Down the road apiece.......

I suppose, rather, over the tops and not so far away.

Yesterday, in this continuing phenomenal weather (I am sorry to keep going on about it, but we can neither of us remember such a prolonged spell of such good weather, winter, spring, summer or fall, in more years than we care to contemplate) we drove over the tops to Otley.

Otley means - Adelaide Walker. I - we - love going there. For one thing, the little building that used to house the shop is now an excellent cafe. It has been established by a young Italian, and it is quite fascinating to go occasionally and see what the next development is. He really understands the restaurant biz (I suspect it is in the blood) and is slowly and gradually bringing the place up - and it has always been good. I hope to have my 80th birthday party at his Michelin starred Bradford or wherever restaurant!

But mostly we go to buy good fibre from AW. We had ordered the greater part of our supplies for the SS workshop from them, and the visit was to pick that up, but I had warned the DSM that I couldn't be expected not to indulge in anything particularly tempting that might be there. Well.......

They had a fibre of unknown origin. Fibres, really, a mixture of silk (by the aroma and lustre) and. Best guess, cashmere. I looked at it very carefully, and I certainly was happy to think it was. It had been burn-tested, and it was definitely all natural protein - I had wondered if the high-lustre element might be viscose or similar, but no. It could not, of course be sold or priced as cashmere. It was being sold as merino and silk. An extremely luscious merino and silk. I bought 500 grammes for around £15.

What fibre-lovin' human could possibly resist that, eh?

The other good thing about visiting AW at Otley is that from where we live, the best way to travel is via Ilkley. Ilkley means many good things - real shoes shops, checked out now for the next trip, the super sweet shop where we bought a lovely big box of chocs for the DSM's aunt 's birthday (oh, and six Charbonnel et Walker truffles managed to fall in to our bag....) But best of all, it means Betty's. Actually - by the time we got there after doing our bit of shopping, it seemed to us rather too hot in there to be able to relax and enjoy our tea, so we just bought stuff from the shop (tea room blend tea, two loaves of bread and - ahem - two curd tarts. Frankly, anyone who has never had a Betty's curd tart has never lived.

I dragged out the Masons tea service when we got back, and we indulged.

Everything should stop for tea. Once in a while.