A Walking Weekend in Wiltshire

Wiltshire has some beautiful countryside crisscrossed by a whole variety of walks. I prefer my walks circular, so we planned them accordingly. I particularly recommend Cherhill, where the views over the surrounding area can be stunning, even when it's foggy, as it was when we were there, having the monument emerge out of the gloom was pretty impressive.

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Well, this was a walking weekend, so we did a lot of circular walks. Other than that, it's the car or nothing.

Well, our hosts were friendly hosts, but the rest of it…

Room: If you're going to make a twin bed into a double by pushing them together, then at least have both singles be the same height and width! Such disparity can't be disguised with a duvet, either. The room was on the second floor of the accommodation block in the converted roof space, so the sloping roof on either side made it feel smaller. It's also obviously usually used as a family room - there were two single beds crammed in there too, with a free-standing metal clothes-rail-type of wardrobe thing and some chests of drawers, all of which made it feel a bit like a furniture graveyard.

There was a nice bathroom. It had nice fittings and good tile, but oddly jarring were the cheap wooden loo roll holder and soap dish things and the slight scarcity of loo roll – and they had that cheap pink stuff, too.

As for the whole sleep thing, well, mine was firm enough and his was lumpy and saggy. It was too hot, whereas it had been cold earlier. The window made for noisy rain and was on the main road side, with heavy traffic from time to time, even at 3am, so all in all, it was not a restful night. Finally, having then slept, morning came, which led to discovering that the shower in the bathroom was nigh on useless, with no flow at all. If you moved the handle down too far, it cut out completely. I settled for washing my hair just about and gave up.

Breakfast: After the glass of OJ that was already on the table, I chose the vegetarian option, to skip on the bacon and sausage. My egg choice wasn't asked for, and too late, there it was, fried, not scrambled. I handed it over to hubby. The meat bits (hubby had 'em - overcooked) were replaced by a few mushrooms, and as for the mutual bits, the baked beans were cold, there was one tomato, and that was it - distinctly meager. The toast, white, at least was warm, but the only options were jam and marmalade, no honey or marmite, butter, or margarine. The best bit of my breakfast was the mini-box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes! Not exactly impressive. Even the coffee was average, not the cafetiere promised.

So, we packed up and off we went. It was £116 for 1 night and all of the above, which was fairly reasonable, I suppose. And the staff was nice. It's just that, for every good thing, there was always a BUT to go with it. It left you feeling vaguely dissatisfied really. It’s a good thing that wasn't the last note we left the weekend on.

Initially, the restaurant appeared empty, but that turned out to be because the other diners were in the bar having drinks beforehand, which we did too. However, due to being "between menus," it was the specials on the board or the bar menu, which, you've guessed it, didn't include the things I'd been wanting to eat. It was not a good way to make me a happy bunny, so that was a big black mark already, and the remaining choices were a little limited for the diet conscious. Grrrrrrr. So, we chose as best we could, with me sulking a little in the meantime.

Ushered through, starters arrived swiftly. My moules marinieres were very good, as in, the mussels themselves, which were small and juicy. The sauce was okay, but a bit too salty, so much so as to stop you drinking it as soup afterwards. The warm ciabatta roll seemed appealing, but was, in reality, rather chewy, so dipping it in the soup was a necessity rather than a pleasure. Hubby's brandy-devilled kidneys on toast was much better, though the kidneys could have been more tender, and the plate it was on was so small that just eating it tended to make things fall off the side, making it messy.

The bottle of Fitou was nice enough but of indeterminate origin or vintage. Oh, and it arrived open and we weren't asked to taste it - it was just poured into both glasses regardless.

No sooner had the starters vanished than the mains appeared - far too fast. Hubby had steak in a stilton sauce, which is not a name that does justice to the pave de rumsteak cut it actually was, and it was also rare as requested, with a very delicate stilton-flavoured sauce - he definitely won. It turned out to be the highlight of the meal. My duck breast in a blackcurrant and aniseed sauce was tasty enough, but should have been pink in the middle and was a little chewy. I'm fairly sure they forgot to put the aniseed in altogether. The skin-on boiled potatoes were nice enough, but the veggies (carrots/broccoli/cauliflower) were overcooked and the ratatouille was courgette mush - not pleasant for a girl who loves her veggies.

Luckily, we'd not ordered desert in advance, which enforced a delay on proceedings. There was a limited choice, but then I never can decide, so that's not always a bad thing. We ordered three - a pleasant enough hot apple pie and ice cream; the chocolate pot, an acceptable chocolate mousse in an espresso cup; and the fruits-of-the-forest cheesecake, which was nice, but the fruit on top hadn't been out of the freezer long and the whole lot might have been in there - hard to tell.

We skipped on coffee and headed to the bar instead, where adding Tia Maria to my Guinness made a nice, final drink into a lovely nightcap.

This place is in the CAMRA guide and had been recommended, so as a precaution, we booked a table the night before. It’s a good thing we did. It was busy and it's not a big place. There's the pub proper; a nonsmoking restaurant room next door, which isn't as nice; and pub cosy, so we asked to move from one to the other. First off, they had several beers on tap including two guest beers from Bath Ales - Gem and Festivity. The Festivity, a rum porter at 5%, was to die for! I have to admit to not sampling any of the others - *grin*.

We sat, sipping our pints and contemplating the menu. There's a Sunday menu – three courses for £13.50. There's a specials’ board, a mussels’ board, a takeaway curry board… and I think that'll do! It all sounded fab, and most of the stuff we chose was on the specials’ board, those apart from my main course.

So, to start, we had nice chunks of bread and butter. Hubby had a warm chorizo and black-pudding salad with dressing, and I had the locally smoked duck breast with lime-and-mango salsa. Both of these were great. The duck was everything the duck the night before should have been: tasty, slightly pink in the middle, and a tad more generous! The salsa went with it just right. Hubby's salad was equally lovely, warm being good at this time of year, and the ingredients were nice and warming. A VERY good start...

A suitable while later, it's onto the mains. If appearances count, this was going to be great. Hubby has pheasant with a parsnip, celeriac, and pancetta mash (all in a prettily layered tower) and redcurrant gravy. I think I recall all that right. It was perfect Sunday-lunch fodder perfectly done. Mine was a large pan-fried swordfish steak on citrus couscous with piri-piri butter. Wow. The piri piri had a great little kick, the couscous was light and citrusy, and the fish was tasty and juicy… in fact, the whole thing was lovely. And, again, the portions were quite generous without being huge.

Now it’s time for dessert. Well, it would be rude not to partake. Hubby had the lemon sponge and custard, where the sponge may have been a little dry, but the custard sorted that out. I had vanilla poached pears with toffee sauce - the pears were tender and juicy without being mush and the sauce was yummy, all without being too overfilling. Marvellous.

Really, it was the best meal we've had in as long as we can remember, with good beer, a good atmosphere, everything…

We got a hold of a small-scale map for the area and did a couple of circular-style walks (I hate to go back on myself).

The first walk was a 2-hour circular walk in muddy snow, which was nice as long as views aren't what you're after and walking in a cloud is. It was quite nice actually. The last half-hour was verging on unpleasant as the snow became a relentless, unremitting sting your face rain and dusk arrived.

Our second walk we started in Colstone and did a big circle taking in the hill at Cherhill. Initially, it was cloudy and foggy, with no sign of the fabulous views there. The monument was invisible until all of a sudden it loomed out of the gloom in a rather eerie fashion. By the time we came down, things had cleared up, which is just typical! It was still an enjoyable walk, though, perfect for working up an appetite for lunch.