Hibernation in London is nearly over. On Saturday, Salut! begins the French portion of its year.
Over the past six months or so, there has been plenty to enjoy in London and Britain more widely. And plenty to make the ferry trip - Dover to Dunkirk, an unusual crossing chosen as a simple function of market forces (it's cheap) - feel overdue.
Let's start this mini-series in the stunning town of Stamford:
One we'll miss:
The day began in Darlington, the morning after a depressing football visit to Sunderland. The room at the King's Head, refurbished and renamed the Mercure after a nasty fire, was comfortable once Mme Salut had stuffed towels at the bottom of the blinds to block a persistent draught.
At £44 we had no complaints but also no wish to spend half as much again on breakfast, settling instead for coffee - "sorry we cannot do croissants or toast but you do get a biscuit" - at the lovely George Hotel at Piercebridge, four miles west of Scotch Corner.
On to Stamford. A smooth run down the A1 had us there shortly after 1pm. We had agreed to try its most beautiful hotel - also the George - and wander off elsewhere if, as often happens, the non-restaurant areas were full. There was, surprisingly on a lovely sunny day, lots of empty seating.
The hotel oozes history. Once it had waiting rooms for the "20 coaches up, 20 down" - stage coaches, that is, not National Express - that plied the London-York highway. Kings stayed there. A famous portrait and sketch honour a past customer, Daniel Lambert, a jailkeeper and breeder of racing dogs and fighting cocks who weighed an astonishing 52 stones at his death at the Waggon and Horses, elsewhere in Stamford, in 1809.
In all honesty, fish and chips should never cost £18.50, even in portions that might have satisfied our Daniel.
But you pay in life for comfort, style and abundant, attentive staff and the George offers them so well that the inclination is to understand and appreciate. With Mme Salut's choice of fish and shrimp cakes, my pint of real ale (Adnams) and her glass of a Provençal rosé, it came to £50 including tip. I have spent less and more and felt cheated; I didn't here and took comfort in having saved so much on breakfast.
At every turn, from the car park and garden tables to the bars, lounge and main restaurant, the George sniffs of the money of gentlemen farmers, prosperous professionals and businessmen and comfortably off tourists. There is, all the same, a welcoming atmosphere and gems of interior design to marvel at wherever you stray.
File under Nothing's Too Good for the Working Class
* One we'll not miss
France has many of its own ways of ripping you off. Motorway toll charges are scandalously high, as is the cost of apéritifs in unremarkable bars, and restaurants in busy areas impose a heavy price on occasionally indifferent fare.
Readers familiar with other parts of the country may correct me but I have yet to come across the ripoff ATM, the cash distributor that charges you for using it, in autoroute service stations. They have become commonplace on English motorways and I resent them.
Full marks to the assistants working in franchise outlets at the Baldock service area on the A1(M), who made a point of tipping off customers that they could walk across to the filling station and withdraw money free of charge.
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