A while ago we went back to Hawes ( in a lovely part of North Yorkshire in case you didn’t know).

Years ago, we had ended up staying there in a last minute booking in a pub which took dogs. 

When we came downstairs ( after that delicious moment when you take your boots off after a good day’s walking) we found the bar was fully carpeted in dogs.

Bigs ones, little ones, working ones, mutts, proper sheepdogs, waggy tails, bored resignation faces and all with waitresses adeptly stepping over them with full plates in their hands.

The Best Beloved loved it, so our recent trip was a bit of a pilgrimage – though we actually stayed in a rented cottage nearby.

The pub has moved on since we were there – something the BB always disproves of as everywhere should stay as he fondly remembers it.

There was real carpet, and fewer dogs. Ah well.

Anyway, we decided to play by ear where we should stay heading back down south, after all last minute Hawes (those many years) ago had worked out fine……

So, I booked a room for the following night in South Yorkshire hotel. 

Should have read the reviews, taken just a bit more time in sussing it out and where is was, taking good note that it didn’t serve food, mention of karaoke, the website saying it had been recently re-furbished in 2015…..

But we had a rendezvous with a pilgrimage pint, so I was not as assiduous as I should have been – not by a long chalk.

We arrived and parked on the run down road in the run down town, and heard the music from quite a long way away.

I went in to find it very, very busy given that it was early evening on a Sunday. No one seem riveted to the four large sky screens in the bar which was strange as trying to have a conversation over the music was impossible.

Suffice it to say in order to hear what I was saying to her ( ‘sorry we are not staying’), the nice young woman behind the bar had to usher me down a corridor into the function room…..

But then we got lucky.

Sitting in the car madly Googling dog friendly pubs with rooms nearby with immediate availability, the BB found the Dog and Partridge in Flouch ( no, I had never heard of Flouch either which is probably not surprising as it seems to be in the middle of nowhere but with the A628 to Manchester running directly outside.)

Inside, it was wood floors, log fires, a herd of young farmers, a walking group, nice good, comfortable room (the last one they had – phew) and effective double glazing so the A628 was like a film backdrop.

And out the back is moorland as far as the eye can see. 

Imagine Daphne Du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn only in the North and run by thoughtful, kind, efficient, nice people.

We were sitting doing some of the back catalogue of Wordle, when a couple stopped and proffered a semi-drunk bottle of wine. 

They were on a tour of the country as part of a significant wedding anniversary celebration and had had more champagne than meant they could finish the wine.

Oh well, it would have been a shame to waste it. And of course, we got chatting.

In one of those amazing coincidences, he had been brought up in a village three miles from us.

Anyway, the next morning the view was not evident on account of it lashing with rain, wind and cloud so low you could touch it.

I didn’t have to, but would have been willing to beg to be allowed to stay another night instead of facing hours of driving down the ever-unlovely M1 dealing with lorry spray, lane-hogging, windscreen wipers on fast.

So, there we stayed.

Walkers had about an hour’s worth of discussion about whether they should abandon that day’s leg of their walk. They did and left.

The anniversary couple set off for Scarborough with (a vain) hope that the weather would be better over there.

And the three of us had the place to ourselves only being interrupted to ask if we needed more tea.

Bliss.