Kielder – May 2024 (continued again)

Posted on May 26, 2024 by Paul Garbett — Leave a comment

Sunday so far has been good. After breakfast we decided, having driven past it severally, to have a short walk down by Kielder Water. The weather is very different today – it had rained most of the night and more is expected. One small downside of our chosen walk was our frost encounter so far with the dreaded midges. Luckily their presence during the weekend was not totally unexpected so we were prepared and a quick application of Smidge was sufficient to protect us.

Back to the original course of the river

Once back we both needed another shower – apart from (real or imaginary) insect itchiness we managed to get quite warm on the walk since the humidity was so high and were a bit sweaty.

After a spell of quiet reading we went out for lunch. We had planned and booked this ahead as we so rarely have anything like a Sunday lunch at Sunday lunchtime and really quite fancied one. The Pheasant Inn at Stannersburn is just over 3 miles from the cottage and proved to be not only an excellent choice but very popular. I had the traditional Sunday roast beef with Yorkshires, etc. – top quality meat superbly cooked, great roast spud and passable Yorkshires. Ally opted for the dressed crab which was (a) mahoosive and (b) obviously nice enough to be dealt with very quickly. An added bonus throughout was getting into conversation with a very nice couple on the next table. Much debate about our recommendations as to where they could go after lunch given it was bucketing down! The suggestion of Howick (Earl Grey’s house – yes that one) and the sensational tearoom seemed to meet with approval.

No photos of food (sorry) and the pub photo is their own taken from the website.Whatever I can highly recommend the pub, the staff, the atmosphere and the food. Menu notes – I wanted the beef that I had but both the lamb and an enticing Mushroom Wellington were very close contenders. Ally never paused once she saw the crab offering!