Romantic cottages for two in the Peak District

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Fantastic Food at Fischer’s

This summer, to celebrate the 2012 “proud to be British’ campaign many local businesses offered real bargains of some sort; one of the most generous and most enticing offers we cam across was the £20.12 lunch offered by Fischer’s, Baslow Hall.

Beautiful gardens at Baslow Hall

The food is delicious, the gardens are lovely

Now, Fischer’s, for those of you who don’t know the area yet, is the only restaurant in Derbyshire to hold a Michelin Star; their head chef, Rupert Rowley, recently won Silver in the Taste of England category at the national Visit England Awards for Excellence 2012. The restaurant is in a beautifully restored country house surrounded by lovely gardens, in Baslow, the other side of Bakewell, about half an hour’s drive from Tom’s and Douglas’s Barns.

£20.12 lunch at Fischer's

John enjoying the pudding

We went in the summer, and loved the whole experience. The food was pretty amazing too! We have just heard from them today that it was so popular that they are going to continue the offer throughout 2013. They are now offering a special “2013” menu, available from Monday to Friday, 12 noon-1.30 pm at a cost of £20.13 for two courses, and £25.13 for three courses between 2nd January to 29th November, excluding 14th February.

Fine dining at Fischer's

Fischer’s, Baslow Hall

This is already fantastic value – but wait for it – in addition, Fischer’s are partners in our Peak District Premier Cottages Privilege Card scheme, which entitles all guests staying with us to a 10% discount on top of the very generous offer. Mention it when you book, and be sure to show them your Privilege Card on your keyring when you arrive!

Obviously, you may well decide to stretch the budget to include wine, or coffee afterwards, but you don’t need to, and will be under no (external) pressure to do so. I must say we did, and then had a very relaxing stroll round the gardens to make the whole occasion a very special one indeed.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Below is a sample menu to give you a flavour of what you might expect. Tables need to be reserved in advance by ringing them on 01246 583259 or emailing: reservations@fischers-baslowhall.co.uk.

“£20.13 Lunch”

Duck Liver Parfait
toasted brioche, Fischer’s chutney

Nasturtium Cured Salmon
tartar, pickled kohirabi, horseradish snow

Confit of Duck Leg
rosti potato, honey & orange sauce

Pan Fried Cod
roast cauliflower, curry spices & granola

Toasted Marshmallow
Haygrove strawberries, tarragon custard

Warm Chocolate Pudding
damson ice cream, caramelised hazelnuts

Two courses £20.13

Three courses £25.13

Our dishes may contain nuts, raw eggs & unpasteurised cheese.

Where to Stay? More Tip Top Tips

Parwich in the Peak District

Is there such a thing as a perfect holiday venue? Last Saturday’s Guardian Money section dedicated three pages to the top ten place to retire to, with a special emphasis on air quality, crime rate, life expectancy, good neighbourliness, health and various other aspects that not just retirees hope for; not surprisingly, the Derbyshire Dales made the Top Ten.

It’s a lovely area to live in too! And, for much the same reasons, the Derbyshire Dales is a lovely place to visit. More and more canny souls are finding this out as they happily abandon all ideas of a foreign trip abroad in favour of a ‘staycation’ (ghastly word!) in this country. Just think, no precious holiday hours wasted in crowded airport terminals, no endlessly traipsing through this queue and that to get your luggage, your passport and yourself checked, no hours in an airless cabin with your neighbour on one side coughing over you (is he going to be sick?) no customs and no foreign currency to get to grips with at the other end…and so on.

So – for the sake of convenience and familiarity we’ve plumped for the Derbyshire Dales as the area of choice for your holiday in this country. But where? Let’s narrow it down to the Peak National Park – not such a silly idea after all – it’s an area renowned for its beauty, plum in the middle of the country so within the easy reach of many people.

Having decided on the area, what kind of a holiday are you looking for? The Dales can accommodate you all, with a wealth of caravan parks on offer, farm holidays, luxury spas, hotels, B & Bs and even tipis. Obviously, there is no right or wrong; it will depend on personal choice, and the purse. Booking a carefully chosen holiday cottage for two, can be the perfect answer for many. You are creating a home from home, beholden to nobody: you have complete privacy, you can eat when you like, what you like, you go out and return whenever it suits you.

However, it’s not quite as simple as all that. There are holiday cottages and holiday cottages, and standards and expectations vary enormously. Research is crucial, but part of the fun. I’m assuming you want quiet and peaceful, but of course you may not and a bolthole in the middle of Chesterfield or Derby could be much more your style (but perhaps not if you’re reading this!). The perfect property for you may take some finding but near-perfect matches will exist and we would recommend starting with Premier Cottages ‘the best of the best’ and also Alastair Sawday (many properties are in both). Friends are another good source of recommendations, if you feel confident that their tastes are similar to yours. And the final test is TripAdvisor where you can see what other guests have thought; don’t forget that someone else’s criticism might flag up a plus point for you – ‘no fast food joints for miles around’ might be nuls points for some, would it be for you?

Is the cottages star rated? Does that matter to you? Do you need underfloor heating? Disabled access? Will they accept children? What about dogs? Are the owners on site? Having made a short list from your research, check out their websites, the atmosphere and the photos. Finally, check their availability – it’s no good getting excited if the cottage is fully booked for the next 18 months…

The advice up until now has been general and I hope helpful. Now I must acknowledge an interest, serious bias in fact. There are no doubt many others but I can say very confidently that either Tom’s or Douglas’s Barn can give you a whole week in peaceful, completely comforting surroundings, where for once your time is your own, to do with as you please rather than what your family/boss/business colleagues/accountant demands. (In fact, come to think of it, we could do with just that ourselves and if the weekend in Douglas’s Barn in September (21 to 24) doesn’t go we may do exactly that!)

I am getting more and more wistful as I write. How many of us have said, ‘Oh, if only we had the chance, I’d like us to go off all on our own for a few days, try canoeing, research our family history, go on some wonderful walks, finish writing my novel, plan our wedding, make a patchwork quilt, spend evenings at the opera, watch old movies, sort my photos, cook some lovely meals, spend all my time reading outside in the sunshine…’.

Guests in Tom’s and Douglas’s Barns have done all of these things, and more, but my list was getting too long. Interestingly, we have quite a lot of guests who choose to come on their own, and for many this is the ultimate luxury! For others the luxury is the chance to spend uninterrupted time with their spouse or partner, appreciating the chance to escape all the other demands that can come between you.

A Quiet Country Walk in Derbyshire

Super Saturday it really was! Gripping television and inspiring performances by our athletes including Jessica Ennis who comes from Sheffield. We watched entranced, together with no doubt most of Britain unable to tear ourselves away even to write a blog post (sorry) but now I have successfully wrenched myself away from the tennis doubles, having had the satisfaction of seeing Andy Murray romp through to a singles Gold medal apparently easilybeating his old rival, Roger Federer apparently (they make it look so simple…).

Our daughter Ruthie came up from London, which she reports as buzzing with excitement and a real atmosphere of goodwill and happiness whilst the roads and tube stations are pleasantly quiet and crowd free! We met her at Derby station, and before we allowed ourselves to start watching the games we stopped off at the Gate in Brassington for a delightful lunch, eaten in the sunshine in the garden almost on our own (was everybody else already watching the box?). I had Goats Cheese en Croute, with Pears and Walnut and truly delicious it was. The photos here have none of John’s expertise as I simply pressed and clicked with my mobile phone camera. without much thought of anything other than capturing the moment.

Ruthie and I decided to walk back home, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine and working off just some of the large lunch we’d enjoyed. We left John to take the car back, but he had his camera with him so he was happy about that. Those of you who know the walk will recognise our route, turn left out of the pub, and turn right when if you go straight on it takes you to Bradbourne…

Having turned right and rounded the bend at the top of the hill, we saw a herd of 25 cows and heifers on the lane, munching happily on the verges. We could see no open gates so hoped that by walking gently on we might be able to encourage them to return to the field they’d obviously escaped from.However, they set resolutely off at a spanking pace and we soon realised they’d need to be intercepted before they got into the B5056. The B5056 may only be a B road but it carries a fair amount of traffic bound for Longcliffe and Bakewell, and the lane meets it between two blind corners.

We rang a local farmer, who didn’t know whose cows they were but said he’d ring around. We waited anxiously but nothing happened, and becoming seriously concerned we rang the non-emergency police number. Waiting for them we climbed over gates onto a field at the side of the road and walked briskly along hoping we’d be able to get back onto the lane in front of the cows and at least encourage them away from the main road. At this stage two men rushed up in a truck and between them (90% and us10%) we managed to get the herd into a spare field where they propped up an gate against the entrance.

Feeling pleased with our little adventure we carried on down the now cow-free lane to the B5056 where we waited for the non-emergency police person to turn up. Having given them my name we did not fancy them turning up to view a field of happily grazing cows looking quite at home albeit in a strange field – but they weren’t to know that – and would no doubt have put my name down at the top of their list of nut cases who make fake calls to the police!

They did turn up, forty minutes after we rang. The action was all over by then, but they were very appreciative, probably only realising then that there could have been real mayhem had the cows got onto the road (on the bend between two blind corners) with cars piling up against them from both directions.
thanked us and drove off up the lane to inspect.

Then the heavens opened! It is the first time in all the years we have been walking to the Gate that we have got wet, but we certainly got rained upon this time. However, it wasn’t cold and buoyed up by our adventure, the good lunch and fresh air it didn’t matter, and John was at home with warm towels on the Aga, tea and cake (and the Olympics) at the ready.

The icing on the cake, so to speak, was our friend Aida from next door, who popped in later with a tray of the most interesting looking mushrooms she’d bought as a present for us from Wirksworth Farmers’ Market. Conceding that they were photographically beautiful, John wasn’t sure about the wisdom of eating them until Ruthie concocted the most delicious and delicately flavoured pasta and mushrooms for supper from our River Cafe cookbook which he ate with the greatest of gusto and absolutely no restraint whatsoever and lives to tell the tale.

And now we settle down snugly and totally inert to watch Hussain and others stretch themselves physically. Perfection!

‘All Passion Spent’

Today, Tuesday 24th July, has been wondrously hot, the hottest day of the year, apparently.

I tore myself away from the computer (EQM re-assessment being an urgent priority, went outside complete with sun hat, Factor 50, and ‘All Passion Spent’ by Vita Sackville-West, my book for our book club meeting tomorrow night. I settled on one of our lovely wooden ‘loungers’. The air was still, the sun shone, the odd bee buzzed and in the far-off background one could hear our local farmers, frantically getting in their silage which has been such a worry over the last few wet weeks.

I lasted all of ten minutes – someone brought up in the tropics who used to play tennis in the midday tropical sun… It was too hot! Too hot to read, too hot to even think of taking a photograph. It was such a relief to come back into the cool of our lovely old house with its thick stone walls which mean it is never too hot, never too cold.

So back I went to the computer. And now rather late in the day I must tackle my second read of the book which, incidentally, I am loving. (I will report back after book club.)

Keep Calm and Carry on Eating Cake

Tom's & Douglas's Barns Cherry Bakewell

In spite of the fact we get very few people actually commenting on the blog friends, guests and often complete strangers will email us, or tell me on Facebook or at parties how much they actually enjoy reading our blog. They do say they enjoy John’s photos too which doesn’t surprise me. I really enjoy writing the posts, just wish I had more time to indulge my weakness! It feels just like keeping in touch with friends, and is a wonderful pastime and stress reliever.

Some nice soul emailed this today: I regularly keep up to date with your blogs; they are a joy to read and much more cheerful than the news, national or international.

Potentially much more cheerful than the news or indeed our blogs, tonight I have a newish recipe which i have tried out twice now and which has received the thumbs up from guests, family and friends. It is a variation on the permanent favourite Fake Bakewell. Perhaps we ought to call it a Cherry Fakewell?

I asked John to take a photo, but he wasn’t quite quick enough before most of the last batch had disappeared, hence the rather sparse display on the plate.

Tom’s & Douglas’s Barns
Cherry Special Bakewell Tart

If you think of the basic recipe as being for every egg 4 oz of ground rice/ground almonds, sugar and butter you can make the size you want. I always make this in a large Aga baking tray so it is the basic recipe times four. For normal family use one would probably do half, i.e. 2 eggs etc.

Recipe:
1lb good (Stork) soft margarine (or butter if you’re feeling expansive)
I lb sugar
*1/2lb ground rice
*1/2lb ground almonds
4 eggs, lightly beaten
Almond extract
Flaked almonds
Fresh stoned cherries, or one tin of cherries, well drained
Short crust pastry (either a bought block or made with 1lb flour)
About half jar jam (sharpish like raspberry, blackcurrant or homemade plum) For the Cherry Bakewell I used cherry jam and some raspberry, as the latter seems a bit softer and possibly moister.

Method:
Roll out the pastry and line the tin you are using. Spread the jam over, and cherries if using. Ideally put the tin (layered with cherries and jam) into the fridge but I can’t say I always – or actually ever – do!

Melt the butter/marge and sugar in a saucepan on a lowish heat, stirring occasionally to ensure the sugar completely dissolves into the melted butter. Add the ground rice/almonds and leaving it on the heat, stir for a minute or two until it is all well mixed and smooth. Take off the heat, and when it is a bit cooler, stir in the beaten eggs and a generous teaspoon and a bit (to size and taste) of almond extract.

Pour the mixture onto the pastry. Sprinkle generously with flaked almonds and pop it into the oven. In the Aga (2-door) I put it on the bottom grid of the top oven with the cold plain sheet over, for about 25-30 minutes+ until it is firm, looks golden and the almonds nicely coloured.

*It is perfectly delicious – and I rather think better – made with just ground rice and no ground almonds at all, but I often do half and half. I’ve never (yet) done it with all ground almonds.

It’s the Diamond Jubilee!

The Royal Barge, taken from the telly

I should have added the recession as well, but did not want to let that cloud the atmosphere; however, in fact it almost helps us appreciate all the more what we do have to celebrate.

As I post this we are watching the pageant on the river, on the television. What a wonderful sight, and what a fantastic experience for those actually there. The sense of excitement, rejoicing and – dare I say it? – patriotism is a welcome contrast to all the public gloom and doom which daily surrounds us and about which, as individuals, there is little overall that we can do to improve the bigger picture.

Sneaking a little personal confession in here, don’t tell anyone but I remember the coronation, all of 60 years ago!!! I know as a child then, in 1953, if I had heard that someone had even been alive 60 years previously I would have been horror struck at how incredibly ancient they must be, and wonder that anyone so old could still be alive. But 60 years later I don’t actually feel any older inside although perhaps the looks have aged a bit…

My 'Canaletto', taken off the TV

As a (very!) young girl at boarding school in Bulawayo (now Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia) we were filled with the excitement of the coronation itself but also the wonder of such a young woman having to take on such a demanding role, for life.The acknowledgement that it was a major event was further reinforced by an amazing wonder: the nuns at our school (not known for their indulgent attitude to their pupils) provided us each with a bottle of CocaCola at lunch time! We had no television to marvel at, I presume we all listened to the service on the school wireless; to us youngsters, the coke represented the significance of it all.

I do remember a great sense of loyalty and excitement, and protectiveness even – she was such a young woman, she’d been in Africa, our continent, when she had heard of the death of her father the previous year; I remember a lot of excited talk, in the country so many thousand of miles away from Britain, about the ushering in of a new Elizabethan era.

Another image captured off the TV!

Looking back it has been in many ways a troubled era but the queen has weathered it with us and I think we all in this country owe the queen such a lot for what we normally all take for granted: like a parent she is always there, doing her best tirelessly and forever, with no cheerful prospect of retiring to egg her on – just her own sense of duty and commitment. Can you imagine if instead of her we had a president, fighting to get elected, then looking always to be re-elected, worrying about the polls and trying to please the current ‘Murdochs’ and other media and financial influencers? It would not be the same.

Anyway, enough of the ‘politics’ (not that for me it seems like that). Having not quite followed the wise advice of my father-in-law to his son upon going to university to avoid public statements about religion, politics or women we now move firmly onto the firmer ground of Parwich. Parwich is doing the weekend with its usual village style. The best thing I can do is give you this link to the Parwich Blog rather than churn out all the dates and times.

Derbyshire Open Arts weekend

Ruby Hickmott, at work in her studio

Until Monday night when we have the lighting of the flares on Parwich Hill the weekend is a fairly normal one except that it is also the Derbyshire Open Arts weekend.

There will be artists opening their studios all over Derbyshire but this year we only have two open here; however, there will be lots of pictures to look at and we can most sincerely recommend going to both if you are anywhere near Parwich. For more information about opening hours and addresses see this link to our village blog – the fount of all information!

Gill Radcliffe, by one of her own paintings

There are some other local artists who will also have a few pictures hanging in Gill’s studio.

While I have been at the computer, writing, John has actually been out and visited both studios and returned with – no, not a painting this time – the two photos here, just to give you a taster.

Powerless in Parwich

Two weeks ago we were watching our guests slowly attain a deep tan while we all sat in the sunshine, barbecued outside and strolled about in light summer clothing. The flowers bloomed, the grass grew, the birds sang fit to burst. Unfortunately it was all too good to last.

We heard unimpressive rumours about snow but didn’t believe them for a minute until on Wednesday morning we woke to see the world had gone white overnight and snow continued to fall most of the day. Heavy winds blew, trees fell, power lines went down and we experienced a series of temporary power cuts followed by a very permanent one which eventually lasted from about 9.30am until half past midnight.

It was all strangely liberating. You realise how much of our day to day activity depends on electricity, from turning on a light, making a cup of tea to sending an email. Apart from the Aga and our log burner we had no light, heat or telephone and no communication with the outside world apart from, as we did discover eventually, a very old non-digital telephone which meant we were able to phone out for updates about the situation which changed alarmingly each time we rang.

One becomes strangely resourceful. It was fun to see how we could, as it were, beat the system. We could have cheated too, with the shop and pub being open but in the circumstances it felt better keeping warm indoors. I tidied my desk; our guests read, played scrabble, did the crossword and one happily managed a lot of knitting without the sense of guilt she would normally have experienced knitting during the day.

Of course, we felt responsible. We worried most about our guests in Douglas’s Barn, which is all-electric. Fortunately it is very well-insulated and kept warm all day; however, a warm bath or even a cup of coffee became an unattainable luxury. John and I kept them supplied with hot water in a thermos and mugs of soup at lunch time. Our Tom’s Barn guests were much more fortunate: they were able to keep themselves as snug as the proverbial bug with the log burner and could boil up pans of water to make hot drinks. They could have baked potatoes had they wanted to or in fact fried themselves eggs and bacon.

The only trouble was, no one knew how long it was going to last. Come the evening, as darkness began to fall, suddenly it threatened to become less than funny. We checked torch batteries, gathered up dozen of candles and tea light, stoked the log burner and invited our guests in for a candle-lit supper. I meanwhile scuttled about, making a casserole with some lamb steaks we most fortunately had in the fridge and all the lovely Riverford organic vegetables which we most fortunately also had. Some generous measures of red wine to help it along its way and into the by now worryingly cooling Aga the whole thing went!

And what a fun evening we had! The six of us talked and laughed our way through the evening and it was well past midnight before any of us thought of moving. As they said their goodbyes and stepped outside, suddenly the world came alive – all the light came on, fridge and freezer buzzed and whirred and life suddenly and rather disappointingly returned to normal. It hadn’t actually, as it turned out. My computer had been badly affected so i spent the whole of the next day still without access to the internet and with the digital phones still not working. It was 6pm last night before, thanks to Dove Computers in Ashbourne, life truly returned to normal.

For once, I had a very genuine reason for not having written a blog post.

Warm Weather Prognosis from Tom’s & Douglas’s Barns

What is the secret? You’ll have to wait and see how effective it turns out to be…

The icy conditions persist. We have had no snow recently, and none the night before last in spite of warnings and dire predictions of what was to befall. However, the old snow is still with us. Each day it starts to thaw slowly, then each night freezes hard again so conditions underfoot tend to be perilous and the drive not much better but everyone seems to be getting in and out so it’s obviously not that awful.

John and i have not exactly been skipping abut on the snow (unlike the lovely Springer Tweed whose photos we shared on Facebook) the other day but we are certainly teetering out a little more confidently, all thanks to some very effective Ice and Snow Grippers that daughter Ruthie gave us both for Christmas. There are various types around but these are the best we’ve seen, metal studs fitted onto a rubberised thing that slips over your boot or shoe (and very easy to put on and take off).

So impressed with how effective they are we have today ordered a couple of pairs for each barn so that our guests will be able to use them while they were here. And we’ve also bought some traction treads to put under any car or delivery van that gets stuck round us as I did the other day in the doctors’ surgery. To digress for the moment I would like to add a public thanks to Peter R and his granddaughter, Amy, who pushed me out of the frozen mounds of snow I was caught in on the surgery car park. Without them I might be there still.

So now we await the arrival of our snow aids. I’m not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed if it means that as soon as they arrive we find absolutely no need for them at all.

Snowy Update from Tom’s and Douglas’s Barns

Tweed, dancing for joy in the snow!

Just a quick post after a day of snow. Last winter the snow came with a vengeance at the end of November; this year we have had to wait until early February so it seems more exciting – there isn’t that slight niggling worry that it might be going to last for four months or so, and it has come at the weekend so the children and actually many adults could toboggan and not too many souls were worrying about getting to work.

Sadly our Douglas’s Barn’s  guests had decided, very wisely as it turns out, to leave yesterday after they had seen the snow forecasts as they had commitments on Monday that they could not risk missing.

People are getting in and out of the village but without a heavy duty 4×4 it would be wiser to stay safely put!


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