Toll Tales...

Just learnt a new phrase from a Cartford resident: The Cartford rush-hour. It involves the massed ranks of vehicles (well, a dozen anyway) queueing to cross the bridge at six-fifty-five am – minutes before the toll bridge's custodian comes on duty.

A cautious spring...

These days everybody knows that St Valentine's is the birds' wedding day, but it wasn't always so. Apparently this custom travelled up from Sussex (where, I'm told, they'll believe owt). All we adolescent country lads knew about St Valentines day was that it was the unofficial start of spring, a season that invariably made our pimples shine more brightly.

Well, given a bit of imagination, last weekend was spring-like. The sun warmed our faces, the first celandines shone like gold coins along the wayside, and morning bore hints of a dawn chorus around the Cartford. As yet the principal players have been the robin, the wren and the bluetit. The real heavyweight songsters, thrush and blackbird, will join in and the chorus will swell toward its climax around the beginning of May. Meanwhile, the geese are heading north to their Scandinavian breeding grounds, along with the fieldfares and redwings. Within weeks the caravanners will arrive, and the first swallows will be swooping under Cartford bridge.

But don't shed the long johns yet.

Bonny Bowland...

The view of the Bowland Fells from the Cartford Inn dining room is magnificent. On a clear day, from left to right, you can scan Clougha Pike (behind that stand of feathery poplars), climbing to Grit Fell and Ward's Stone (at 1840 feet the highest point in Bowland, with a wind-blasted summit as remote as the surface of the moon). To the right and closer to home are Hazelhurst, Holme House, Fairsnape and Parlick. The ancient Trough of Bowland road – the last illusion of freedom for the Pendle witches on their way to trial and execution in Lancaster - winds between the two ranges. Crouching in the lee of Fairsnape is the Bleasdale Bronze Age circle, constructed over 3000 years ago, its origins shrouded in mystery.

Beyond lie miles of wilderness, jutting crags and deep, seductive bog. Fiendsdale, Castle of Cold Comfort and Dead Man's Stake Clough roll off the tongue but can be unsettling on a solitary ramble with only the mist and the weeping curlew for company. Wolfhole Crag's ornately figured rocks were carved by unknown hands - or maybe no hands at all. The Whitendale Hanging Stones mark the exact centre of the British Isles, and Brennand Tarn, windswept and secretive, is said to protect a legendary treasure casted into its depths by the monks of Whalley Abbey as they fled the attentions of the Henry the Eighth.

Tempted? It's only half an hour away from the comfort of the Cartford, but you'll need your boots, map and compass - and maybe a stick from the Cartford collection.

Pampered...

January 25. 

Outside, the snow was piling up. Indoors, the seasonal bills were doing the same. We sighed. What we needed was some quality pampering at affordable rates – and we knew the very place.

Despite the weather the Cartford Inn was busy as we stamped the snow from our shoes and walked to the bar, but our welcome was as warm and unhurried as ever. Ushered to our chosen corner within hand-warming distance of the famous log fire, we savoured our Pinot Grigio and fell under the 'just relax now and leave it all to us' spell that the Cartford evokes. After much sipping and debate we made a leisurely start, sharing the olive mix and the salmon fishcakes in lemon butter. Across the way a family reunion party spanning three generations were taking time to catch up on events between courses. Another party, a dozen strong, arrived amongst consternation and cries of, 'I thought you'd booked the table,' and, 'No, you said you'd do it.' They were settled down and served with drinks whilst the Cartford team unobtrusively rearranged the furniture and conjured up a table for twelve.

Just for once I spurned my habitual favourites and chose the fresh hake korma with poppadums, mango chutney and minted yogurt (exotic stuff by my standards.) The delicacy of the curry complemented rather than obscured the hake's flavour. It was delicious, but not, Patty claimed, as delicious as her roasted breast of Goosnargh chicken with wild mushrooms and a delectable Lillet cream sauce.We exchanged forkfuls and agreed to call it a draw. But what was Lillet? Simple country lad that I am I had to enquire of the ever-obliging staff. It's a French aperitif wine.

During that blissful pause between main course and much-anticipated pudding, we strolled into the big riverside room to greet a couple of friends. Beyond the picture windows great curtains of snow swirled and drifted along the banks of the Wyre only feet away. Thinking about our walk home, I weighed up the clump of walking sticks in a corner, crafted and offered for sale by a local farmer. Not for the first time I pondered how much they resembled my fellow diners. There was the sturdy, no nonsense, agricultural type, and the smooth, sophisticated city street version. And there was the tall, slightly stooped and careworn model, the very image of a country writer with daughters. And that thin-as-a-wand, flexible one at the back. Who did that remind me of? Could it be Julie in Miss Whiplash mode? Steady Benson. You're curdling your Talisker.

An hour later, living on the memory of those bumper helpings of orange-spiced fig cheesecake with home-made pistachio ice cream, I started to waddle up the snowy hill like Fat King Wenceslas, Page Patty walking in my footprints. A car slid to a halt. It was Patrick in the Beaumemobile. Would we like a lift home? Now that's what I call pampering.

A view from the Cartford bar...

Setting aside political disasters and tragedies, it's been a great month for fun. An 18^th century writer called Francis Hutcheson once claimed, 'That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.' I reckon he must have been referring to the chap who introduced horse meat into supermarket burgers. I haven't seen so much hilarity for years, nor heard such a variety of dreadful puns. If Cameron had the sense to claim the credit he'd romp away with the next election.

Gallic thigh and seafood pie ...

One swing of the Cartford Inn's door was all it took to transport us from a dark, dripping, rainswept December night to a festive haven of subdued light and soft music. Ari, fresh from another term at Uni and apparently still growing, welcomed us with a smile that sparked like the famous Cartford log fire. In our chosen corner we sipped Pino Grigio and perused the menu. I make a notable pea and ham soup myself but could the Cartford kitchen team really incorporate black pudding and soft-poached egg into that traditional recipe? They could and did – with gratifying results. All around us the decorations reflected the candles' glow in gold and scarlet. Julie approached at speed, wearing her welcoming grin and scary spectacles as she prepared the tables for a big party.

The seafood pie is not for the faint-hearted or the dietary fanatical, but for a hungry man with a liking for rich flavours it was a culinary treat! Every forkful was savoured. 'I'll have a blue Christmas,' warbled Johnny Cash in the background. The candle on our table flickered momentarily, throwing Patty's face into warm relief. I raised my Talisker glass and watched the firelight dance in its honeyed depths. Mr Cash's Christmas may have been blue but ours was looking rosier by the minute.

Eventually – and what an elastic-sided word that can be when dining at the Cartford - we prepared to tackle the north face of Cartford Brow. Patrick offered to drive us home.  As we climbed in we caught a distinct flash of sturdy Gallic thigh. Fresh from a night in the hot kitchen wearing his shorts, Patrick appeared to be, as they nearly say in Pilling, 'sans culottes'. As a simple Fylde country lad I viewed the proximity of a trouserless French hotelier with mixed feelings but it didn't half bring a gleam to Patty's eye.

Lunar Lambing...

If you'd been in the Cartford Inn on January 19 you might have heard this intellectual argument based on my daughter Kate's farm in far away South Wales. Despite the scientific accuracy of the ewes' impregnation, (if you don't know, better not to ask) the first lambs have been appearing several days early. The family went into conference. They hadn't taken January's new moon into account. New moon and full moon, apparently, can affect gestation periods and the timing of births.

I explained this theory to the Cartford's Friday night brains trust. They sneered. They scoffed. They jeered. Agricultural phrases such as 'bullmanure' and 'spherical objects' abounded. I weighed their opinion against generations of Welsh farmlore and experience. No contest. If that little moon can drag countless billions of tons of sea water across the face of the earth and back, who could doubt its effect on a lamb in the womb – or those spherical objects?