WE went away for an overnighter at the weekend. Geoff and I headed north (or ‘oop north’ as my friend Janie, who lives in Leeds, allows me to say) for 200 miles in heavy traffic and under thick cloud. It did not bode well but we improved the outlook by making two stops on the way.
The first was at the M5 Gloucester Services. We avoid motorway services unless the car is desperate for petrol, but this one is as different from the standard muzak-infused junk-food hell as you could imagine. It’s heartening to see how a totally different ethos can create a traveller’s joy just by embracing simplicity and decency and eschewing the grossly naff.
The staff smile and tell me it’s a lovely place to work. I can believe that. We ate (deliciously) beside a landscaped lake and watched a dragonfly showing off, and then we walked around and noted the many clever, thoughtful features, the absence of noise, the space and the light and, outside, the grass roof and the whole organic ‘out of the ground’ nature of the place.
Nearer our destination we stopped to feed our aesthetic needs a little more at a National Trust property, Little Moreton Hall. After stop-start driving up the M6 it was a feast for the soul, with its wonky black-and-white medieval beauty being all quintessentially English and eccentric in the midst of a limpid moat.
When we finally reached our hotel it seemed we had had a full day already although the evening was yet young. We took a long walk to check out our new surroundings, noticing what a hit the town had taken in recent years but how there were signs it was bobbing back up to prosperity again.
This fact was evident later, when the streets came alive with young people intent on having a good time. Geoff and I found ourselves among them, feeling dowdy and far too sensibly dressed, when we went out to eat.
I’d done hours of research before leaving home to identify a suitable restaurant, based on location and the quality of its online reviews. The perfect one was not far from the hotel, and while out on our walk we’d popped in and booked the last available table. I glowed with triumph. What a perfect ending this would be to our day.
It’s a bit Spanish, I explained to Geoff, and the reviews mention how you share your tapas and how lovely the atmosphere is. It doesn’t look all that Spanish to me, he remarked, casting his eye down the menu.
Well, perhaps it’s an oop north version of Spanish, I said, jollying him along. True, there was a starter you could share, but there was nothing that could be pronounced with a lisp and therefore properly Spanish.
We shrugged and made our choices and then just lapped up the novelty of this odd northern take on a Spanish eatery.
While dissecting my distinctly un-Spanish stuffed aubergine I asked Geoff why he thought there was a huge number ‘64’ pasted on the street-side window. “It’s the name of the place,” he said. “Didn’t you notice on the menu it was called The 64 Bar & Grill?”
Oh whoops. We were in the wrong restaurant! This was the one that we’d booked, but it was not where my research had planned for us to be.
Geoff and I raised our glasses to serendipity. What No 64 lacked in tapas it made up for in atmosphere, and our friendly, chatty waiter made us happy, too. His name was Fernando. He was Spanish.
Sally Hill's Journal 