fiery temperament (or both) and it is alleged that Castell Coch (Red Castle) was named for him. It was subsequently destroyed in a series of Welsh rebellions

Dubious turrets, Castell Coch

500 years later the ruins were acquired by John Stuart, Earl of Bute as part of a marriage settlement. Although they were of the Scottish nobility it was his great-grandson John Crichton-Stuart who built Cardiff docks to export the mineral riches of the interior and started the transformation of a small coastal settlement with barely 1,000 inhabitants in 1800 into a city which would become the capital of Wales.

The Dining Room, Castell Coch

His son, also called John Crichton-Stuart inherited the title in 1840. Extremely wealthy and with an interest in architecture and antiquarian studies he contracted William Burges to rebuild the castle. Burges was a fully paid up member of the Gothic revival and a drinking buddy of the Pre-Raphaelites and although the exterior is a reasonable historical pastiche (except for the fanciful pointed turrets) he let himself go on the interior, carefully locating the top, then going way over it.

The Drawing Room, Castell Coch, the The Fates over the fire place

Unsurprisingly the castle has featured in many film and television productions, Siân remembers it best for the opening sequence of Knightmare, an interesting and imaginative children’s programme that ran from 1987-94, while Lynne remembers being taken to see the filming of The Black Knight an Arthurian tosherama starring a badly miscast Alan Ladd with Peter Cushing and Harry Andrews as the Earl of Yeonil (that will be the Yeonil in Sonerset, then). The jury is out as to whether it is ‘so bad it’s good’ or just plain ‘bad’.

Lady Margaret's Bedroom. There were no ropes in the 1950s and a cleaner's granddaughter could run round, open all the drawers and climb on Lady Margaret's bed.

And then we all went home. Thanks to Julia for the idea, Nick and family for being there and making it a family occasion and to Siân and James for bringing 'the chap' who was, as always, the star (or am I biased?)

The Slaughters and the Lords of the Manor

Strikingly Pretty Villages and a Fine Wedding Anniversary Dinner

The Slaughters, Upper and Lower

Gloucestershire

Cotswold District

Like Moreton-in-Marsh, the Slaughters, Upper and Lower, do not have encouraging names, but they are actually a pair of Cotswold gems, stretched out along the little River Eye.

Upper Slaughter previously appeared in this blog in 2012 when we walked through Little Sodbury on the South West Odyssey. Little Sodbury is a ‘Thankful’ or ‘Blessed Village’, phrases coined in the 1930s for settlements that lost no servicemen in the First World War. A 2010 survey established that there were 54 civil parishes in England and Wales which were so ‘blessed’, three of them in Gloucestershire (none in Staffordshire). The only village in Gloucestershire to be ‘doubly blessed’ (i.e. 'blessed' in both World Wars) is Upper Slaughter – suggesting God has a macabre sense of humour.

Lynne in Lower Slaughter, a lovely village on a dire July day

In fact, the name derives not from death, destruction or abattoirs but from the Old English ‘Scolstre’ meaning a wet place or slough. I attended a preparatory school in Slough from 1958 to 1963. That much maligned town has changed a great deal since, but not then, not now, nor at any time in between has it ever remotely resembled the Slaughters.

The Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter

Dating from 1649, the building that now houses the Lords of the Manor Hotel in Upper Slaughter, was once much smaller. Unlike Chastleton House, its near contemporary, it has been frequently altered and extended, serving for a time as a rectory and becoming a hotel in 1972. The restaurant was awarded a Michelin star seven years ago and has retained it ever since. [The star was lost in 2019, though The Lords of the Manor still has 3 AA Rosettes. The struggle to win back the star continues but was not successful for 2020]

The Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter, The oldest part of the building

Dinner at The Lords of the Manor

Aperitifs and Canapés

We checked in, took a stroll, changed and arrived in the bar for aperitifs and canapés. They make a good dry martini, though not as good as the Sheraton in Hong Kong, though that may be impossible; my memory has enshrined that drink as the Platonic Ideal dry martini of which all others are inferior copies. After the unfortunate ‘drowning of the gin’ at our last wedding anniversary meal, Lynne was pleased that they left her to pour her tonic herself.

Our room, Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter

Canapés involved a mini-egg sized ball of smoked fish, which was good, a petite cylinder of paté shot through with hazelnut, surmounted by a little crisp disc and a nut, which was excellent, and a tiny chicken manifestation - I wish I could be more precise - which was spectacular.

The Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter, the modest original building has grown into this.
On another day we could have enjoyed our pre-dinner drinks outside, but even July cannot be trusted

We moved through to the restaurant, a newer wing at the back of the building.

Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter, the restaurant is in the extension on the left hand corner of the photo

Amuse-Bouche and Crab Starters

A tiny bowl of mushroom soup arrived - there was more to it than that, the well-informed waiter talked us through the details, but his accent was thick and I thought he mentioned peanuts. The mushroom flavour was intense, the texture warm and tongue-coating, and there did seem to be a peanut lurking in the depths, but exactly what it brought to the party was unclear.

Choosing from the five starters (two of which involved duck liver, not maybe as a main ingredient, but surely punching above its weight) we both selected crab. Professional restaurant critics don't do that, but I am only a blogger writing about a meal I paid for myself, and as we both fancied crab, we both had crab.

I last ate crab in a self-styled gastropub on the borders of Lancashire and Cumbria; it was utterly tasteless. The first nibble of the white meat of this Cornish crab was a revelation; it was fresh, it was clean, it was crabby (in a good way) and it tasted of the sea, a flavour echoed in the oyster cream. This was as good as crab gets. The tasty brown meat came in crisp little tubes which might once have been potato. Oscietra caviar sat on blobs of very different potato, a single fish egg on each of the four blobs. Oscietra retails at about £80 for 50 grams, at that price there should be enough on the plate to taste it, this was just wasted.

We drank the recommended wine, an Alsace Pinot Blanc. A smidgen off dry, with crisp, fragrant fruit, it was a fine partner to the crab. {David seems to have drawn the short straw here. Yes, there was very little caviar, but mine had several fish eggs on the blobs and I gathered them all up to eat together. Excellent, if miniscule. Lynne}

Mains of Pork and Guinea Fowl

Main course menu, Lords of the manor, Upper Slaughter

From the five choices of main course Lynne had guinea fowl, while I selected pork. I was disappointed when the food arrived. The guinea fowl involved sizeable slabs of meat and a little pile of vegetables but beside it my pork looked meagre, small islands of food adrift on a vast dark plate. I was unlikely to go hungry, but the disparity between the two plates struck a discordant note.

The two roundels of pork fillet were tender, with just enough texture and a delicate porky flavour. They sat on the sole vegetable, a couple of leaves of wilted spinach. The single cuboid of belly pork was much more gutsy, something to chew and crunch. The menu promised black pudding but I did not recognize that it in the little frustum of black jelly. The boudin, though, was in a different class, in fact the best thing on the plate; despite looking like a cocktail sausage it had a beguiling porky scent and a flavour which somehow contained the taste and soul of France. The smear of pork jus was just that - if there is going to be a sauce, let's have a sauce. Overall it was a plate with some delights, but disappointments too.

The Old Mill, Lower Slaughter

The recommended Loire Valley Malbec (isn't Malbec known as Côt on the Loire?) was well chosen; a lightish red, but well-built and full of fruit. It was not, though, half as good as the outstanding Austrian St Laurent that accompanied Lynne's guinea fowl. I have only come across this grape once before and that was a long time ago - I wish I had seen more of it.

Lynne had a good slab of breast meat, perfectly cooked and well flavoured, but it was the ‘croustillant of leg’ that was memorable, with a satisfying crunch and a rich confit flavour. Lynne, too, had a leaf of wilted spinach, but she also had some leek, the sort of baby turnips that made you realise why all Baldrick wanted was a little turnip of his own, and girolle mushrooms, the size and shape of the plastic studs used to cover the screws in flat-pack furniture but so full of themselves they demanded to be noticed.

Pre-Dessert, Dessert and Cheese

The pre-dessert was a thick glass bowl with a pleasant panna cotta at the bottom covered with orange-coloured granules. Mango and coconut were mentioned by the waiter, he may have mentioned freeze drying as well, though even after four courses I was no better attuned to his accent.

The strongly flavoured tiny 'micro-coriander' was probably unnecessary, but the sharp, tangy mango lingered on the tongue, and as it faded the flavour of toasted coconut kicked in. Mango and coconut are among my favourite foods and these strong flavours were just what I love. ‘I don't like that,’ said Lynne putting down her spoon. I thought she was referring to the coriander, which she dislikes, but then she said, 'The mango is too sharp for me.' ‘What a shame,’ I said, and ate hers too.

The village defibrillator, Upper Slaughter. Finding a use for a redundant red phone box.

The smallish pork course had the happy by-product of leaving space for cheese. I so often only have room for a dessert that slips down easily, but I had clocked the cheese trolley on the way in and judged it worthy of further examination.

Despite being over-faced last year by the cloying richness of the chocolate option at the Harrow in Little Bedwyn, Lynne backed hope over experience and chose chocolate again. If anything the Lords of the Manor erred in the other direction, but she was well pleased with her generous brick of white chocolate mousse, teamed with blobs of lavender cream, violet jelly and gold sprinkled raspberries.

On closer inspection the cheese trolley was as fine as I had thought, and made better by all the cheeses coming from Britain or Ireland. I have nothing against French cheeses – quite the opposite - but it is pleasing to know that the reborn craft cheese-making of these islands now produces the quality and variety to stock a first rate cheese trolley.

I chose four cheeses, the first two involving more than a nod towards France. Brie is a much abused word; most supermarket Brie is dull, under-ripe, factory produced and unworthy of the name. I avoid ‘Somerset Brie’, because if the manufacturers of France have forgotten how to make it, I doubt a factory in Somerset would be any more successful. I knew at first glance, however, that Simon Weaver's Brie-style cheese was something else. Startlingly white it oozed gently and the rind was cracked like ripe Brie de Meaux (a reliable name amid all the dross). Misshapen and slightly flattened this was no factory cheese - in fact it is made on Kirkham Farm in Lower Slaughter, solely from organic milk produced on the farm. It is also made from unpasteurised milk (and I don't know a really fine cheese that isn't). The French like to use the word ‘onctueux’ to describe such a cheese - it sound so much better than 'unctuous'. This was the most onctueux cheese it had been my privilege to eat for a long time.

Simon Weaver Brie

Isle of Avalon, confusingly made in Surrey, is based on the recipe for Port Salut - the favourite French cheese of people who do not like French cheeses. All the rind washing and extra maturing this was subjected to certainly improved it, but it never got far enough away from Port Salut for my taste.

The third cheese, a softish ewe's milk cheese with a slightly crumbly texture, was pleasant without being exciting, but my fourth choice took me back to the heights. Admiral Collingwood is a semi-soft cheese made from unpasteurized milk by Doddington Dairy in Northumberland. It is matured for seven months and the rind is washed in Newcastle Brown Ale. I used to drink Newky Brown in my youth, but gave it up long ago, now I have found the perfect use for it. It is claimed to give the cheese a unique tangy aftertaste - it does and it is wonderful.

Admiral Collingwood, Doddington Dairy, Northumberland

Back in the comfy seats in the bar we had a so-so cup of coffee, petit fours - nicely made sweeties - and an excellent glass of Calvados. And so ended this year's wedding anniversary dinner, and a fine dinner it had been, too. It was expensive, as such meals are, but then this is Michelin starred cooking and the high points were high indeed – as they should be at this level. There were a couple of disappointments too, as we have learnt to expect at one Michelin star level - there are two and even (should I ever be able to afford it) three star levels above this.

27/07/2015

Breakfast

Restaurants do not win Michelin stars for their breakfasts, but it is interesting to see what they do. Cereals are just cereals, but the fruit juices were fresh. Lynne had fried eggs, two of them cooked in a neat and tidy ring in butter, she prefers oil but that is a matter of taste. My scrambled egg was excellent, though not quite up to the standard of the Yorke Arms in Ramsgill (though that is beginning to take on the same mythical stature as the Hong Kong Sheraton martini). The mushroom - (half?!) a large field mushroom this time - had almost as much power as the girolles, and the bacon was of the quality you should expect in such an establishment. I hoped the black pudding would make up for one of yesterday's disappointments but although this time it was a proper slice, it had too much cereal and not enough blood and spice - I suppose that is what you get for eating black pudding this far south.

'Fine Dining' posts

Abergavenny and the Walnut Tree (2010)
Ludlow and La Bécasse (2011) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn)
Ilkley and The Box Tree(2012)
Pateley Bridge and the Yorke Arms (2013) (No longer a restaurant, post renamed Parceval Gardens and Pateley Br)
The Harrow at Little Bedwyn (2014)
The Slaughters and the Lords of the Manor (2015)
Loam, Fine Dining in Galway (2016)
Penarth and Restaurant James Sommerin (2017) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn. JS has a new restaurant in Penarth)
The Checkers, Montgomery (2017) (no longer a restaurant, post withdrawn. Now re-opened under new management)
Tyddyn Llan, Llandrillo, Denbighshire (2018)
Fischer's at Baslow Hall, Derbyshire (2019)
Hambleton Hall, Rutland (2021)
The Olive Tree, Queensberry Hotel, Bath (2022)
Dinner at Pensons near Tenbury Wells (2023) (restaurant closed Dec 2023, post withdrawn)
The Cross, Kenilworth (& Kenilworth Castle) 2024