My grandfather and grandmother first moved to the village in 1926, my father was born there and lived all his life there, and me and my brothers grew up in the village. My parents built a new bungalow on a greenfield site opposite my grandparent’s house in 1967, moving in in 1968, and lived there for the rest of their lives.

The house as a building site in 1967

The house in 2010

My grandfather and father were heavily involved in the local branches of the Orange, Black and Masonic orders, they were both founding members of the local Silver Band in 1947 and they had a really strong personal identity with the area.

However me and my brothers all moved away in our late teens and have lost our connection with the village on the death of both our parents. While I am really pleased that we’ve been able to sell the house to a young family and we hope that they’ll be very happy there, the sale breaks that 84-year link between our family and “The Bawn”.

There’s something about our identities that will always mean that we’re from that particular place. We’ve been shaped by it’s history, particularly during the troubled times of the 1970s and 1980s, but also by the history of our family in that small area. The view from the front of the house across to Garvagh Hill is imprinted on my brain and I’ll never ever forget that I’m from “The Bawn”.

After eating what was easily the best meal out in the last 12 months, I’ve just found my new favourite restaurant, The Star Inn in Harome, North Yorkshire.

The restaurant

After a warm welcome, we started off with a drink in the warm oak-beamed, thatched bar at one end of the building, trying to decide over the range of choices in the Spring Menu and on the specials listed on the blackboard. We then moved to a large table in the more contemporary silver, grey and red dining room.

Not unusually, we both decided to have the same starter and main course, and shared the cheese and the two puddings.

A Taste of Yorkshire – Delicacies of land and sea. Duncombe Park roe deer, air dried York ham, Yorkshire pudding, smoked trout, lobster bisque.

Steamed Suet Pudding of “Shaw Moor” shot hare with honeyed parsnip puree, braised red wine salsify, fois gras fritter and jugged hare sauce.

Cheese course – 4 British cheeses

Lemon Yorkshire crowdie cheesecake, lemon curd, lemon sorbet, pink grapefruit.

Caramelised rice pudding with sherried raisins

The chef, Andrew Pern (who we could see through the swing doors into the kitchen) is passionate about locally sourced and seasonal food. The ingredients were superb and were simply treated. For example, the Taste of Yorkshire starter simply presented and with no fancy treatment, it let the ingredients speak for themselves. The suet pudding of hare was straightforward but was packed full of flavour. The desserts were fantastic, and generously portioned.

The service was excellent – the waiting staff were friendly and relaxed and able to tell us quite a lot about the food, and were both helpful and unobtrusive.

The accommodation

Our meal was part of our 2-night short break in Yorkshire. We stayed at The Lodge, one of the Black Eagle Cottages rented out by The Star. This thatched cottage was cosy with warm log fires in both the kitchen and bedroom, and The Star provided all the ingredients needed for a great breakfast – bacon, sausages, black pudding, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, bread, preserves, yoghurt, cereal. We got up late, ate what we want for breakfast, and we always had the cottage to come back to, to light the fire and slob with books.

The good, but not as good bit…
As the Star was closed on Sunday evening, we ate dinner in their sister restaurant in Harome, The Pheasant Hotel, located in old farm buildings right next to the village duck pond.

The food was good, but wasn’t nearly as good as The Star. The dishes were a bit fancier and appeared to be trying a bit too hard, and there were a few mistakes (the pea and ginger beer soup had the consistency of washing up water and didn’t pack that much of a flavour; the pigeon breast starter was cold). The Pheasant service was also significantly slower – we spent a lot of time wondering where our next course had gone – and consequently drank quite a lot more water. The food was OK but lacked the spark that The Star gave. And significantly was only £20 cheaper.

Until next time
We will certainly go back to The Star – it’s well worth the 4-hour drive from Glasgow. But until then, we’ve bought the book and look forward to trying a few of the Pern-goodies over the next few months, although I’m not sure the mock suede book cover will remain pristine in our kitchen!

It’s quite ironic that the latest Atheist Bus Campaign billboard posters feature children of a well-known Christian musician. Made me laugh anyway.

Seriously though, I do believe that the campaign has a point. Children should not be labelled by their parents’ beliefs (whether that’s Christian, Muslim, Sikh or Humanist). My Northern Irish childhood would have been very different if children of Catholic and Protestant children were not segregated into different ghettoised schools. (Although how much of this segregation was a product of ethnic rather than religious divisions is debatable).

Parents ought to be able to communicate their own worldview and values to their children. The most sensible parents will obviously encourage their children to be inquisitive and open to different ideas. They will know that it is counterproductive to bring up children in a narrow and restrictive environment, whatever the parents’ beliefs.

But let’s not build stereotypes of adults either. People who have a religious faith are often just as open to other people as those who have a non-religious worldview. Let’s all promote acceptance of diversity, even if others don’t share our worldview.

21212 sign (photo credit: The Justified Sinner)

The new owners have put a significant investment (some £4.5m) into the refurbishment, and it shows. The rooms are luxurious. We stayed in a room with a large bed, a wet room with a great shower, and a big comfy sofa. The dining room has curved high-backed banquettes giving the place a rather intimate and sumptuous feel. The chefs all work away behind a glass wall at the end of the dining room. When they were assembling dishes they looked as if they were gathering like monks in prayer.

The owners and staff are truly charming and provide a warm welcome. They remembered preferences we had stated either when booking or earlier in the evening. Service was really well paced – so much so that we didn’t really notice it.

But, what about the food? The 21212 premise is that there are two choices for starter, a single soup course, two choices for main course, a cheese course, finishing with two choices for dessert. 21212, geddit?

Although there are few choices, the menu is complex (see below). The portions are small, but totally packed with flavour. No two bites are the same, and I wished that we had the menus in front of us so that we could analyse and understand all the flavours. For me, the best part of the meal was the main course; the depth of flavour in the lamb was incredible, and hit a delicious spicy finish from the merguez sausage.

I only have two suggestions for improvement. First, the cheese course did not feature any Scottish or even British cheeses; secondly I would have welcomed twice the quantity of soup. But neither of those mild criticisms took away from the pleasure of the meal.

On the whole, 21212 is an different (eccentric?) dining experience. It is very much culinary theatre, but is matched by the tastes and textures of the food. An evening to savour and remember.

And the cost – £60 a head, but that included a complimentary pre-dinner drink. The wine list isn’t ludicrously expensive, and they charged less than a fiver for a single malt at the end!

“Fish & Chips Twice Please”
Warm Smoked Salmon Nugget Topped With A Sliver
Of Sliced, Apricot + Mint, 2 French Fries, (Chips),
Cornflakes (Yes) & A Mushy Pea Sauce.
Ketchup + Asparagus

Tender Fillet of Beef, “Banana-Shallots”,
Chinese Style Bean Sprouts, Rice,
Broken Lemon Curd Cheese Tart,
Sunflower Seeds + Pease Pudding.
Ginger & Peanut Butter Sauce, Fresh Basil

***

Soup

***

Slow Cooked Young Seabass “Scottish Flavours”
(Haggis, Neeps, Carrots, Smoked Haddock),
Garlic & Tomato, Dates, Almonds & Pineapple,
Feta Parchment, Balsamic Reduced Cream Sauce

Assiette of Lamb, Fillet, Merguez, Braised, Diced.
Mediterranean Styles, Rosemary, Currants + Walnuts,
Aubergine + Courgette Confit, Pimento + Yoghurt.
Wild Rice + Onions

***

Cheese

***

Slow Baked Then Glazed Vanilla & Egg Custard,
Cream Cheese, Chestnuts, Apricots & Oatmeal
Served With Pink Peppercorn Flapjack

Mascarpone Cheesecake, “Icky-Sticky”, Oatmeal

***

Coffee and truffles

TorryBattery on Flickr has some great pictures of the food from his visit earlier this year.

Derek was born in 1965 and had Downs Syndrome and related health complications. He only lived for 20 months, so these photographs are really precious.

Next to come, the fruits – apples, pears and plums.

I love it!

I very much enjoyed Wordcamp UK in Cardiff at the weekend. It was a real pleasure meeting interesting and passionate people, turning Twitter IDs into real human beings, hearing some stunning stories about how WordPress has made a difference to organisations, and even meeting Matt in the Hat. I’m sure his hair will grow again after his Montreal experience!

Many thanks go to Tony and Hayley for organising such a packed and varied meeting.

I follow a habit to try to capture Ten Lessons from each conference I go to. I’m happy to share that with everyone:

1. Although my experience of WordPress so far is in support of sites for my personal use and for small voluntary organisation, my day job is within a large organisation. I am therefore please to see that WordPress is maturing well beyond a personal blogging platform and is now a mature CMS solution. The WordPress Showcase displays a number of public sites using WordPress including some key examples from public sector, media and music.
2. WordPress is now used in a lot of government sites, including No 10 and DFID bloggers. There has been a big takeup of specific commentable WordPress sites, such as Eliminating World Poverty, with some interesting work going on for DWP.

   After the recent reshuffle, a new website was created for the new BIS department in 72 hours at zero cash outlay, using RSS feeds to deliver content from existing sites.

   People to follow for WordPress in govt: Simon Dickson, Simon Wheatley, Mike Little.

3. Enterprise CMS using WordPress:
   • WordPress can be used to deliver complex enterprise CMS solutions in a very short time frame. An excellent example was Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, developed in 6 weeks with one developer and one content creator. Credit to Kimb Jones.
   • The Role Scoper plugin can allow individual editors to see/edit only the posts that are relevant to them. This makes the application a lot more scalable with multiple section editors.
   • Good LDAP (Active Directory) integration is required to move WordPress to the next stage. Some plugins are available but need development to make them more enterprise-friendly.
   • For some, the biggest challenge is to introduce PHP and MySQL into organisations that otherwise depend on Microsoft.
   • What is WordPress in the enterprise for? Communication/content management/newsletters/blogs. WordPress is not an enterprise scale document repository and is not analogous to Sharepoint. We need to be careful not to position WordPress as the answer to everything; it obviously isn’t.
4. I’m learning to develop my own themes. A good start seems to be Ian Stewart’s framework and template sites – Themeshaper.com.
5. Some recommended plugins:
   • Interesting plugins from Instinct Entertainment in NZ – wiki, eCommerce
   • Fold Page List
   • Role Scoper
6. Useful development tools mentioned during the weekend:
   • CSS: Blueprint CSS
   • Testing: IE Tester.
7. Wordhackuk was a brilliant experience – the team delivered a new plugin in 3 hours that allows visibility of versions and plugins of multiple WordPress installs from a Unified Dashboard. The presentation captures the essence of this plugin/widget (although it’s not finished yet).
   
8. The WordPress community is extremely supportive and helpful. This may be because the co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little are modest, unassuming and nice blokes. Something interesting can be achieved by co-operation.
9. WordPress.tv is a great resource for WordPress training and knowledge transfer.
10. Cardiff Bay is a great place to hold a weekend conference, buzzing on a Saturday night, but fortunately no strange paranormal happenings or blokes in RAF greatcoats.

Canapes – parmesan biscuits, olives stuffed with goats cheese

Cornish crab with dark jelly and melba toast.
Foie gras, rhubarb jelly and gingerbread.

Rabbit cutlet, spinach and garlic puree.
Pan-fried John Dory

“Cheese from our islands”

Hot banana bread, banana fritter, banana ice cream

The food had a strong focus on ingredients. The highlights of the evening were the crab, which was delicately fresh but combined with the deeper taste of the crab jelly; and the rabbit, where most of the edible bits of the rabbit (loin, cutlet, breast, liver, kidney) were cooked in different ways.

The restaurant has interesting decor, blue banquettes, crisp white linen, combined with dark glossy tiles and a wooden frieze with carved hunting scenes. The welcome was warm, with calm and attentive service.

Overall, a very contemporary feel. There were no fripperies such as amuses bouches or pre-desserts. All very in keeping with today’s more frugal feel.

I definitely want to return in the game season.

This was my first trip to anywhere in South Asia. My immediate impressions were:

• Both cities have an amazing energy – people are actively looking for the next big opportunity. They also have the confidence of being involved in a global economy. Although the dogs in Delhi seem to have a quiet life.
  
  
• Wealth and poverty are very close – one swish apartment building had a set of tin shacks at its base – probably the people who keep the apartments clean.
  
• The pace of development is astonishing – people I visited commented on the way that things have changed even over the past 2 years.

Both places definitely left a big impression. I’m hoping to get back, if possible. It will be fascinating to see how they change over the next few years.

See more pictures of Delhi and Dhaka on Flickr.

My Mum, Bee Adams, passed away on Sunday after a short stay in hospital, and her funeral is tomorrow.

Olive Beatrice (Bee) Thompson was born in Larne in 1933, youngest of five children of Mary and William Thompson. They moved to Markethill (?late 1930s/early 1940s) where William was a police sergeant at Markethill RUC station. Bee always remembered her father sounding the air raid siren on top of the police station, and how Gosford was used to house German prisoners and American GIs.

Bee finished her schooling in Ballyclare, and enrolled as a trainee teacher in Stranmillis College. She met John Adams there, and they married in July 1958 and moved to Hamilton’s Bawn. She took up a teaching post at Salter’s Grange Primary School where John also worked. Bee spent most of her teaching life in Salter’s Grange, and saw several generations of children through their primary education. She retired in 1985 after approximately 30 years.

She had four sons. Unfortunately Derek (born 1964) had Downs Syndrome and sadly died at 18 months. This was a body-blow to Bee and John, a deep sadness that she never lost.

The Troubles also dominated Bee’s life, as John was a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment in a volatile part of Northern Ireland. Although many friends and colleagues were killed, the UDR also offered new horizons and opportunities, and the chance to meet many people from outside Northern Ireland. It is difficult to imagine the stress of those years, particularly for Bee who was affected by the uncertainty of waiting, wondering and worrying.

Unfortunately John died suddenly in 1997. Bee became ill in April 2004 and spent several months in hospital and Roxborough House, Moy. With the help of Premier Care, and particularly her carers Jennifer and Caroline, she was able to continue to live independently at home for over four years.