Yarbridge two

The lunchtime outing to the Yarbridge Inn noticed at reference 1 having been deemed a success, we went back a couple of days later. But rather than taking a morning walk in the woods, we went down to Yaverland, not least to buy two of the excellent rock cakes to be found there to consumption at tea time.

Then down to the beach where it was hot but breezy, and we headed towards the red cliff, although we did not make it all the way on this occasion.

I thought about taking this brick home, but BH was not keen on being seeing walking around with such a thing so I left it. Also true that, while in one piece, the brick was a bit battered. Presumably not made on the island.

I learn from reference 2 that 'Phorpres' is not the name of some subsidiary of the London Brick Company, rather a brand name reflecting the fact that this particular sort of brick is pressed no less than four times in the course of its manufacture. Why one should want to do that I have yet to work out. While I wonder this morning whether to collect bricks or to collect drain covers would be best for the year to come. With a couple of drain covers to be found at reference 4. Plenty more where they came from.

As well as the brick, there were also a variety of cute small children, some of them quite possibly new to beaches, but very pleased with their new find.

And so home and onto to the Inn, where I settled for the same crab salad as I had had previously, while BH went for salmon for a change. We were both well pleased with our choices. Noting in passing, that while the bread rolls on the first occasion had been warmed up from the freezer, this time around I had a couple of chunks of brown tin loaf warmed in the microwave. Bread clearly not the subject of the same loving attention as the crabs and fish.

I have already noticed the fake flowers. This time we had rather contrived wallpaper and a sturdy iron door, which might have been an old oven but was actually a small safe, installed at a time when this part of the building served as the town post office. Which may be connected with the fact that the place is not marked 'PH' by Ordnance Survey. Although checking back this morning, none of the houses in the town are so marked. Perhaps they only do that in real villages.

A lot of houses, in this era of celebrity chefs and television cooking programmes, find it necessary to load up one's meal with elaborate trails of brown goo of one sort or another, sweet, savoury or sour. A trap they avoided here by having the brown goo spotted onto the plates in the form of glaze, fired into the plate. Much better.

I varied my meal to the extent of taking a pink sorbet for dessert rather than chocolate brownie, while BH took ice cream. We wondered inconclusively about the recipe for sorbet, which did not look that much different from ice cream. Checking this morning, I find the difference is the omission of any form of milk: just raspberries (say), sugar, water and a dash of lemon - much the same as jam. Perhaps the looking so like ice cream is the result of whisking it up after it has been more or less frozen.

For the second half of our meal we had a young and pretty waitress, content to work on the island without aspirations to break out onto the big island. But she did say that she had found all the lockdowns rather trying. Talkative in the way of waitresses in New York State, where they seem to think that they have to talk a tip out of you, although I don't think that was the idea here at all. She was just being friendly. There being a passing allusion to such waitresses at reference 5.

Another excellent meal. We will be back next year.

PS: but not so excellent that we did not take tea and rock cakes a few hours later.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/yarbridge-one.html.

Reference 2: http://www.solwaypast.co.uk/index.php/14-brick.

Reference 3: http://www.solwaypast.co.uk/. A chap who clearly knows his bricks; a chap after mine own heart.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/no34-continued-with-drains.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/11/watertown-bars.html.