IF NOT an out-and-out euphemism - like, for example, gardening leave - the phrase "working from home" is still regarded with suspicion, as if going equipped for theft. I work from home most Thursday mornings.

The benefits - no ever-ringing telephone, no Lorelei ping of incoming e-mail - must be weighed against what is missed, chiefly the kindly colleagues who periodically look in to inquire if a cup of coffee would be nice.

Only last week, someone sent the familiar New York Times story of the chap, a medical text proof reader, who in an open-plan office had sat for five days at his computer before anyone realised that he was dead. Even then it was only the cleaner who wanted him to shift.

It couldn't happen here. Mr Chris Lloyd, who lives in the office next door, looks in every three days without fail to ensure that everything's all right. Should ever the inky trade pall, he would make a splendid warden for a sheltered housing scheme.

The morning shift completed, the At Your Service column off its knees, I usually head for the office. Last Thursday we went for lunch in Great Ayton instead.

Captain Cook country - south of Middlesbrough - Great Ayton is best known gastronomically for Petch's pies and Suggitt's celebrated ice cream. The Royal Oak has a decent name, too.

Neal Bullock and his wife Fiona opened The Cook's Room three months ago in upstairs premises opposite the green which have had several other eating out incarnations.

Like James Cook, Neal was born in Marton, Middlesbrough, and now has some connection with Great Ayton. "There is an uncanny similarity between their two journeys," says a press release from a PR firm. If not a load of Bullocks, it is something pretty akin.

Neal has never been to Australia, much less stumbled upon it while out for a sail. The good captain had probably never worked at the Glasgow Hilton, either.

Neal had started as a kitchen porter, washing up, at the Fighting Cocks at Middleton St George, discovered that he liked the trade, trained at Darlington College, had two years in Bermuda and has been head chef at Judges in Kirklevington and Chapters in Stokesley before opening a place of his own.

That it's closed Saturday lunchtimes is because he never lost his passion for Middlesbrough FC. Despite the television companies' efforts to synchronise kick-off times with peak viewing in the Philippines, it's still usually 3pm.

Thursday lunch began inauspiciously. The fish man was late; there were no mussels. That there were no mussels, meant the only fish option had disappeared.

The only genuine vegetarian choice was a caramelised pear and goats' cheese salad served as a starter (£4.25) with basil pesto and a balsamic reduction. White meat dishes contained either smoked chicken or smoked bacon. Asked about alternatives, the waitress said there was only what was on the menu.

"I'm a bit buggered aren't I," said the Boss, who employs a nice turn of phrase but would prefer that all menus were non-smoking. A proposal to adjourn proceedings to the Royal Oak was nonetheless defeated on her casting vote. It was entirely fortuitous.

The minestrone (£2.95) was fresh and fruity, manifestly home-made. The supreme of chicken on a smoked bacon risotto and with sun blush tomato dressing (£8.50) was a bird as succulent and full flavoured as can be remembered. Between chicken and risotto lay a bed of spinach, perhaps an attempt to build up some mussels. Beautifully presented, too.

She began with the caramelised pear and goats' cheese, an admirable and exceedingly attractive combination, and had finally asked if the home made gnocchi with blue cheese sauce from one dish might be married with the chicken supreme from another. They lived happily ever after.

It was during the main courses that two crucial things happened. The first was that the fish man finally arrived and received a verbal battering for his troubles, the second that Neal - an engaging sort - realised who it was sitting muttering about an unbalanced menu and rang his wife (who usually fronts house) to suggest he put his head in the oven instead.

No need. The guy really can cook, the relatively simple done exceptionally well. He'd not only been fully booked on Valentine's Day but on the following evening as well, which explained the problem next lunchtime. Only the nights are frozen.

Last Thursday there'd been no lunch bookings but 20 eating, nonetheless. All but two were female, doubtless working from home.

We finished with a top-notch chocolate tart with ice cream and with poached white peach with fresh raspberries, vanilla ice cream and a coconut biscuit.

Three course lunch for two, with very good coffee and chocolates, was £38 and abundantly worth it. Back by the fireside, there was Petch's pie for tea. Home truths from Great Ayton.

l The Cook's Room, Great Ayton, North Yorkshire (01642 724204.) Two course dinner (Wednesday-Saturday) £16.95, three courses £19.95. Lunch Wednesday-Friday and Sunday. Booking essential at night; impossible for the disabled.

INSTANT action needed, the Butterwick Hospice in Bishop Auckland is hosting an Indian banquet at the Raj in Bondgate, Bishop Auckland, from 7.30pm tonight. Tickets are £18, of which a third goes to the hospice. Tickets and details on (01388) 603003.

THE riverside area around Stockton/Thornaby now answers to Teesdale. However absurdly named, it is impressively (and expensively) transformed.

Where once men toiled hammer and tongs, now sit technology park and university campus. Where stood Gas Street and Bog Row stretch Harvard Avenue, Princes Wharf and - get this - Council of Europe Boulevard.

The Tees Barrage is home to water sports and guardian of 11 miles of clear water upstream. The canoeing course has obstacles like the Happy Eater and the Cruncher, and something called an adjustable bear trap, lest any of them happen by.

(Daddy Bear to Baby Bear: eat your porridge, son, or you'll never grow up to be adjustable.)

Next to the Barrage is the Talpore, a Beefeater pub officially on Whitewater Way and named after a steamer which once piddled and paddled thereabouts. When last we visited, in the year 2000, it was the first North-East pub in the column's experience to sell beer for more than £2.

We went again last Wednesday, fickle Valentine's at once having been replaced by Mother's Day in the promotion packs, two pub meals advertised ("subject to conditions") for £6.95.

Fish, chips and peas were singly £5.95 - served, bizarrely, in a bowl. It arrived within two minutes, a meal so desperately in need that you wanted to tell the cruelty inspector about it.

The fish was pallid, paltry and piteous, the chips limp, lukewarm and redolent of nothing more greatly than how corrugated cardboard must taste. The peas were of no consequence, the best bit the tartare sauce finally ripped from its ineffable packet by old molars. It was truly ghastly.

Like the Barrage, it was filling up - but if Teesdale is to hit targets, they must hope that there are rather more fish in the sea than this.

SPEAKING of the £2 pint, Darlington CAMRA's annual survey shows that the average price of a "standard strength" pint in the area is now £2.09 and of beers more than 4.5 per cent abv £2.18. Had beer prices risen with inflation in the past five years, an average pint would be just £1.85.

....and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what happened to the nut which was beaten up.

It was an assaulted peanut.

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