We love Bean and Bud. Without a visit to this coffee (and tea) shop, no visit to Harrogate is complete. It’s a compact and friendly place, on a busy little street filled only with small independent and charity shops.
Bean and Bud sets the gold standard by which all cups of coffee should be judged. Choose between one of their two weekly featured beans – or something else if you prefer – and your coffee will never be churned out, just because they’re busy. Your cup will be perfectly prepared, with attention to every detail – a glass of iced water with your espresso, for instance.
They got our loyalty the first time we went. For years, every coffee shop we’ve visited has lazily assumed that Malcolm, as the Real Man in the relationship, would need the espresso, whereas the Little Lady (me) would require a version with milk in. Actually it’s the other way about, and Bean and Bud made it their business to find out – and then remember – our preferences.
I don’t care for tea much (yes, I am English) but friends who do admire the speciality loose leaf teas, weighed and brewed for just the right amount of time. Perhaps I ought to give them a go.
At lunch time, there are just a few types of sandwich on offer, but they’re on decent bread, well-filled with proper ingredients – local cheese, good serrano ham, fresh zingy salads, home-made chutneys. But could you resist the home made cakes? They’re not airy calorie-fests filled with cream and topped with thick layers of icing, but densely flavoured with gingered treacle, poppy seeds, bitter chocolate, citrus zest.
Come with a friend, and you’ll find a cosy corner to sit and chat while your coffee or tea is made. If you’re alone, there’s a decent selection of newspapers to read. This is a Daily Mail free zone.
There, I’ve gone and made myself nostalgic for another of their fine espressos. Time to plan the next visit.
Thursday night was brilliant. Brilliant in every way. Apart from anything else, it was an evening of simple joy at being part of an evening’s festivities shared with equal pleasure among both friends and strangers.
The next day we woke up to a Brexit-dominated world, and simple joy has become rather hard to find.
We arrived at Harrogate’s Valley Gardens as dusk fell . These gardens are among Harrogate’s treasures – 17 acres of lawns, of colourful flowers, of pinewoods, a small lake, of historic buildings such as the Sun Pavillion, all beautifully managed and greatly appreciated by locals and visitors alike.
Normally, by dusk, there’s only the odd dog-walker around. Thursday was different – Friday and Saturday too. We spotted lines of flaming plantpots strung on simple metal frames. There were smouldering lampshade-like creations. Then we found spherical braziers suspended from stands of mature trees.. There were eccentric bits of machinery, reminiscent of the work of Rowland Emmett, that played with the idea of juxtaposing showers and jets of water with flickering flames and occasional startling fireballs. There were quantities of men’s vests – yes, vests – re-purposed as lampshades suspended over the lake, which became, as darkness fell, an evermore magical and mysterious venue.
Cie Carabosse was in town. They’re a French street theatre company whose specialist subject is fire in all its forms. Its members are a playful band of people who aim to transform a space that may have long been familiar into … something else. Dressed formally in black, rather in the manner of croque-morts (pall-bearers or undertakers), they wandered round the park, illuminating braziers, attending to some of those hand-cranked machines. We ambled round too. Apart from a band of musicians playing atmospherically over in the back corner, there was no event, no ‘happening’. Everyone enjoyed simply exploring at their own pace, visiting and revisiting this installation, that glade of fires, those vests down at the lakeside, savouring the atmosphere as dusk became black night, as fires grew, damped down, and blazed forth once more.
Cie Carabosse travel all over the world. They’ll be in London in September as part of the commemoration of the Great Fire of London, 350 years ago. They’ll be in Seoul, South Korea in October – so maybe Emily could get to see them. And they’ll be in the Ariège, in Foix, in December. One way or another, I hope many of you will have the chance to have your evening set alight by Cie Carabosse before the year is out.
The 36 bus leaving Leeds for Ripon (Wikimedia Commons)
Everyone loves the 36 bus. It’s the one that takes us from out in the sticks of Ripon, via Harrogate to Leeds. It’s the one with plush leather seats, 4G wi-fi, USB points at every seat. It’s the one with a book-swap shelf where I always hope to find a new title to enjoy, while bringing in one of my own to swap. And best of all, we old fogeys travel for free on the 66 mile round trip.
The book-swap shelf wasn’t very exciting today. But I found a Fred Vargas to read.
Best get to the terminus early though. Everyone’s jockeying for the best seats, the ones at the front of the top deck, where you can watch as the bus drives through the gentle countryside separating Ripon from Harrogate, via Ripley, a village which the 19th century Ingleby family remodelled in the style of an Alsatian village, complete with hôtel de ville. After the elegance of Harrogate and its Stray, there’s Harewood House – shall we spot any deer today? Then shortly after, the suburbs of The Big City, which gradually give way to the mixture of Victorian and super-modern which characterises 21st century Leeds.
We had lots to do in Leeds today (more of that later, much later) and had a very good time being busy there. But much of our fun for the day came from sitting high up in that 36 bus, watching the world go by. For free.
Seats on the top deck secured.
Ripon to Harrogate.
You can’t see Ripley for the trees.
The message board keeps us in touch with waht’s going on.
Hurtling towards a roundabout in Harrogate.
‘Fashionable South side’ is what the estate agents call this part of Harrogate.
Harewood village.
Arriving in Leeds city centre.
That’s the town hall in the distance.
On the way home, rows of Leeds suburban semis.
This pub’s still preserving memories of the Tour de France in 2014.
Do you fancy coming out to lunch with me? I know a nice place we could go – it’s only been open for a few days. We tried it out on Monday, and we’ll be back.
Corrina and Friends Community Café is no ordinary caff, though you might think it’s just another cheerful addition to the high street when you spot its bright blue facade and funky decor. Friendly staff will greet you as you walk in, and present you with a menu.
But what’s this? There are no prices mentioned. That’s because you’re invited to ‘pay as you feel’. You’ll slip the sum you decide to pay into an envelope, and nobody will be any the wiser about how much you think your meal was worth. Those staff who welcomed us were all volunteers, and so were the cooks in the kitchen. This is why, according to their website:
‘With no set prices, customers pay what they feel the meal is worth or what they can afford. At the end of each day the café will open its doors to Harrogate’s homeless and vulnerable – all produce left over at the end of the day will be given away to those in need. All profits will go back into helping Harrogate District’s homeless and vulnerable people.’
Corrina’s partner up-cycled these catering-sized tins into up-to-the-minute lampshades.
Corrina Young and her friends make a redoubtable team. They’ve persuaded businesses to give their surplus food, or food which is still fresh at the end of the day, but has reached its sell-by date, to the cafe. Individuals have donated dry goods, tinned goods, storage space, kitchen equipment and white goods. Local groups have organised whip-rounds and raffles. Others have donated paint and their skills as painters and decorators to make the place look clean, smart and inviting. Corrina herself raised money last month by getting people to sponsor her when she spent 72 hours in a skip outside her business premises (yes, she has a day-job as well)
Corrina seems to have endless energy and enthusiasm. Wanting to do something worthwhile, in December 2013, she and her family and friends provided a Christmas meal for the homeless and vulnerable. The idea developed and quickly became a weekly two-course meal. Yes, Harrogate, prosperous and successful spa town, contrary to appearances, knows all about poverty and homelessness.
By then, people were beginning to talk about The Real Junk Food Project in Leeds. Alarmed by increasing food waste, a chef, Adam Smith, developed a café in Armley that uses exclusively food destined for landfill: all that stuff that food retailers, especially supermarkets, are legally obliged to junk because it’s reached its sell by date, but not the end of its life. Corrina was inspired by his work. But her motivation is slightly different. She wants to help prevent food waste. But above all, she wants to help the homeless. Getting a good hot meal inside someone who hasn’t the means of cooking is only the first step. But a very important one.
A busy day. Photo: Mandy Lotts.
So….. a café for the cash-poor homeless then, using where possible the food that’s had to be discarded by other shops. That’s not sustainable. But a café that attracts a wider paying public? That might just work. It brings the project to life. A paying public have a jolly good meal, see what the project’s achieving, pay what they feel for what they’ve just eaten, maybe make a donation. And at 5 o’clock, the café closes….and immediately re-opens its doors to the homeless and vulnerable.
These non-paying customers choose what to eat by looking at this board, covered in post-its.
People who’ve donated money write a ‘serving suggestion’ on their post-it, and the café users who come in at 5.00 chose a couple of these, and hand them over in lieu of payment. They’ll eat what’s listed on the post-it. Here’s what some people have written:
‘Soup and a toastie, Hannah x’
‘Coffee and a cake, George.’
‘Something hot and tasty. Love, Alison xx’
‘Eat what you fancy. Enjoy! Lee x’
We didn’t want a big meal, so Malcolm and I had home-made soup. Then we shared a cheese and ham toastie, and after that, we thought the cakes looked nice…… We’d had a great time, and Corrina made time to talk to us. She’s found 2 more supporters in us. She’s got 47 people begging to be considered as volunteer waiting staff. All the profits that the café makes will be ploughed back into helping the target community. The long-term aim is to resource, help and empower those people who are so vulnerable in today’s harsh economic and political climate.
Here’s Corrina, in her bright pinny, ready to welcome customers.
Congratulations, Corrina and friends You’re an inspiration.
Up betimes, in order to be at Harrogate Hospital by 7.30 a.m. Yesterday was a day of white-coat-syndrome-induced high blood pressure, insensibility whilst under the knife, and not a little discomfort for Malcolm. He’s been waiting for months for some minor surgery, and now he’s had it, his life should get a lot more comfortable.
I, meanwhile, had to spend the day in Harrogate waiting for the call to go and collect him. I had quite a few errands to run in any case, and after that it wouldn’t have been worth traipsing back and forth from North Stainley.
So I did my jobs, and then had plenty of chance to loaf about. I’m not the world’s keenest shopper, but I do have a favourite charity shop in Cold Bath Road. Our friend Jonet volunteers there, sifting through and sorting donated books. I love the serendipity of looking along the shelves crowded with fiction old, new, English and foreign, next to an eclectic collection of non-fiction. As usual I left the shop with a satisfyingly large pile of reading, and this time, a new-to-me summer dress.
Then I headed for green space. What makes Harrogate a special town is its area of open parkland in the centre of the town – the Stray. It was created from common pastureland in 1778 to link most of Harrogate’s springs (it’s a spa town after all) and an Act of Parliament preserved its size at 200 acres. Even now, if part of its area is lost due to, for example, road widening, it must be replaced elsewhere. It’s pretty unique to be able to step directly from busy shopping streets straight onto a vast green area unbounded by railings or fences. Paths and roads will lead you through this green space to other parts of town. Like me, you could walk across the Stray to get to the hospital, or to reach the community round Cold Bath Road with its neighbourhood shops and Victorian housing. And yesterday, you could enjoy, as I did, the crocuses which have burst forth in their hundreds and thousands in glorious lakes of colour – purple, mauve, sunshine yellow and white. They’ll be followed in a week or so by an equal multitude of daffodils, and then avenues of cherries will blossom in all their pink finery. Here’s a few shots of Harrogate Stray on the warmest day of the year so far.
Walking on the Stray
Easter eggs on display at Betty’s, Harrogate’s Top Caff.
I know grey squirrels are no better than rats with tails, but they still cheer me up as they scurry up and down trees.
‘I’ll bet’, ventured a friend the other week, ‘that the last few of those yellow bicycles don’t disappear from sight until round about Christmas’. I didn’t take her on. My own bet is that just a few of those yellow bikes, which so many people put outside their homes to celebrate the Tour de France in early July, will still be around many years from now . Most have gone of course.
Little by little, in the weeks after the Tour, the bunting came down, then those miles and miles of hand-knitted jerseys, then the yellow bikes. Now that Autumn winds are kicking in, all the bright yellow floral displays, often cascading from the panniers of those yellow bikes, are finally being grubbed up too.
A few of the photos of the pre-Tour preparations
As far as Harrogate was concerned, the Tour de France Swan Song took place last week, in the form of an exhibition mounted by the Harrogate Photographic Society, ‘Le Tour in Harrogate’. It took over the town. The ‘hub’ – a term borrowed from the Tour itself to indicate where the main action was to be found – was in the exhibition space of town centre Saint Peter’s Church. But there were satellite exhibits in a local café, an optician’s shop, and in the windows of a recently closed department store.
When we visited last Sunday, we found ourselves in company with dozens of others, poring over the images, sharing memories, exclaiming over forgotten moments of the preparations for the race in the days and weeks before, and its aftermath, as well as the days of the Race itself. There were pictures of old gnarled hands knitting away industriously to produce those yellow-jersey banners, of hi-viz-clothed teams of men road-mending late into the night beneath the glare of floodlights. Here were the gardeners making sure Harrogate’s famous floral displays were at their best, or French members of the huge Tour de France preparation team taking time out to link arms, laugh and pose for pictures. My favourite shot, taken on race-day itself was of two young men perched high on a chimney-stack looking down on the race far below them. And then there were the scenes of riders disappearing from view, only seconds after they’d first come into sight.
Tour street scene in Harrogate
A new use for a bus shelter on race day
As it happens, Harrogate’s official vehicles’ livery is yellow. Street cleaning lorries wait to go into action.
I’ve taken my own photos of the photos. Perhaps that’s a bit like the video which was said to have been offered for sale a few years ago by a dodgy salesman operating from a battered old suitcase at the corner of the market place. It was ‘Jurassic Park’, filmed in a darkened cinema on a hand-held camcorder. But these pictures shown here are just souvenirs. If you want to see these wonderful images in all their glory, you’ll have to contact the Photographic Society, who have produced a fully illustrated souvenir catalogue. We’ve ordered a copy.
A shot of the crowds enjoying the party atmosphere before the riders arrived. Just as visible is a Harrogate streetscape, reflected in the shop-window where this picture was exhibited
I haven’t been able to credit individual images shown here as the photographers weren’t identified in this particular display. These aren’t however so much reproductions of their work as impressions. The photos themselves are well worth seeing in their original form.
Off to Harrogate today, via Knaresborough, which has just been voted Best Dressed Town ahead of the Tour de France. It’s done a fine job. The whole town is festooned with bunting: not the signature knitted-yellow-jersey bunting favoured all over the rest of the district, but hundreds upon hundreds of white T-shirts, decorated by the schoolchildren of the town. It all looks very festive, and combined with a yellow bike trail to send you bike-spotting down every street and in every shop window, it’s made for a fine community effort. I still have a soft spot for red-spotted Hawes however, which we visited last week. But Knaresborough’s Mayor has tricked out his house in red spots too.
Knaresborough’s spotted house on a busy corner.
Harrogate though. What a shock. We were diverted away from West Park Stray, and once we’d parked up, we discovered why. This usually car-filled thoroughfare was a pedestrian-only zone. No, that’s not true. There were no cars, but instead, huge articulated lorries, buses, media vehicles from all over Europe, Tour de France vehicles so large that no ordinary parking place could accommodate them. There was even an immense lorry whose purpose was to offer, at just the right moment, 3 rows of tiered seats for about 3 dozen spectators. All this circus came from the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Germany…. but above all, from France.
All around us, busy teams of workmen and women, technicians, electricians, craftspeople, media types rushed busily around, talking in the main in French. We spotted registration plates from Val-de-Marne; le Nord; Pas-de-Calais; even the Haute Garonne, the next door département to the Ariège. And suddenly, I was assailed by homesickness. It was just like being back in France. There was even a marquee filled with one particular team of workers sitting down together and sharing a midday meal. That really whisked us back. We wandered about, listening in, and engineering conversations with any French type taking a breather. England’s nice, we’re given to understand, but our motorways are a nightmare. We know.
But this immense team is only one of several. There are others in Leeds, in York, in Sheffield, Cambridge and London, the other five towns where the three English stages begin or end. I’d never previously understood quite what an industry the Tour de France really is.
Local teams from Harrogate itself had already uprooted many of the town’s pride and joy, its colourful flower-beds, in favour of providing viewing platforms for spectators who want to see the Race finish there on Day One. I expect it was the right decision. No self-respecting flowers could survive the expected onslaught, and the beds that remain look particularly magnificent.
Decking and emptied flower beds await the crowds.
Another delivery of crowd barriers,
Then they have to be distributed….
Temporary seating goes up.
More seating solutions.
Tour de France vehicle.
And another. This is just one vehicle.
And another…
Some of our new French friends!
Everything stops for lunch. C’est la France.
A more homely sight at the church on the opposite side of the road.
And as we leave, mobile traffic signs.
When we’d looked around for a while, we nipped into a supermarket for some odds and ends we’d forgotten. This is what the fresh produce department looked like……….
One more shopping day before le Tour…..
Normal life has been suspended, for one weekend only.
Back in the shopping quarter, Duttons for Buttons celebrates le Tour … entirely in buttons.
We’ve been back in England exactly a fortnight. In many ways it’s been so easy to slip back into English life. We’re quite fluent in the language and cultural mores, after all. In other ways, it’s been a honeymoon, despite our difficulties in re-registering , re-taxing and insuring the car, which continues to be a frustrating, irksome, time-consuming and frankly ridiculous task.
We’re rediscovering sights and experiences with the eyes of a lover, both blind to faults and delighted by characteristics which may one day exasperate rather than charm.
For the time being, we’re discarding the pleasures of French food in favour of a cheeseboard that includes a sharp, crumbly tasty Lancashire or a creamy blue Cropwell Bishop. When buying vegetables, we have to include handsful of purple sprouting broccoli, still unknown in southern France. We’ve gone native.
Purple sprouting broccoli at Masham Market
We’re going back to old haunts. For instance, having gone to Harrogate (to try to sort out car insurance, grrr), we found ourselves with an hour or so to spare to visit the Valley Gardens. This park has always charmed us, and yesterday we fell in love with it all over again.
It was developed for visitors to the spa town as an attractive place to walk as part of their exercise regime after taking some of the many waters on offer. 36 of Harrogate’s 88 mineral wells are found within the park, and no two have exactly the same mineral composition. Back in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, visitors arrived in their thousands, attracted by the apparently curative powers of these waters. A boating lake, bandstand and tea room were built and still exist, but the Parks Department has chosen to focus on developing spectacular floral displays, formal in character towards the town centre, and becoming increasingly natural as the visitor walks upwards towards the pinewoods.These days, there’s a children’s playground, a skateboard park and visitors can play tennis and crazy golf too. Somehow, though, these attractions don’t dominate. The gardens are a place to visit to be at peace with nature, to spend quiet moments with a few friends or your dog, to enjoy the trees and flowers, both formal or less organised displays. Come and share our walk with us.
That’s Harrogate’s Pump Room, now the town’s museum. Sulphur water is still freely available here. Try it at your peril.
We were Christmas shopping in Toulouse yesterday. A day in this, the fourth largest city in France, is always a treat. It’s affectionately known as ‘la ville rose’, because of the predominant building material, a deep pink brick. Elegant long tall terraces of town houses, public buildings, hidden courtyards wait to be discovered and re-discovered on every visit. We have so much more still to find and explore. There are fabulous churches and museums, wonderful and often quirky independent shops, appetising restaurants and bars to suit every budget and taste. The River Garonne and the Canal du Midi pass though the city offering a feeling of space and fresh air.
Toulouse roofscape from Lafayette
Old building, new shop
Always plenty of interest if you keep your eyes open. Silk stockings once made here.
The Cathedral of Saint Sernin
The Garonne passing through Toulouse
The main square in Toulouse – the Capitole – at night
And yet…..
By about half past three, we’re footsore, weary and confused like Aesop’s poor dear Country Mouse who decided the simple, yet safe country life was preferable to the riches and dangers of life in the city. We want to go home.
A couple of more recent Pearly Kings
I was always a city girl. Raised in London, I had a childhood enriched by Sunday afternoons at the Natural History Museum or frenetically pushing buttons at the Science Museum. We’d go to watch the Changing of the Guard at Horseguards Parade, nose round hidden corners of the city, still scarred in those days by the aftermath of wartime bombing. We’d go on our weekly shop to Sainsbury’s: not a supermarket then but an old-fashioned grocery store, with young assistants bagging up sugar in thick blue – er – sugar paper, or expertly using wooden butter pats to carve up large yellow blocks of butter. If we were lucky, there would be a Pearly King and Queen outside collecting for some charity.
It was Manchester for my university years. I loved those proud dark red Victorian buildings celebrating the city’s 19th century status as Cottonopolis, as well as the more understated areas once populated by the workers and managers of those cotton mills, but developed during my time there as Student Central. I loved the buzz of city life, the buzz of 60’s student life.
Then it was Portsmouth. Then Wakefield, and Sheffield, and Leeds. City life meant living with up to 750,00 neighbours. And I thrived on it. I never felt too far from wide open spaces, yet a short bus ride brought me theatres, cinemas, exhibitions, shops, choices of schools for my children. When we moved in 1997 to Harrogate, with a mere 75, 000 inhabitants, it felt small.
This is the Valley Gardens in Harrogate. I must say it doesn’t look too crowded
Then we came to the Ariège, to Laroque, population just over 2,000. The largest town in the whole area is Pamiers, with a mere 19,000 inhabitants. How could we still think of Harrogate as really rather tiny? So we needed to change the way we saw things. We’re accustomed now to at least recognising most of the people whom we see round and about. We enjoy the fact that we count many people in the community as friends, and that we all turn up to the same events. We relish the space, the more relaxed pace of life, the sense of belonging that we have here.
These are the kind of traffic conditions we’ve got used to
Now, as we plan our return to England, the idea of the clogged roads of the Harrogate rush hour is unattractive, the busy streets unappealing. Ripon, where we more recently lived is much more like it: 14,000 people. But we ask ourselves – is even a town this size too big and scary for Country Mice? Should we continue as we’ve started? Perhaps we should look at Galphay, Gargrave, Greenhow or Grewelthorpe, average populations about 400? Or Masham, about 1,250? All of these are near our centre of gravity, Ripon.
So much to think about. But wherever we end up, we’ll still want the odd sortie to The Big City. Toulouse hasn’t seen the back of us yet.
Photos 4, 5, 6 0f the Toulouse series; the Pearly Kings and Harrogate’s Valley Gardens courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
One of the daily pleasures of our Life in Laroque is watching the birds of prey, particularly buzzards and red kites, wheeling above our heads, catching the eddying breezes.
One of our pleasures here back in Yorkshire, is doing exactly that, now that red kites have become almost common round and about Harrogate.
It was back in 1999 that red kites were first re-introduced to Yorkshire, to Harewood. Back then it was a rare treat to spot one, a newsworthy event to share with all your friends. Gradually they became more common, though no less exciting. Then last time we were here, we spotted one lazily coasting over the Yorkshire Showground, only a very few miles from Harewood as the kite flies. Later that day, there were others, this time over the relatively urban Knaresborough Road estate. This visit, we’ve spotted them for the first time in the part of north Harrogate where we used to live.
And then today, after lunch catching up with a good friend – thank you Cath – I took myself off for a walk. Soaring above me, then plunging down, so very close that I could clearly see his breast plumage, was a red kite, nearer to me than one has ever been before. It made my day.
We love Bean and Bud. Without a visit to this coffee (and tea) shop, no visit to Harrogate is complete. It’s a compact and friendly place, on a busy little street filled only with small independent and charity shops.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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