Tales from Harrogate

31/12/09
It’s far from the open-fired cottage of our imagination. Instead, I type sitting on top of the brown and maroon floral print cover stretched businesslike across our double at the Arc ‘boutique’ b&b opposite the Harrogate International Centre. This is my new netbook, Sky, an ice-blue Dell. She arrived yesterday and I hope will change my life.

2/1/10
After a morning in Harrogate’s splendid Turkish baths, and lunch at Betty’s, New Year was brought in at the Tannin Level restaurant. At first there were five of us, but my sister had to leave to see to a cat that couldn’t pee (being a vet on call). The Tannin staff – particularly the tall woman with short bleached hair in a short, cream sequined dress I took to be manageress - were most obliging and brought Romilly's starter on the double to have before she left. She did not make it back before her main, but they set an oversized cheeseboard aside for her, informing other guests that they were ‘out of cheese’. Rom returned before midnight with news that she’d saved Tubbs, which was fantastic because she’d expected to have to put him down.

We got an amazing deal for £25 a head. The quality of the food was high. I was deciding between the two vegetarian starters. I settled on the croustade of woodland mushrooms with a poached egg; but a sip of Rom’s early soup had me on the edge of switching – the potato, garlic and tarragon was instantly delicious. I stuck with the croustade, and unfortunately lived to regret it (mildly) as the taste was not as stunning as the sip of soup had been, and it contributed to filling me to the point of discomfort later in the meal when topped off with butternut squash risotto. I ate my way out of the pain with peanut butter parfait with chocolate ice cream, which made it all better. It was all accompanied by good wine, as we’d hoped for at a place named after a wine term. We were particularly struck by the first white on the cheaper list, a South African Chenin Blanc. We’d asked for ‘crisp’, and it was delivered. A relaxed pace accompanied the considerate service and time was allowed for our jaunts outside to enjoy the falling snow.

Only us and the table next to us were left in the restaurant at midnight. The staff told us not to panic and - they’d tell us when we got to the countdown. ‘I’d hate to celebrate prematurely,’ remarked a woman on the other table. As we shouted ‘three, two, one, yay!’ Rom’s phone went. Not Tubbs’s owner, she thought. But no, it was Mark in Australia with his computer timed to tell him when it was midnight in the UK.

The four of us went on to the blues bar and danced to ska while Rom returned to check on Tubbs. On the walk to the b&b we enjoyed the following features: the statue encased in glass (only in Harrogate can it stay) that had steamed up; an upmarket furniture shop with a bed with bondage straps holding together its head and footboards; and the snow, which two of us tried to declare was a ‘new type’, and others had known before, made up of old crunchy ice sprinkled with just-fallen fluffiness. Happy New Year.