Lunch in Bakewell - ricci's beyond the dreams of Croesus

Finding somewhere to eat in Bakewell wasn't hard. The place is full to bursting with eateries - no the problem was finding the right place to eat in Bakewell. As regular readers will know, lunch is a pretty big deal for me and Mrs Snail, so giving us lots of choice between great looking places when we can only eat at one of them always puts us in a bit of a quandry.

Our initial thought was to try somewhere that sold the town's most famous product, the Bakewell Pudding - but this gave us another choice to make. If Bakewell puddings were like Cornish Pasties, available just about everywhere in their home area (and trust me - you can't bloody move for Cornish Pasties in places like Truro) that would have been one thing. But you can't buy a Bakewell Pudding just anywhere. Oh no. You can only buy one from the people who have the original recipe.

 Actually, if it were that simple, we'd probably done the tourist thing and eaten there. But it isn't that simple because there are three establishments in Bakewell claiming to be in possession of the only true and original recipe, two of which have cafe/restaurant affairs attached. Now, time was ticking on and we were pretty hungry, but we weren't going to eat two lunches and somehow it didn't seem fair to favour one over the other.

We figured we couldn't visit Bakewell and not check the pudding scene out, so we spent some time looking at the Old Original Pudding Company, which offers not just the eponymous puddings, but also tours of the bakery, all manner of quality foodstuffs and anything from a light snack to a three course meal. It was a bustling little place and we were quite attracted to it, but it was also heavingly busy and so we thought we'd see what else there was and maybe return later if we couldn't find anywhere else.

We also  had a bit of a look at The Bakewell Tart Shop & Coffee House, the second establishment claiming to possess the original recipe, but as its name suggest it's more of a tea-room, and by this time we were way too hungry to be satiated by a cup of tea  and a slice of cake, nice as their confections appeared to be. The third and final pretender to the Pudding Crown, Bloomers, is also a baker rather than an eaterie, and so was similarly passed by. And somehow we never went back to any of them, which means I still haven't eaten anything that can claim to be a Bakewell Pudding. Still, it's a good reason to go back - and not the only one.

You see, with hunger really beginning  to gnaw at our innards, we decided to divide and rule and headed off in different directions, fighting our way through the crowds (I don't know if Mondays in Bakewell are always so busy, what with the Market and all, but it seems to me that the entire population of rural Derbyshire must have been there) to see what we could find.

For a small town, Bakewell is rather well provided for in terms of places to buy food. There are many, many, many take-away places - many of which look good - and several pubs which advertise food and looked extremely attractive. It was Mrs Snail who hit gold, however, when she found ricci's* on Water Street.  "I've found this lovely looking little Italian place" she told me as we rendezvoused at one corner of the market square.

Boy, is my wife good at finding places to eat!

I followed Mrs Snail through the thronged streets to a modest looking green and white frontage. We stuck our heads through the door and were greeted by a surprisingly small space which was jam packed with happy looking people tucking in to what looked like pretty delicious food.  "Table for two?" enquired Mrs Snail, more in hope than expectation. A woman - who I later learned was co-owner Sue - with a slightly harassed smile squeezed through the crowd and, with an apologetic look at the crammed tables broke the news that they were totally, utterly full.

"But if you want to give me your mobile number, I'll give you a call when a table comes free" she said. My mobile was pretty much dead, so we handed over Mrs Snail's number, and took off to explore the esoteric mix of shops elsewhere on the street. We explored a rather lovely music shop which had some astonishingly beautiful and high end instruments crammed into its relatively small space - I left quickly, because I came close to "accidentally" spending over £100 on a Ukelele - trust me, it was beautiful, a wonderful little silversmiths, a place that advertised "genuine Austrian Sausage" and a little shop selling all manner of Indian craft goods. That's the beauty of popular market towns.

You see, people in cities might crow about their cosmopolitan make-up, and they might well be right - but big cities like London, Birmingham and Leeds get that eclectic mix of stuff by virtue of effectively being amalgamations of small towns all joined together. Places like Bakewell give you the joy of being in one of those little areas without the hassle of actually being in a city - which so far as I'm concerned is a massive win. Don't get me wrong, I like cities well enough - I just don't want to spend a lot of time in them. Places like Bakewell mean that I don't have to.

It was about fifteen minutes later that Mrs Snail's 'phone buzzed to let us know that a table at ricci's was available. We wasted no time in taking our seats. Ricci's has three sets of tables for two, running along the counter that separates the restaurant area from the kitchen area, and three tables for four running parallel along the window. We took our seats at the middle of the three tables for two and began to peruse the menu.

I was instantly impressed.

There's nothing fancy here, and that's all to the good. Ricci's offers a well thought out selection of salads, pizzas and pasta dishes using ingredients that are either locally sourced or obtained directly from Italy. They actively support campaigns to reduce consumption of "junk food" and avoid the gratuitous levels of saturated fat, salt and sugar that so pollute the fayre provided by establishments with lower standards.

We were both  attracted by the delicious looking Lasagne that arrived at the table opposite at the same time as we took our seats, but a glance at the menu informed us that as dishes are freshly prepared, a Lasagne order was going to take twenty five minutes, and there was no way we were waiting that long. Casting envious glances across the aisle we directed our attention back at the pizzas.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a thing for burgers. What may not have been obvious up to this point is that I also have a real fetish for pepperoni. Naturally, I went for a ten inch pepperoni pizza. Mrs Snail, still enraptured by the lasagne on the table next to us, went for a seven inch Bolognese pizza. Having made sure that we were ordering the right sized portion by checking out the plates hanging on the wall - a stroke of genius in my view - we sat back with a glass of wine to await the arrival of our food.

At this point I should probably point out that you can't buy a glass of wine at ricci's, because they don't have a licence. They were, however, perfectly happy to supply a brace of rather nice wine glasses to accommodate the wine we happened to have with us***.

Anyway.

The food arrived.

Now. Pizza is a pretty ubiquitous fast food these days. I love pizza. I eat a lot of it. Most if it is, basically, horrible. My dad once described pizza as "glorified cheese on toast", and  often that's really all it is. Like the Croque Monsieur I so enjoyed in Dartmouth, for a simple food, pizza is spectacularly easy to do badly - as anyone who has made an ill-judged drunken purchase on the way home from the pub will attest.

Done well, of course, pizza is one of the finest foods available, and I'm pleased to report that ricci's falls firmly into this category.  It was sublime.

The base was thin - as a pizza base should be, I've never really had much truck with all this "deep pan" nonsense - and actually tasted of something, which is always a joyous thing. It was crisp and bready, and delicious. The tomato base was rich and flavourful, and topped with about a three foot depth of stretchy, creamy mozzarella cheese and a more than generous daubing of salty, meaty, pepperoni goodness. It was utterly, utterly, gorgeous.  If I'm honest, I think I've only ever eaten one pizza I enjoyed more - and given that was in a little pizzaria on the sea front in the little town of Minori on Italy's Amalfi coast, I reckon that's high praise indeed.

If anything Mrs Snail's choice was even better.

Clearly the Bolognese sauce on her pizza was the same sauce used in the Spaghetti Bolognese and the Lasagne - and on the strength of that I'd happily order any of those dishes. Rich, thick and herby, this is a Bolognese with flavour so thick you could almost serve it in slices. It was, quite frankly delicious - so delicious, I wish I'd ordered it.

I have to tell you, if I lived and worked in Bakewell, I'd eat here a lot. They do takeaway too - complete with napkins and cutlery. Because ultimately, that's what ricci's seems to be about. Good food, sourced well, prepared with care and attention to detail. In the end, that's what food sohuld be about, and I applaud them.

And if they ever figure out a way of doing their lasagne by post, I'll be a very very  happy - and slightly fatter - man.

*Don't look at me - I'm an English Teacher. The spelling of a proper noun with a lower case letter makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and a little growl rise from my throat. Imagine the snarl of the disgruntled T-Rex on Jurassic Park and you're about there. But what can you do? People will decide that poor grammar is in some way trendy, and since it's the only thing I disliked about the place, and I seem to one of the very few people who cares about this stuff** I'm prepared to let it slide on this occasion...

**A fact which in no way makes me wrong.

***What? I was a Scout, and Mrs Snail was in the Guides. We are always prepared, and a meal without wine is like a day without sunshine. Except that I was driving, so I didn't actually have any.

Bakewell - a tart free zone.

We were sort of accidental visitors to Bakewell. We'd set off from our pitch just outside the bijou Staffordshire town of Leek intending to take a leisurely scenic Drive along the A5004 from the spa town of Buxton to the "Capital of the High Peak", Chapel en le Frith via Whaley Bridge and from there towards the town of Castleton. This is such a celebrated route that it even has its own Wikipedia page! Sadly, the road was closed so we had to find an alternative route and headed for the ancient town of Castleton via a more direct route. The approach over the peaks past the famous Blue John cavern is spectacular however, and worth doing even if you're not intending to stop.

Which we didn't.

We'd visited Castleton before, and made the steep, steep climb up to Peveril Castle, the eleventh century fortress which dominates the town and gives it its name. While I can recommend the view, we weren't really up for the climb - which is really steep, and it wasn't yet lunchtime so we decided to push on through the Peak District countryside and search out a little pub somewhere. The trouble was, as we made our way though picturesque village after picturesque village, every single village pub we saw appeared to be shut! So much for all day opening...

Eventually we ran out of picturesque little villages and hit the market town of Bakewell. I like puns and wordplay, so any visit to Bakewell brings to mind any number of "Tart" jokes. I won't inflict them on you however*, because not only are they of questionable taste and quality they are also factually inaccurate. You see - whatever Mr Kipling might tell you - there is no such thing as an authentic "Bakewell Tart". The genuine Bakewell Pudding is an entirely different beast, lacking the sickly sweet icing and layer of strawberry jam that adorn the version familiar to supermarket shoppers across the land.

Anyway. Unlike the picturesque little villages Bakewell was most definitely open and veritably thronged with people. Monday is market day, and the livestock market on the edge of town was also in full flow. There was no chance of parking anywhere near the centre of town, so we headed to the main long stay car park, which happens to be right next to the livestock market. You get there by heading out of town and then sort of coming back on yourself, which is odd, and makes you think you must have missed the entrance, but we got there in the end.

To be met by a sign declaring "CAR PARK FULL."

We're not the sort to be put off by that kind of thing, however, and set off down the long car park access road undeterred. The road was lined with signs making it clear that parking was prohibited, and with cars belonging to people who clearly understood that this rule did not apply to them. Reaching the car park we saw that the "CAR PARK FULL" wasn't exaggerating - the place was rammed, with cars and livestock trailers as far as the eye could see. It seemed hopeless, but we learned a long time ago that no matter how full a car park might appear, there is always somebody just about to leave and patience is always rewarded. And so it was on this occasion. It took us less than five minutes to find a car that was just about to vacate its space, and we wasted no time in taking advantage.

So we allied forth from the car park, the sound of the livestock market ringing in our ears, to be greeted by Market day in Bakewell. We approached the town via two bridges which led us towards some large stone pillars - presumably the symbolic gates of the town welcoming the visitor and inviting you in, which is a nice touch.  Except on the Monday we were there the market was in full swing, and somebody with a "Scissors and knives" stall had chosen to adorn these gateposts with huge yellow plastic signs advertising what I presume to be one of their top lines.

So, fact we and the hoards of other visitors that day were greeted with an advert for "Heavy Duty Toenail Pliers! Cuts through the thickest toenails!"  Oh yeah! Stay classy, Bakewell!

We eshewed the delights of toenail pliers, and indeed the delights of the market square altogether really. Don't get me wrong, we like a good market - I'm originally from Doncaster, a town which boasts one of the finest markets in Northern Europe** - but we also quite like breathing, and there were so many people crammed around the stalls I couldn't see how it would be possible to stand near one of them and still have space to inhale.

I did, however, tarry briefly by a rather bare looking stall staffed by some pretty organised, if intentionally shabby, looking teenagers with rather brightly coloured (and on closer inspection, really rather good) skateboards. They represented "Skatewell", a skater run project trying to get a skatepark built in the town. They were articulate and clearly passionate about their cause, and I really do wish them well. I used to skate a bit as a kid, and my wanderings around Bakewell suggest that most of it is ideally suited for water colour painters, but not so much for skateboards - it's a form of transport that doesn't work well with cobblestones.

I liked the Skatewell kids very much indeed - and they underlined something that I've thought for a while.  Places like Bakewell are brilliant for forty-something people like me. They're great places for more senior citizens and they are excellent places to be a child. But for teenagers? Nah. I can't imagine being a teenager in Bakewell is all that great. So here's hoping they get their skatepark. They deserve it - not just because there's bugger all to do in Bakewell if you're fourteen, but also because they've got themselves together and organised themselves to make it happen. Like I said, I was impressed.

But I was also hungry. It was lunchtime and as regular readers of this blog will know, lunch is a serious business and searching for a place to eat it is always a pressing concern.  Did we find anywhere? Why yes we did. And it was fabulous.

I'll tell you about it next time...

*Oh, alright then, just one. Stolen from Radio 4's excellent "I'm sorry, I haven't a clue!", "Bakewell Tart - instruction to be shouted at Nigella Lawson..."

**Actually true. There are a lot of good things about Donny, although I'll acknowledge that many of them are well hidden...

Clearly a great sense of civic pride...

This isn't really a post, just a big shout out to the awesome people of Leek. Since the Leek posting went up - in which all I basically did was buy a hosepipe - it's had more hits than any other posting since the start of the blog. And I'm talking nearly ten times more than any other post. In less than a week.

My stats thingie won't tell me what proportion of the hits were from Staffordshire, but I do know that the vast, vast majority of them were certainly from the UK - and it just can't be a coincidence. No. The vast majority of the hits for the post were from the people of Leek. It tells you something about a place when so many people who clearly haven't read the blog before come and find me just because I'm talking about their town. That kind of love for a place tells you a lot.

Go and pay them a visit sometime - I promise you it's worth the trip. Both the people and the place are genuinely fabulous.

The Peak Weavers - perfection and Parfait.

As I mentioned in the last post, we'd taken the caravan to the Staffordshire town of Leek to meet up with an old friend who was about to relocate to the islands of Scotland. Such a farewell needs to be marked with fine food and finer wine, and our friend, who happened to be the proprietress of the finest independent wine shop in Staffordshire* knew just the place to go.

The Peak Weavers is a bed and breakfast cum restaurant establishment that has established a pretty impressive reputation for itself since the current owners, Nick and Emma took it over in 1999. Housed in a building that was constructed in 1828 for a local mill owner, the Peak wavers - named for its Peak District location and weaving heritage - now houses a forty cover restaurant and six bedrooms. Clearly we've never stayed there, but if you happen to be travelling sans-caravan, I'd recommend this place just on the strength of the food. Seriously, when an establishment produces food to this standard you can trust everything else.

Because the food was seriously good.

We were a little early for our table, so we took a seat in the small bar area (I suspect it was originally the mill owner's parlour or something) and chatted over drinks perusing the menu. It's a cosy and welcoming space, and although it is a little snug you don't get any kind of sense of being on top of other guests. The host was attentive but not intrusive and the atmosphere pleasingly convivial. At a suitable lull in conversation we were escorted into the immaculate dining room and seated at our table.

There was some discussion about wine, which I took more notice of than usual, because this was one of the rare occasions when I wasn't driving. I didn't choose though, because however much I know about wine** our friend knows an awful lot more. I'm rather ashamed to note therefore that I have no idea what we drank, except to say that it was delicious. (Mental note to self - if you're drinking when you're eating at a restaurant you're going to review, make notes!) Suffice to say I was impressed. The food though, oh my. The food just knocked me out of the park.

I started with a crispy duck salad with a dressing of ginger and soy. What can I say? The duck was perfectly cooked and the dressing was beyond fabulous, just coating the leaves and duck pieces enough to add flavour but not so much that the duck itself was over powered - and so perfectly seasoned even I didn't reach for the salt. That's a rare thing for me, and probably my ultimate compliment to a chef who gets the seasoning right first time.

Mrs Snail and our friend started with a hot smoked salmon and prawn cocktail with a "green goddess" sauce - except Mrs Snail's was an all salmon affair because if she eats prawns she turns blue and dies. These came served in the traditional cone shaped cocktail glass and were declared to be delicious. I was fascinated by the green goddess sauce, which I'd never heard of, but seems to be a sort of flavoured mayo type thing with parsley, anchovies, lemon and other good things. Such a refreshing change from the standard gloopily pink Marie Rose sauce you usually get smothering this sort of thing.

That's one of the things I liked about the Peak Weavers - everything was done with a bit of imagination and flair.

Our main courses were equally impressive. I went for a rib-eye steak, because I'm a man and I like meat cooked on fires, and I was not disappointed in any way. The meat was perfectly cooked - possibly the first time I've been served a medium steak the way I like it, normally chef's seem to interpret "medium" either as "the customer knows nothing, they will have their meat the way I know they should have it" or "the customer is clearly squeamish, I must cook away all traces of pink". Not here. My steak was pink, juicy and gorgeous.

The steak came with some wonderful chips and roasted vegetables. I was in something approaching heaven. Mrs Snail opted for a ham hock salad style thing which was packed with flavour and our friend went for a lamb dish which looked and smelled astounding. Our friend pronounced it to be "amazing", and I have no cause to doubt her judgement.

Finally, there was dessert.

Dessert can be summed up in one word.

Wow.

However, that's not the sort of finely judged commentary you've come to expect from this blog, so I guess I should expand on that a little.

Our friend declined dessert, which frankly makes me doubt her sanity just a little, but having taken another squint at the menu me and Mrs Snail were completely unable to resist. I went for a Pavlova which arrived smothered in cream, strawberries and blueberries. All jolly lovely, of course, but the best bit by far was the meringue. This spectacular confection was beyond mere sweetness - somehow managing to be much, much sweeter than sugar. Crisp and brittle on the outside, soft and chewey  - but not gooey - on the inside. Honestly, I could have eaten it all night.

And yet, I hadn't chosen the most impressive thing. No, Mrs Snail did that when she selected the Passion Fruit Parfait. Now, "parfait" may well be the French word for "perfect", but I've never really been much of a fan. This though, this really lived up to its name. Beautifully presented and perfectly judged in terms of flavour, my only criticism of this dish was that it was only designed to serve one, so I was only able to steal a tiny spoonful. That spoonful did contain two or three of the little peach coloured balls that were adorning the top of the parfait, and they  were a revelation.

I think they're best described as slightly oversized orangey caviar, and they behaved much like caviar in the mouth - popping on the tongue and releasing an ooze of flavour directly onto the taste buds. Fortunately this is where the similarities to caviar ended, because caviar is disgusting and tastes of overpoweringly salty fish***. This however was wonderful, and tasted of Passion Fruit. It was the final little bit of flair that lifted the dish from mere greatness to an entirely different level of awesomeness. Parfait indeed.

And that is what the Peak Weavers seems to be all about. They source their meat locally and adjust the menu to what is seasonally available. Essentially they take fine ingredients and then apply a bit of skill and imagination to make good things even better. Seriously, what more could you wish from a restaurant? This isn't the kind of blog that awards stars, but if it was, I'd need a bloody galaxy to adequately reward this place - even if co-owner Nick did spend some time dissing caravans while we took coffee in the lounge...****

*The Wine Shop, Leek

**Which is rather a lot, actually...

***This is objectively true. I've eaten the finest caviar on earth. It was disgusting and left a taste in my mouth I couldn't get rid of for days.

****More of that in a future blog. All I'm saying is "challenge accepted"...

Taking a Leek!

So, the caravan was serviced, half term was upon us, and it was time to set off on our first jaunt of 2013.

Normally we'd head north - trolleying off to the Lake District, Scotland or the North East of England. But this year we pointed the car south towards Staffordshire. I know. We didn't know anyone went there either. It's a very under-rated place, Staffordshire. If I'm honest we weren't really going for the place, but to wish an old friend "bon voyage" as she packs up her life and moves it to the wilds of the Scottish Isles - where, ironically, we'll probably see a lot more of her than we have at any time since we parted ways at the end of University about a century ago. Thus it was that we found ourselves pitched up two miles outside the ancient borough of Leek. It's an odd little place, with much to recommend it, and even though our friend is no longer there I'll be surprised if we never go back.

It's an old place, Leek. First granted its charter in 1214 this little town has sat on the banks of the River Churnet  for some time longer than that. My first experience of the place was late on a Saturday afternoon when, having pitched up on site I discovered that I'd somehow mislaid the filler tube for the Aqua Roll*. This isn't always a problem of course, but the taps on site were about fifteen feet** above ground level and trying to fill the barrel without a tube would have involved getting more water on the ground (and me) than in the Aquaroll, and squelching my way across a campsite in sub zero February temperatures was not appealing in any way.

So, into Leek I went, in search of hosepipes.

Well, of course, I didn't want an actual hosepipe, but food grade plastic tubes compatible with campsite taps are surprisingly hard to come by. A search of the site's information room had revealed that there were no dedicated camping/caravanning supplies outlets within easy reach, and in their absence, I figured a bit of hosepipe would do the job.

So I drove in, followed the signs for short stay car parks and ended up in the staff car park of the "Staffordshire Moorlands" district council, which apparently is based in Leek. I was immediately impressed. Why don't more places do this? The council offices clearly need a car park, but given that the offices are closed on the weekend, coincidentally the same time that more people than usual want to come to the town, why on earth wouldn't you turn the council's staff car park into a pay and display on the weekend? Especially given the fact that the council's offices are about forty yards away from the town's historic market square?

Genius.

Seriously - I know it's geeky of me, but I'm always impressed by stuff like this. It shows that the people running the place have thought about stuff and are using their assets effectively. In this case, it also frees up the market square, which is normally used for parking, allowing a rather good little Saturday Market to be established without  making it impossible for people to park in order to shop there.

It was rather late in the day, and most of the stalls were packing up by the time I got there, but even then I got the impression of a pretty vibrant mercantile scene. There were stalls full of antiques, books, records (and I do mean records - proper vinyl, not just CDs) and a particularly fine collection of old Corgi and Matchbox vehicles which caught my attention rather more than it probably should.

What caught my eye the most though was the wide array of food based offerings. Stalls purveying jams and preserves, baked goods, meat - you name it, it was on sale. Or at least had been, as I say, I was there pretty late in the day. It's the kind of thing that I love to see in a market square - a lot of local produce and organic logos as far as the eye can see. Not that ogling the market was finding me a water barrel filler tube, so I set off down the high street to see what I could see.

As with so many other old towns, at street level everything looks pretty much the same as everywhere else - although there is a pleasing proliferation of independent shops here the high street chain stores with their generic shop fronts are also much in evidence.  Right at the top of the street though, a large display of gloriously muddy vegetables outside an old fashioned looking shop caught my attention. Could this be that rarest of things, a good old fashioned Green Grocer's shop? Well, yes - with the emphasis on "old fashioned", it would appear.

The Home and Colonial Stores is a remarkable place - a Leek institution it seems - and perhaps the epitome of what a good food shop should be. I walked in expecting it to be rather small and pokey, but in fact it's much, much larger than you'd guess from outside. I was going to describe it as TARDIS like, appearing larger on the inside then the outside, but actually it's more like something from the drawing board of MC Esher - it just extends on and on and every time you think you've reached a point where logic and physics dictate it must end, there's just a little bit more of it.

Seriously, I'm not even exaggerating. It must be the longest shop I've ever been in, and I'll go to my grave convinced that the interior of the place is longer than the building in which it is situated. As for what they sell, well. The short answer would appear to be "everything". Basically if you can eat it, you can get it there - unless it's out of season. None of your Asparagus air-freighted from Kenya here let me tell you.

It's more than just the merchandise though. There's something about the look of the place too. Sitting here reviewing my photos from this trip I'm appalled to discover that I didn't take a single photograph of Leek, which means I don't have a shot of this Edwardian looking shop front. Fortunately, there are plenty of pictures, and a short review/history of this remarkable little shop on the Totally, Locally, Leek website, which not only gets me off the hook, but also allows me to neatly segue into talking about this example of the sense of community that pervades the very cobblestones of the town.

The little market square is part of it, as is the way local businesses have joined together to promote each other's interests. Other places often seem to define their love of their local identity by declaring what they don't think fits in - as evidenced by the "keep Costa out of [insert town name here]" campaigns that spring up periodically***. Totally Locally Leek is more about making it easy for the general public to find and support local business, which in turn of course supports local jobs and helps prevent the high street becoming littered with the blight of empty shops. Indeed, so far as shops closing down in Leek, it seems to be the chain stores that are suffering, not the independents, which has to count as a win.

I'd walked the full length of the street, from the market square to the rather impressive war memorial - an obelisk shaped tower presented to the town in 1925 by the Nicholson family in memory of the fallen of the First World War and their son, Lieutenant Basil Lee Nicholson, who fell at Ypres - and not found a suitable camping store. There was a Millets in the throes of a closing down sale (what did I tell you about the chain stores suffering?) but nobody who could sell me a filler tube or a hosepipe.

So I turned on my heel and headed back for the market square to seek the assistance of the Tourist Information Centre which occupies one corner. The nice lady pondered my query for a second and suggested that I "try Wilco", which apparently was to be located "through the little alley next to New Look". This turned out to be good advice. The alley was indeed narrow - literally wide enough for one person to walk through, which led to a lot of  "no please, after you" politeness, but the Wilkinson store was indeed able to furnish me with a hosepipe at a ridiculously low price and I headed back to the caravan in triumph.

And what with one thing and another, I never did get back to explore the place properly. We didn't even set foot in any of the town's twenty seven or so pubs (there are five in the Market Square alone) which is seriously not like us! Still, as I said at the beginning - we'll be going back some time, so I guess you should watch this space. We never even ate lunch there - but don't worry, there will be a restaurant review, because we did eat out one evening (which again, is not really like us) so please do join me next time to find out what the Peak Weavers had to offer...

*I say I mislaid it because Mrs Snail insists that she's never touched it. I could protest that I've never taken it out of the caravan except when I was using it to fill the damn Aquaroll, and that I certainly haven't taken it out of the 'van while it's been parked up over the winter, but honestly - what would be the point?

**Clearly an exaggeration, but they were genuinely chest height. I have no idea why.

***Such as the successful campaign in Totnes I mentioned in an earlier column. Don't get me wrong, such campaigns have their place, but Totally Locally Leek is a much more positive way to go about things...