Mixed and matched

MAYBE it was the dead cactus in the corner of the register office, or that the office itself was housed in the sort of building more usually commandeered as the staff room of some inner-city secondary modern, which convinced the lady of this house that our wedding was unlikely to make the centre pages of Hello! It didn’t even make a paragraph in the Echo, come to think, not even a News of the North.

Weddings these days are altogether more elaborate affairs, and consequently a great deal more expensive.

Hoteliers the land over urge their MPs to demand a return to old-time morality, to troth if not to plight, and to place broomstick jumping on a similar footing to fox hunting.

The last time we’d tried to take lunch at Gisborough Hall, indeed, all concerned seemed so sacklessly head over heels with the happy couple that all other customers were ignored.

Finally, a young man, by no means the best man, stuck his head over the bar to announce that the chef was “very busy” and that, in any case, they stopped serving at 2pm. The protest that it was still just 20 past one fell upon deaf ears – but all that was five years ago. This time we’d booked Sunday lunch, described on the board outside as “traditional”.

As its name suggests but its spelling may not, Gisborough Hall is just outside Guisborough, in east Cleveland.

Lord Gisborough, the 81-year-old third Baron, not only lives nearby but was at one time said periodically to play the grand piano there. In the Second World War it was an old people’s home; in 2002 it re-opened as a 71-bedroom hotel after an £8m facelift.

Though a sign at the bottom of the drive indicated a wedding, they appeared to have been stood up.

It’s imposing, undoubtedly, though we were disappointed that the handsome fireplaces remained unwarmed.

The register office bride (circa 1978) wondered if they’d mind, in the circumstances, if we took a few logs back home in the boot.

The beer range was chilling, too. In the absence of anything cask conditioned, and in the presence of Worthington Creamflow, we ordered a bottle of Newcastle Brown. It was £3.95.

The Boss’s gin and tonic was £5.80. She asked for tap water thereafter, and was cheerfully given it.

A main course was £9.50, threecourse Sunday lunch with coffee and truffles £18.95. Before anyone suppose that we had been led still further down the bridal path it should be stressed that we considered it not only to be good value but exactly what it said on the label. It was properly traditional.

The restaurant was lovely, a seat by the rose garden (and by the radiator), proper napiery, attentive service. The “vegetable broth” was almost disconcertingly red, a sort of mini-strone, but otherwise fine. Good bread. The Boss, Mrs Spratt, equally enjoyed her gravadlax.

Main courses embraced three roasts, sea bass and a vegetarian option with baked eggs and other things forgotten. The pork was thick and succulent – a meaty cut, with little risk of stating the obvious – sourced from Manor House Farm, which, presumably, is nearby. The vegetables were simple, carefully cooked, plentiful.

The sea bass came with saute potatoes, braised fennel and a saffron cream sauce. “Delicious,” said Mrs Spratt.

She finished with creme brulee and biscotti, the old man with a lovely vanilla cheesecake with plum compote and a wholly indiscernible “mulled wine sauce” and – as befits the master of the house – with three of the four truffles.

As together we remarked on the recent pearl anniversary of the showdown at Dead Cactus Gulch, we’d happily do it all again.

■ Gisborough Hall, Guisborough, 01287-634533. No problem for the disabled – and tonight, coincidentally, there’s a wedding open evening at the hotel between 6-8pm.

IT was also coincidental that we’d been in Guisborough the day previously, lunch at Pinchinthorpe Hall before the match between Guisborough Town and North Shields.

Pinchinthorpe’s a couple of miles out, on the road to Great Ayton. It had been the overflow, five years previously, when Gisborough Hall left us in the lurch.

A year later it had been reviewed by the esteemed editor of the Darlington & Stockton Times, threecourse meal with a glass of wine or a half of beer for £7.95.

The approving cutting is still framed in the gent’s, or thereabouts.

“I am happy to report that it is the best value since Alaska changed hands for a dollar,” wrote Mr Malcolm Warne, though at that time few had heard of in-for-a-penny Palin.

Pinchinthorpe Hall’s best feature, however, is that for the past ten years it’s been home to the North Yorkshire Brewery – and on this occasion the ale proved altogether better than the food.

We took a wrong turn. “Are you here for the wedding?” asked a waiter before concluding upon cursory inspection that it were unlikely and directing us towards the bistro instead.

It’s stone floored, a bit chilly, the brewery visible out the back. Two courses, a glass of wine or pint of beer was £10.95 – though simple dishes like steak and mushroom pie were up to £3 extra.

Two chaps wandered past in flamboyant waistcoats. Perhaps they were here for the wedding; perhaps they were joint-head waiter.

The menu’s short. The artichoke soup was different, though from what is rather more difficult to say. The rabbit casserole offered enough meat to feed a spuggie on a punishment diet, the sauce seemed to me to be embittered.

A football colleague, it is fair to say, offered a dissenting view.

The beer’s great, a pint of Prior’s Best and a pint of Flying Herbert, the only downside that it’s around £3 a pint – absurdly expensive for something brewed a short stagger away.

Still, we toasted the bride and groom, wherever they may have been – and concluded that that’s enough marriage lines for now.

FISH and chips, come to think, may themselves be supposed a marriage made in heaven – certainly as offered by Colman’s celebrated emporium in the South Shields’ curry quarter.

We reported as much following a visit in May. The sun had shone, perhaps for the last time this year, We’d had the seafood platter – substantial portions of battered cod, haddock and plaice, plus a salmon and dill fishcake, a Maryland crab cake, scampi, skate wing, calamari, Maris Piper chips and peas. It was, said the column, the biggest meal encountered outside a Desperate Dan cartoon.

Colman’s managing director Richard Ord served the same things to celebrity chefs Gary Rhodes and Brian Turner and consequently was named last week as “Britain’s Food Hero” in the UKTV Food series. They won £40,000. Heroic indeed.

…and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you call a very small cat which joins the St John Ambulance Brigade.

A first-aid kit, of course.