Mr Byrne - Wine Merchant
Clitheroe, Lancashire
Last Saturday we decided to get out and about with the intention of heading to Hebden Bridge, however, there was a Steam Punk festival on that weekend and we thought it might be chock-a-block and difficult to park, so we opted for Plan B and Clitheroe, purely down to a recommendation of a work colleague of Mrs R.
Now, we've never been to Clitheroe and I very much imagined it to be a down trodden northern mill town that has seen better days. Much like Bolton with more than its fair share of betting shops, pound shops and the all too familiar "gone out of business" boarded up shops, but more depressing... how wrong can one be!!!
But first things first, our Saturday morning ritual starts with a weigh-in... I've lost count of the number of diets we've tried over the years, but this one seems to be doing the trick and reaping good results. Personally, I've found best results are obtained by standing on the scales in the buff whilst hanging on to the ceiling light... well... every little helps! Which reminds me, it must have been a wee bit chilly early Saturday morning judging by the expression on Mrs R's face.
Did I really write that or did I just say it in my head...?
Anyway, I'm now down to my lowest weight in probably the last five years and so a slap up breakfast was firmly on the cards - after all, I've got another week to lose it all again. The drive to Clitheroe was pretty straight forward and we duly arrived way before 9am. Not expecting many places to be open, we were surprised to find a cafe just opening - Brioche. A couple had just beaten us in but there were plenty of tables so we sat in the window watching the world not go by. Now, when you're craving food (and I'm not talking any of that muesli crap) there's only one meal to start the day. However, not wanting to undo all the good work of the past week, I studied the menu for "healthy" options - I know, who am I trying to kid! There was the "standard" breakfast or the "big" breakfast... being a numbers sort of guy I noticed that there was only a couple of quid difference between the two, but the big breakfast was pretty much two of everything - 2 sausages, 2 bacon, 2 eggs, mushrooms, beans, tomato and black pudding as well as toast. The economics of the two was a no brainer - I ordered the "big".
But all this is just small talk - the two places we were recommended to visit were the Food Hall and Beer Hall in the Holmes Mill (more of that later) and if we got chance, pop in and have a browse around D. Byrne & Co. To be fair, neither of us are big drinkers and know nothing about wine, whiskeys or gins, but this is an Aladdin's cave of alcohol. There isn't a single square inch of space on the walls that isn't covered by bottles, and there are a further couple of rooms equally as packed. Well worth visiting for the array of drinks on offer... I can think of several people here in Flickr land who could pass a day in here.
I'm sure you can get the odd bottle cheaper at Tesco's but this is for the real connoisseurs with prices to match. This is the main man himself - Mr Byrne, a most helpful gentleman and obliging to us togs. Needless to say, a few bottles were purchased including gin, which we got a liking for on holiday... chink chink cheers!
Footnote...
Judging by the shops and cars in Clitheroe, it's clearly an affluent little town, but it was an overheard conversation in a local newsagents that sealed the deal. For those of a certain age, you might remember the Yellow Pages advert (1983) featuring a Mr JR Hartley and a copy of Fly Fishing. Roll on nearly 40 years and we've just gone into the newsagents for a bottle of water. We passed the only customer who stopped to look at the magazine racks on his way out having just paid for a few items. The shopkeeper enquired if there was anything else he could help with? The man replied "I was hoping to find a copy of Investors Chronicle, you wouldn't happen to have a copy?"... if that's doesn't ooze wealth then I don't know what does, unless you all subscribe to it!
I'm here all week, thank you and good night!
Mr Byrne - Wine Merchant
Clitheroe, Lancashire
Last Saturday we decided to get out and about with the intention of heading to Hebden Bridge, however, there was a Steam Punk festival on that weekend and we thought it might be chock-a-block and difficult to park, so we opted for Plan B and Clitheroe, purely down to a recommendation of a work colleague of Mrs R.
Now, we've never been to Clitheroe and I very much imagined it to be a down trodden northern mill town that has seen better days. Much like Bolton with more than its fair share of betting shops, pound shops and the all too familiar "gone out of business" boarded up shops, but more depressing... how wrong can one be!!!
But first things first, our Saturday morning ritual starts with a weigh-in... I've lost count of the number of diets we've tried over the years, but this one seems to be doing the trick and reaping good results. Personally, I've found best results are obtained by standing on the scales in the buff whilst hanging on to the ceiling light... well... every little helps! Which reminds me, it must have been a wee bit chilly early Saturday morning judging by the expression on Mrs R's face.
Did I really write that or did I just say it in my head...?
Anyway, I'm now down to my lowest weight in probably the last five years and so a slap up breakfast was firmly on the cards - after all, I've got another week to lose it all again. The drive to Clitheroe was pretty straight forward and we duly arrived way before 9am. Not expecting many places to be open, we were surprised to find a cafe just opening - Brioche. A couple had just beaten us in but there were plenty of tables so we sat in the window watching the world not go by. Now, when you're craving food (and I'm not talking any of that muesli crap) there's only one meal to start the day. However, not wanting to undo all the good work of the past week, I studied the menu for "healthy" options - I know, who am I trying to kid! There was the "standard" breakfast or the "big" breakfast... being a numbers sort of guy I noticed that there was only a couple of quid difference between the two, but the big breakfast was pretty much two of everything - 2 sausages, 2 bacon, 2 eggs, mushrooms, beans, tomato and black pudding as well as toast. The economics of the two was a no brainer - I ordered the "big".
But all this is just small talk - the two places we were recommended to visit were the Food Hall and Beer Hall in the Holmes Mill (more of that later) and if we got chance, pop in and have a browse around D. Byrne & Co. To be fair, neither of us are big drinkers and know nothing about wine, whiskeys or gins, but this is an Aladdin's cave of alcohol. There isn't a single square inch of space on the walls that isn't covered by bottles, and there are a further couple of rooms equally as packed. Well worth visiting for the array of drinks on offer... I can think of several people here in Flickr land who could pass a day in here.
I'm sure you can get the odd bottle cheaper at Tesco's but this is for the real connoisseurs with prices to match. This is the main man himself - Mr Byrne, a most helpful gentleman and obliging to us togs. Needless to say, a few bottles were purchased including gin, which we got a liking for on holiday... chink chink cheers!
Footnote...
Judging by the shops and cars in Clitheroe, it's clearly an affluent little town, but it was an overheard conversation in a local newsagents that sealed the deal. For those of a certain age, you might remember the Yellow Pages advert (1983) featuring a Mr JR Hartley and a copy of Fly Fishing. Roll on nearly 40 years and we've just gone into the newsagents for a bottle of water. We passed the only customer who stopped to look at the magazine racks on his way out having just paid for a few items. The shopkeeper enquired if there was anything else he could help with? The man replied "I was hoping to find a copy of Investors Chronicle, you wouldn't happen to have a copy?"... if that's doesn't ooze wealth then I don't know what does, unless you all subscribe to it!
I'm here all week, thank you and good night!