St Cuthbert’s Way Trip – Day 0 (Evening Meal)

St. Cuthbert’s Way – Resources and Index

Before I start writing this, I accept that it’s quite tame content, but it has gotten going quite a bit today (I’m writing this after finishing the first day’s walk) so bear with me!

I decided to lead Steve, Gordon and Susanna on a little meander around Melrose, including walking by the abbey and over the chain bridge that I’d visited earlier in the day. Susanna is fascinated by history, Steve likes to see the local area and Gordon likes to complain about something. It’s all quite charming really when this little group gets together. We also took the opportunity to see where our St Cuthbert’s Way walk would be starting from as it wasn’t entirely clear to us.

The evening meal was where we were all staying, at Burts hotel. I hadn’t quite worked out what beers they had earlier, but I can now reveal (as if anyone’s interested….) that they were Pale Armadillo from Tempest Brewing, Foxy Blonde from Born in the Borders Brewery and Landlord from Timothy Taylor’s. Nothing particularly exciting for me to be honest, but at least there was a choice being offered.

I tried two more of the beers, as I’d had the Timothy Taylor’s Landlord before we went for the evening meal. Temperature was fine and they were well-kept, with the blonde beer being not too bad.

For anyone interested (I’m not sure who if I’m being honest) the menu. The prices were a little punchy, but the pub was well staffed and so I imagine their overheads are quite high.

I won’t go full food review, but the fish and chips was fine, although the peas were coated in butter or something similar to an excessive degree and the underside of the batter was moist. But I was delighted to see a big pot of tartare sauce and so I was entirely appeased. Service was attentive and the environment was fine, so all sufficiently lovely. The portion size was big and the haddock itself was tender and had a pleasant taste, so I was pleased.

The conversation at the table was excessive in nature I thought (by that I mean on reflection I can’t use nearly all of the quotes I had carefully wrote down), but that happens when Gordon gets going. He gave his thoughts on the ladies and looked quite displeased when Susanna mentioned his habits with women were perhaps not always as they should be. Is that saying too much? It probably is a bit much for this blog though, veering on the complaints territory from Gordon. I would say though that Gordon said “the problem is that she gave me a beetroot”. I urge everyone from Hike Norfolk to listen to this beetroot story. The things Gordon can do with a beetroot are quite amazing.

Private conversation must be kept private of course, although I would mention that Gordon did say “four bedrooms is not a big house”, which I thought was quite decadent of him.

And with that, the day came to a close, quite a long day for everyone to get to the same place, but it all went well with no disasters. We knew that breakfast started at 08:00, so it was a relatively early start as we had to pick up a lunch for the day as well. I’d now better start writing up day one of the walk, otherwise I’ll get permanently behind…..