Crab and pinny?

I always learn a great deal when I go to Yorkshire, although it is fair to say that much of which I do learn I could do without. It was at lunch as the Crab and Lobster yesterday at Asenby where I was subjected to a very steep learning curve.

I love discovering local culture, however rustic, and thus it was a delight to come across some Yorkshire based collective nouns such as “A misery” which is a collection of Yorkshire farmers, and a “dither”, a gathering of Yorkshire civil servants. These came to light over a delightful lunch at this pub/ restaurant yesterday. This establishment is so good it could be in the Home Counties. It is also a very pretty place as my picture today shows.

Crab and Lobster at Asenby

At lunch were our hosts for Friday and tonight John “Chuckle Brothers” and his delightfully well endowed (sorry Lin) child bride Rachael Lady In Waiting Surtees, and our hosts last night Steve “yeah yeah yeah” Jackson and his equally delightful and enormously intelligent wife Brainy Wag. Whilst she is a high-powered senior executive running a company and responsible for 350 people, he knows his place, back home doing the washing, cooking and ironing. I must say he did a very good job of ironing my rather splendid dark salmon pink trousers and green sweater and cleaning my brown (fake) alligator shoes.

It must be a curious existence for a rugby playing, cricket playing gruff Yorkshire lad as he spends much of his day on his hands and knees scrubbing in a pinny but he seems happy enough in this subservient role. Doubtless this morning, after he has cooked our breakfast he will be out to scrub the front step, which passes for entertainment up north. As it is a Sunday and Easter Sunday at that, he may even be allowed some carbolic as a special treat.

Last night, after a post Crab and Lobster siesta, it was down to the quaint local hostelry called The Crosby in the northern outpost of Thornton Le Beans. This is a strange name for a Yorkshire village and there were some very strange people in the local pub, where joy of joys, they were serving the second best beer in the world, Timothy Taylor Landlord. This time is was being served properly, unlike the very disappointing pint of the same brew served at the New Inn at Scarcroft on Friday. The food was remarkably good as well although personally I did not go for the black pudding butties. When I say strange, I mean there were rather too many high foreheads (could the collective noun for these people be a protrusion? – if it is not then it should be) and dwarves with humps and chaps with extra digits. I am not saying interbreeding us an issue, it has served the gallant people from Yorkshire well for centuries, so well that all life is here and it all fits together rather well. Of course, there was no opportunity seriously to sell the services of Currencies Direct as the concept of foreign exchange is somewhat alien. They are more likely to think it involves taking something made abroad back to the shop from which it was purchased. There is also the matter that the locals think anyone not from Yorkshire is a foreigner anyway.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News