Author: grahamchastney

Cathedral Caves Circular from Little Langdale (the short route) | Graham’s Guides

Time to marvel at the industrial heritage of the Lake District. A short, but fun walk.

Graham’s Walks📌
Distance1.51 miles
DifficultyModerate
Map🗺️
GPX📁
Graham’s CafeNot on this one. Nearest: Chesters by the River.

The Area

The Lake District is a wonderful place of natural features, but is also a place shaped by farming and mining. Many of the communities only exist because there was once employment available in the local quarry or mine. For thousands of years people have dug their way through the mountainsides in search of valuable rocks and minerals. This heritage is evident in many of the names; this walk, as an example, takes you over Slater Bridge which I’m assuming was the daily commute for the people who lived at the nearby Slaters Cottage as the retrieved slate from the nearby quarry. The mining around Little Langdale was primarily for copper and the green slate itself, which was used in building.

Bill Birkett, author of The Complete Lakeland Fells, is a Little Langdale local and gives a great overview of part of this route and further insights to the area in this countrystride podcast episode.

The village sits on the route of a Roman Road that linked Ambleside to Ravenglass on the coast, taking you over the twin passes of Wrynose and Hardknott which are still a challenge to drive today. As you’d expect from the Romans this is quite a direct route for such a mountainous area. On the side of Hardknott pass you can visit the remains of a Roman Fort, there’s also a Roman fort in Ambleside and a Roman bathhouse in Ravenglass. These are all linked to the time of Hadrian of wall fame. I do wonder sometimes what the Roman soldiers from Croatia felt about being stationed half way up a windswept fell in the Lake District with storms rolling in straight off the Irish Sea.

The Walk

This walk is a great starter walk with interest around every corner, there are also a wide variety of additions and diversions which are just as interesting.

Little Langdale is possibly the most acute for parking challenges in the whole of the Lake District. There are only a few road side parking spaces in the village and once they are gone, they are gone. This is where the alternatives come in with several of them providing additional parking options, do not attempt to park at the Three Shires Inn.

Once you’ve parked in the village make your way along the road, past the Three Shires Inn (there’s a story behind that name) and take the turn onto Fitz Steps. Down the hill a little you’ll see a path off to the right, up some steps and a small gate. This path will take you through a couple of fields and then down a small valley to Slater Bridge (which is sometimes spelled with an apostrophe but also without, also with an ‘s’ and without, depending on which map you read. I’m sticking with what it says on the OS Map and ignoring what those people on Google Maps think it is.) Slater Bridge has to be one of the most photographed places in the Lake District and rightly so. The Brathay that passes under the bridge is one of the main tributary rivers to Windermere. If you take a short detour to the right just before crossing the bridge, doubling back on yourself a little, you can get a great view up the valley across Little Langdale Tarn.

Having crossed the bridge head up a short hill and onto a track. Head left on the track with the river on your left. A short way along you’ll come to a gate and then not long after the gate you’ll see another gate to the right with directions into Cathedral Quarry. This is where you get to freestyle, depending on how adventurous you are. At the top of the short path you’ll find a tunnel through which you will find the famous Cathedral Cave, but that’s not the only option for getting into the cave and it’s certainly not the most adventurous. You can also head around the outside of the quarry gathering views into the caves as you go by taking the path off to the right as you look at the tunnel. The challenge with this path is in descent into the quarry which is steep and can be slippery.

These caves were all built by people digging out the rock, mostly by hand. The amount of graft alone is a marvel.

Beyond Cathedral Cave is the entrance to the main quarry which is vast. You can view the quarry by heading through the tunnel at the back of the cave and out into the open.

To get a full experience, however, you will need to do a little climbing. Before you climb too high though, please note that one of the routes out is the way you came in. Another route out is to scramble up the back of the quarry to the right on the slippery path. The final route out is via a cave for which you’ll need a light source, although it doesn’t have to be a very good light source, a smartphone torch will do. The cave is high enough to walk through and you can’t get lost because the only route off the cave is blocked off with fencing.

From the quarry floor you can view other excavations and tunnels. Last time we were in the quarry the army were practicing abseiling down the vast cliffs.

The easiest route out of the quarry is back down to the lane alongside the Brathay taking a right towards a wooden footbridge adjacent to a ford and connecting you back up to the end of Fitz Steps and onward back to your car. This simple route is less than 2 miles long including any roaming you’ve done inside the quarry.

Alternatives and variations

If you would like to use the cave route out of the quarry, go to the back of the quarry where you’ll notice a metal rope. Go to the end of the rope to your left and use it as a handrail in your right hand with the quarry wall on your left. This will help you across some boulders and into the cave which goes fairly straight through to the other side of the fell and out into a wood. If you take the path off to the left you will navigate down to a lane. If you turn left onto the lane it will take you back to the Brathay and the wooden footbridge at the end of Fitz Steps.

You can also extend the end of the walk a bit by heading back along the alternate lane from the wooden footbridge to Stang End. If you take the lane off to the left in Stang End, marked by a footpath sign for Little Langdale, it will take you to another footbridge across the Brathay and over a field back to the village.

There are several alternate starting points. Each is adding additional distance, interest and alternate parking:

Elterwater: The village has a good car park near to the beck. If you head out of the car park, along the road across the beck after a short while there is a lane to the right. This is the start of a bridleway route over into Little Langdale via Dale End Farm. There’s also a path the drops down into the back of the Three Shires Inn which makes for a good alternate route back.

Dale End Farm: There is a small car park at Dale End Farm, LA22 9NZ which is cash only and last time I checked was £5. From the end of the lane you can take the path almost straight across down to Slater Bridge.

Side Gates Car Park: There’s a small car park just as you head along the road into Little Langdale known as Side Gates. This is another cash-only car park and last time I looked it was also £5. From this car park head back to and across the road bridge over the river where you will find a stile into the woods. This path meanders alongside the river and past Colwith Force to Stang End. It’s up to you, from here, how much of the original route you include. You can take a right along the lane up into the village, carry straight on to the caves, cross the river at the wooden footbridge, or if you want an adventure, try to find your way into the caves via the tunnel cave.

There are also routes into Cathedral Quarry from Hodge Close and Tilberthwaite, but I think I’ll cover those routes as different guides.

Little Langdale Tarn
Little Langdale Tarn
The path up to Cathedral Quarry
The path up to Cathedral Quarry
Cathedral Cave
Cathedral Cave
Fitz Steps Footbridge and Ford
Fitz Steps Footbridge and Ford

Tools form thinking – future thinking is framed by our tool experience | Working Principles

The Law of Instrument doesn’t just apply to hammers.

There’s a bias known as The Law of Instrument which is characterised by the common phrase “To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” In other words; people’s thinking is constrained by the tools that they have available, and are used to using.

I’ve been involved in several large transformations through my career and in each one the most difficult part has been getting the people to change. I’m not just talking here about coping with things moving around on a screen; I’m talking about the way the people think about and process their work.

One of my projects was to move an organisation away from Lotus Notes and into the Microsoft Office 365 ecosystem. At one level it’s just one email system to another one. The impact shouldn’t be too big, should it? What we discovered though, was that people had become used to thinking Lotus Notes, they knew how to use it to get things done; they knew the foibles and the work arounds. When they moved to Outlook and SharePoint they no longer knew how to do those things, but more than that, when they were told how to do it, what they were being told didn’t make any sense. They overlooked the limitations of Lotus Notes because they’d largely worked around them, the limitations of Outlook were before them every day. They would think A>B>C not X>Y>Z.

Paradigm shift: a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions.

We were asking people to shift from one model to a completely different one; from one paradigm to another, a paradigm that had been defined by the way that their current tool worked.

Imagine that you’ve carried the same Swiss-army knife for the last 15 years, you know instinctively the order of the blades; pulling out the tweezers is second nature to you. Then one birthday you are given a new Swiss-army knife but somewhere in the last 5 years they’ve decided to change the design. Your intuitive response has been broken, what was once second-nature requires you to look down and to think.

In my current project we were bringing together people who had worked on several different tools to use a standard set of tools. The standard set of tools do everything that the teams needed to do their job, after several years I’m quite sure of that. However, that’s not how the people changing saw it, they wanted everything to work like-for-like; not just like-for-like capabilities, they wanted like-for-like functions with like-for-like options with like-for-like methods. In some places the functions of a couple of tools were replaced by a single tool but people still expected to use a couple of tools because that’s how the tools used to be.

My current organisation is the result of several mergers; I can reliably tell the heritage of the people I talk to by the way they describe tools working. New managers join the organisation from other places and on of the first thing they want to do is rubbish the existing tools insisting that they are replaced with the tools that they had in their last organisation.

While most of these examples are trivial this type of thinking goes deep; often the constraints are profound. I’ve known people who can only imagine data analysis in Excel. We have all sorts of ways of interacting with technology yet most of what we do still involves a keyboard. The most common interaction with a GenAI platform is to search for something because a prompt looks a lot like a search window. When we do see someone do something with GenA like creating a picture in the style of a famous artist, we too use GenAI to create a picture in the style of the same artist.

When you know how someone’s thinking is likely to be constrained, including our own, it can make it a whole load easier to help them understand what might be outside their current inward limitations.

Header Image: This was from a recent visit to a cafe above Ambleside, one that’s still awaiting a Graham’s Guide.

“Yes, ma’am” – being helpful in the hills with CoMaps

What do you say to a forceful grandma who wants to know the way to the top?

On a recent bank holiday we set off early to walk one of the more popular routes in the Lake District around Rydal Water starting from Pelter Bridge. We arrived to take the last space.

Once parked I went off to pay at the machine where I was met by a man who asked if I knew the area. Being a helpful sole I said that I did, expecting to be asked something simple like “how do we get to the lake?” He wasn’t dressed like a seasoned walker, his children were in trainers.

He waved over a short, steely-eyed, in-charge lady who I assumed was the man’s mother. She fixed me with a stare and addressed me as if I was one of her children. Her diminutive unflinching presence was such that I regressed to my childhood and responded accordingly. On this occasion the resolute request was to help them find the route to the top of log-her-igg. It took me a little while to realise that what was being requested was the route to the top of Loughrigg Fell (it’s pronounced with a “uf” like rough.)

While Loughrigg Fell isn’t overly challenging as a hill there are numerous options for ascending from Pelter Bridge, however the main, tourist, path is at the other end of Rydal Water going up from Loughrigg Terrace.

I don’t mind being helpful but I’ve become a bit reticent about giving people who look unprepared too much information. I don’t want to be the one who gives them enough information to get themselves into deep trouble.

The Loughrigg Terrace path requires no navigational skills but was a couple of miles away and I wasn’t convinced that the younger children in the family group would enjoy such an adventure. They’d already struggled to get parked and I wasn’t going to propose to the small, steely-eyed, in-charge lady that they tried their luck at the car parks at the other end of the lake.

The lady, who I assume was grandma of this three generation family, was most insistent that people wanted to go to the top and then on to the caves. I suspect that they didn’t have too much choice, she was the one making the plans and the family would know not to meddle. I explained that the way to the top was via the cave, that you went there first, but that they needed a map. Grandma gave me several disapproving looks and I knew she was expecting more from me. One of the other adults talked about wanting to go for a swim which she ignored. I showed them on the map on my phone the route that we would be taking and the main route to the top, we also chatted about good places to swim, but the conversation still made me nervous.

There’s very limited signal at Pelter Bridge and the nearest thing they had to a navigational aid was Google Maps on various phones. If you’ve tried to use Google Maps for walking in the Lake District you’ll know that it’s really not something you should be relying on.

As I left them I hoped that they’d stick to the low level route, take the walk to the caves and then enjoy a swim. There wasn’t much risk in any of that, but I did wonder what might have happened if they had tried to venture to the top. Would grandma get her way? Would they get lost in the numerous path and come down somewhere near Elterwater? Or perhaps, unexpectedly in Ambleside?

The family started their walk and shortly after we followed along behind them. At the first fork in the path they stopped, looked at their phones and at each other. By this point we had caught up with them so I showed them the path to the caves which I hope they took, we continued on our way while they made their decision..

Would it have been better if I could have shared a navigational aid with them? Something more useful than Google Maps? It’s not realistic to expect people to download one of the paid options for a one-off activity, an outlay that they may never use again. I’m not sure I would advise the use of OS Maps even if they were willing to spend the money and my preferred app Outdoors GPS requires a reasonable level of map reading skills.

Later on in the walk I remembered a post that a former colleague had written about successfully using CoMaps in the Lake District on a recent trip, with the added advantage that it’s free. I decided to give it a go for the rest of our walk.

The mobile signal in the Lakes is patchy, not nonexistent. Not much further along I had enough signal to download the app, it automatically prompted me for permission to download the offline content for the area and we were off. The only adjustment I needed to make was to change from the dark to light theme on a very bright day. The mapping was excellent, the offline experience good and the data from OpenStreetMap was accurate for my very limited sample. Most people have enough mobile data allowance to download an app and a few MB of maps.

CoMaps would have given me an option for how to advise grandma and the car park family. I’m definitely not going to use it on every occasion, I’m not even sure I would have told the family, but I can definitely see times when it’s a better answer than sending them on their way blind.

All I need to do now is to work out the best way of combining CoMaps with my Walking Guides. I think the first step is going to be to upload some of the GPX files as Tracks in CoMaps; I can then share app, and tracks.

Header Image: It wouldn’t be the same without a visit to Rydal caves.

Force Cafe and Terrace, Ambleside | Graham’s Guides

Food with a fabulous view across the Lake District.

Graham’s Guidelines* Rating (1 to 5)
CoffeeN/A
Food5*
Conversation5*
People Watching4*

On a recent bank holiday Sue and I decided to revisit one of our favourite walks, incorporate a swim and do it all before lunch. Sue even managed a trip to the gym before we set off.

One of the advantages of being close to the Lake District is that you can get into some of the more popular spots before everyone arrives and out again before they decide to leave. Despite our early start we only just managed to stick to our plans, squeezing into the last parking space in Pelter Bridge Car Park at the southern end of Rydal.

There was an interesting encounter in the car park, but I’ll write about that in a different post.

Having completed our 4.3 mile moderate walk and swum between the islands we were ready for food.

There are several good cafe options in this area but on a bank holiday you want somewhere a little away from the tourist honeypots. It was with this in mind that we chose to make a return visit to Force Cafe and Terrace.

We’d been before, only for coffee and cake, it was alright, but not great. That was not long after the launch and sometimes it takes a place time to find the right staff and bed in.

Last time we visited was on our way down from Wansfell Pike having parked in Ambleside. This time, having already done our exercise, we drove up. The road is quite steep running alongside Stock Ghyll which contains a set of waterfalls, worth a visit most of the time, especially when it’s been raining, which it hasn’t done for weeks.

There is plenty of parking at Force, but it’s time limited, don’t expect to leave your vehicle there all day.

While the inside of the cafe at Force is lovely, the real showstopper is the terrace. I’m not saying that visiting on a good-weather day is mandatory, but if you do, you are in for a treat. On this occasion we struck the jackpot, clear skies with glorious views across the Lake District fells to the west with Coniston Old Man standing majestically in the distance.

There was plenty of people watching to do on the terrace. Several foreign languages and accents, definitely French, others Eastern European and some Asian. There were young people who were barely starting their day, others like us, a little older who had been awake a while. Many dressed for the hills, a few who were more country casual. From the body language everyone commenting on the scenery.

Lunch comprised Apple and Celeriac Soup and Eggs Benedict Rosti with extra bacon. Both were excellent, and so were the soft drinks that we chose for accompaniment. Lots of people were tricking into the breakfast, brunch, options.

The menu at Force is quite limited which you might regard as a challenge; for me a limited menu tends to indicate somewhere that cares about its food.

The service was good, despite the business of the day. We even got into a conversation with one of the ladies serving regarding the various places available for a swim. Neither of us had anywhere new to share in the Lake District, but it was good to find a kindred spirit.

We will be back.

Force Cafe and Terrace
Kelsick Grammar,
Stockghyll Ln,
Ambleside
LA22 0QY

From the terrace on a previous visit
Force Terrace

Silverdale Circular via Scout Wood and The Cove | Graham’s Guides

A favourite revisited, with an added glorious surprise.

Graham’s Walks📌
Distance2.6 miles
DifficultyModerate
Map🗺️
GPX📁
Graham’s CafeThe Wolf Cafe

The Area

While we love the Lake District, we are privileged to be surrounded by many beautiful places a bit closer to home. Silverdale is somewhere we have visited regularly even spending holiday weeks. A frequent route for us is a circular walk from Wolfhouse through Scout Wood, across the village to The Cove and back to the car and a cafe stop.

On a recent visit our walk was tinged with sadness; one of our favourite cafes, the one at Wolfhouse itself, had closed a few months before. We have many fond memories of sitting in the tiny cafe, or the outside courtyard having rented the house next to the gallery a coupe of times..

Silverdale sits on limestone which makes this countryside what it is, showing up in outcrops, forming the cliffs and in the miles of drystone walls. While we are reflecting on Silverdale, it’s worth noting that it’s probably not called Silverdale because of the colour or even the metal, it’s far more likely to be a morphing of a Norse word. There are quite a lot of things around the Irish Sea that were named by the Vikings.

The Walk

On the map this walk starts from Wolfhouse itself, but on our latest visit we set off from the entrance to Scout Wood which is a little way up the hill from Wolfhouse. There’s room for a few cars there; it’s also a great place to start one of the alternatives to this walk which adds in Jenny Brown’s Point. The entrance to Scout Wood is through a gap in the limestone wall immediately followed by a fork of the path, we take the one to the right, the higher road.

This portion of the walk takes us along the top of a limestone cliff covered in ancient woodland on one side, with pastureland, over the drystone wall, on the other. The cliff is known as Woodwell Cliff reflecting the presence of the Woodwell at the bottom. There is another route around Silverdale that takes in the various ancient wells in the area but that’s not what we have planned for today.

This is sheep country, they are likely to be in the fields on at least part of this walk; this also means that it’s a great walk in the spring when the lambs have been born.

We follow the path along the top of the cliff and through the woods. At the end of the woods is a kissing-gate where the woods opens out. The path takes a bit of a wiggle here to the right and then to the left where there’s another gate following which the route is again defined by the cliff, a wall and some more pastureland.

At the end of the wall there’s a gap to the right onto a path alongside a field and onto a lane known as The Chase.

We are at the outskirts of the village here and about to meet Stankelt Road. At the end of The Chase turn right and then the next left down a lane. At the end of the is a farmhouse and to the left of it is a gate into a field. The path here runs along the back of some houses to the left and opens out to a wonderful view across the open countryside to the right. If you know what you are looking for you can see the outline of the huge Middlebarrow Quarry now disused but providing another variation to this walk.

At the end of the field there’s a small gate onto a lane that takes you down the back of St John’s Church and onto Emersgate Lane. Turn right onto Emersgate Lane and a short way along you will see a narrow lane on the left between two houses. Some would call it a ginnel or even a snicket; the name you use for a narrow lane can define you in the eyes of certain people.

At the end of the footpath you will come out onto Cove Road near to the children’s playground, plenty of fun here for the younger ones, the zip-wire is particularly good.

As its name would suggest Cove Road is what will take us to The Cove. Unfortunately, there isn’t a defined path along the full length of Cove Road so you do have to be watchful for vehicles. It’s generally not too busy and the tightness of the space means that, hopefully, none of the vehicles are travelling too quickly.

Having travelled along Cove Road for a little way the road will take a sharp righthand turn towards Arnside at Cove Orchard and Cove House. We, however, are taking the road off to the left called Cove Lane. Anyone like to guess what the defining feature of the landscape is in this area?

Cove Lane takes you down to the long-anticipated cove. We are quite relaxed about how we name things in the UK despite our love of definitions. A lane and a road have distinct meanings but are used interchangeably in many situations. This is one of those situations; a cove would normally define an inlet of water and here that’s not really the case. It’s a very lovely cutting in the limestone down to the shore, but I’m not sure it’s really a cove. Also, I’m not sure whether to call it a beach.

As you enter The Cove note that there’s a path off to the left, that’s where we are going after we’ve done a bit of exploring.

To the right is a cliff that curves around and in which there is a cave. The cave doesn’t go very deep, but it’s big enough to get into. The clamber up has become smoothed by the many feet that have made their way up and care is required. The house on the land above the cave has a tenuous connection with the Bronte sisters via its original owner Rev Carus Wilson.

What lies beyond the cove is the flatland of Morecambe Bay which often has an other-worldly look about it. If you are there in the afternoon or evening the bay looks particularly spectacular with the sun on it; the sunsets can be amazing. This isn’t, however, a place you go to for the traditional seaside experiences. You’re unlikely to see any sea, or waves, and I wouldn’t recommend going in if you did; the combination of tidal forces, mud, quicksand and swirling winds can be deadly. If an exploration out into the bay sounds like an appealing idea, the best way of doing it is to join the Kings Guide to the Sands on one of their walks.

From the cove we wander up the path along the top of the cliffs, through a kissing gate and across a couple of fields with further views across the bay. In the far corner of the second field there’s a gate out onto Stankelt Road. Stankelt Road becomes Shore Road as it heads down to Silverdale Beach past the Silverdale Hotel. We are heading along Lindeth Road which is the other option you should see in front of you at this point.

Lindeth Road leads all the way back to Wolfhouse. There isn’t a path all of the way and there are portions of this section where you have to walk on the road. It’s a steady uphill climb back to the car.

As we rounded the corner we were delighted to notice that the cafe at Wolfhouse appeared to be occupied, a board outside confirmed that to be the case, and boasting a new name The Wolf Cafe. We’ve known a few iterations of the cafe at Wolfhouse, and it’s always been an excellent place for a refreshment stop. As we weren’t planning on visiting the cafe our sojourn only involved a drink and a cake so I’m not in a position to comment on the broader menu. The coffee was glorious, the cake was excellent and we’ll certainly be back, perhaps next time we’ll do food. Interestingly the new owners operate the Lone Wolf Bakery in Lancaster.

Alternative and variations

Silverdale has a huge variety of options for a morning, or afternoon, tramp; so many that I’m not sure I know where to start.

Perhaps the best place to start is at the beginning?

As you walk up the hill from Wolfhouse rather than turning left into Scout Wood you can turn right and take the path to Jenny Brown’s Point via Heald Brow and the Copper Smelt Kiln Tower. This will turn the walk into a figure of eight walk bringing you back up to Wolfhouse. You could do the walk the other way around and head down to Jenny Brown’s Point via Gibraltar Farm and the Lindeth Tower coming back over Heald Brow to join the path into Scout Wood. Whichever way you go it’s worth noting that the path near to the Kiln Tower is on the shoreline and changes regularly as erosion and accretion play their part. There’s also the option to explore Jack Scout and the Giant Seat on this route. At the right time of the year Jack Scout has excellent brambling.

Another adaptation would be to take a detour across to Middlebarrow Quarry by taking the path to the right just before you arrive at St John’s Church. This will bring you out onto Bottom Lane. At the end of Bottom Lane, you can head up into Eaves Wood heading right around to the Quarry entrance. You can’t currently get into the quarry, but there are several places where you can get a good view inside. If you head anticlockwise around the back of the quarry you will eventually come out at Arnside Tower via Middlebarrow Wood. From here you could head up Arnside Knott, but that would be another walk altogether. From Arnside Tower you can take the path into the back of Holgates Holiday Park and down the road to The Cove.

If you are feeling like you want to gain a bit of height to get a better view, a short extension to the walk is to head up to The Pepperpot in Eaves Wood on your route to The Cove. The monument marks the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, but the real star is the view from this elevated position.

From The Cove, given the right tidal conditions, you can follow the shoreline to Silverdale Beach from which you can rejoin the route. If, however, you are enjoying the shoreline walking you can carry on all the way to Jenny Brown’s Point with a couple of options to head back inland along the way, including the option to head into Jack Scout. I can’t guarantee that any of this is going to be possible on any given day such is the fluidity of the coastline around Morecambe Bay.

There are other options for a cafe in Silverdale Village itself where there are also public toilets and a convenience store not far off the route as shown.

Heading into Scout Wood
Through the woods
Time to be nosey – peaking into back gardens
In the cove
Across the fields
Gibraltar Farm
The glorious surprise

Office Speak: Word Salad

Is it a mess, a confusion, or is it a salad?

You have walked into a restaurant and order a superfood salad; whatever that really means. I few minutes later the waiter arrives with a plate containing a wonderful selection of grains and fruit, leaves and tomato, nuts and goats cheese. All of the ingredients are placed randomly on the plate yet somehow it doesn’t look like a mess, it looks tasty and delicious.

This is a salad.

You are listening to a corporate communication which is filled with a wonderful array of business speak – synergies, win-win, low-hanging fruit, culture, silos, competencies, wheelhouse, strategic, transformational, world-beating, and actions.

You know what each of these terms means. You think you know the context in which the words are being used and yet, you think to yourself “I have no idea what this person is saying, these words don’t make any sense.” It doesn’t taste delicious, it tastes unpalatable.

This is word salad.

Or perhaps you are in a question and answer session and a tricky question comes up. The person providing the answers starts talking, and talking, and even talking a bit more. They use lots of words, impressive sounding words, technical sounding terms, and yet they don’t make any sense.

This is word salad.

A current colleague has used the term for a long time, but I’ve heard it more broadly in recent weeks and months so decided it was time to promote it to Office Speak.

According to Google Trends there has, since the spring of 2024, been a significant increase in people searching for it.

Some of the increase is related to the release of a word game with the same name that the Sunday Times, no less, described as “the game of the moment.” I’ve never played it so I’m in no position to comment on how good it is, but I do find it fascinating that this semi-obscure term has, in quite a short time, become mainstream.

The increase is likely, also, attributable to the growing group of politicians trying to avoid giving an unpalatable answer. In recent months I’ve noticed the same tactic being deployed by business people to similar ends.

There’s plenty of Office Speak that could be termed word salad.

While salad is, dependent upon your preferences, tasty and healthy, word salad is unpalatable and decidedly unhealthy.

While I am pointing fingers at several groups, the real challenge is that there are still several fingers pointing back at the author. Keeping things simple and understandable is something to which I, for one, need to be vigilant. On a recent project I worked with a person who would edit what I’d written for certain communications. They were brilliant at asking a simple question “Graham, what does that mean?” What I thought obvious was frequently incomprehensible for them, and their English was far better than mine.

Header Image: This is Tewet tarn which sits in the hills near to Threlkeld and not too far from the Castlerigg Stone Circle.

Beacon Fell Circular – Up Hill and Down Dale | Graham’s Guides

A lovely little walk that takes you up a small hill with a fabulous view, then down dale for even more views. Made for the summer, boggy the rest of the year.

Graham’s Walks📌
Distance3.2 miles
DifficultyModerate
Map🗺️
GPX📁
Graham’s CafeNot on this one, but there is a cafe. If you are travelling from Preston The Lookout is on the route through Longridge.

The Area

A conversation from my Polytechnic days has stuck in my mind for over 30 years now. One of the other students who was from somewhere in the south said “We went out to the Forest of Bowland over the weekend, but there aren’t any trees there.”

The area of hillside to the north west of Preston from roughly Whitechapel in the south-west up to Hornby in the north-west, across to Clapham in the north-east and Bolton-by-Bowland in the south-east is known as The Forest of Bowland and designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

As my student friend suggests, if you associate forests with trees you’ll be disappointed, there haven’t been that many trees since the 17th century when the land was increasingly used for livestock. We don’t like changing the name of things in the UK.

Just beyond Inglewhite and Whitechapel, and just within the Forest of Bowland, lies a small hill know as Beacon Fell.

It’s currently owned by the local council and operated as country park. As the name suggests Beacon Fell was once a vital part of the national chain of beacons communicating major events a role it’s had for over 1,000 years.

The fell is not very big, but it does sit on the edge of the west Lancashire lowlands giving it spectacular views across to the mountains of both Wales and the Lake District. On a day with good visibility you can see the Isle of Man, most days you can see the Manx ferry making its way in-to, or out-of Heysham. In the opposite direction you get great views of the more substantial Forest of Bowland fells including Parlick and Fair Snape.

As a country park Beacon Fell has good facilities with several car parks, lots of good paths and even a visitors centre with a cafe and toilets.

The Walk

This walk starts from the Sheepfold Car Park. There are a couple of reasons for this, the first is that this car park is free, unlike the one at the visitors centre although the one at the visitor centre only charges £1 for the day. The second reason is that there’s a back route to get here without travelling half of the circular one-way road around the fell.

I’ve called it ‘up hill and down dale’ because that’s the order I did the walk. I tend to prefer walks that go up and then come down, even if that means going down first to go up. This walk goes the other way around, you finish by going up, there’s really no way of avoiding that as the car park really isn’t very far from the top. You could minimise the amount of up at the end by doing the walk the other way around, that way around the walk back up to the car park wouldn’t be as steep.

This walk starts on the wide, well marked, paths of the Beacon Fell Country Park travelling around the park first before veering off into the surrounding farmland.

From the car park we are heading towards The Tarn along Larch Avenue which was previously the road up to a farm which stood where the visitors centre is now. It’s worth spending a little bit of time at The Tarn where the Dragonflies and Damselflies can be glorious.

There a little bit of tricky navigating here if you want to follow the same route as me, there are several paths that all converge here. You are aiming for the circular route that takes you between Quarry Wood and Quarry Car Parks. Don’t worry if you miss this and find yourself on a different route to the summit, that’s where you are heading eventually.

Part way along the circular route there’s a short cut-back connecting path that puts you on a path to the top. It’s worth taking what feels like a detour to experience the views on any day, but especially when the visibility is good.

Having reached the trig-point at the top it’s time to head back down to the circular path, but only for a short while. You are aiming for a point on this path where there is a sculpture known as The Lizard Love Seat on your left and a gate with a path heading down hill on your right which will take us down-dale.

Up to this point you could travel this walk almost any day of the year, beyond here we start to move into farmland and some of it is particularly boggy, so I don’t recommend it as a winter walk. This year has been dry for weeks and it was still wet in places. There’s no need to do this piece of the walk, if you want to get back to you car you can simply stay on he circular route. This part of the route is there to add interest and some different views.

At this point you should be heading down to the circular road then across the road down toward Sagar’s Farm (no idea who Sagar was), the path is marked by some nicely placed yellow topped posts. Before you get to Sagar’s farm, though, you’ll reach a not very well defined hedgerow cutting across your path, at this point you want to turn left along the line of the hedgerow.

The views of the Forest of Bowland Fells from here are spectacular. If you are fortunate you may even see a glider heading off from the nearby club, paraglider are also quite common floating off the top of the larger fells.

You are heading toward North Nook across a series of boggy fields via a set of stiles, each one marked by a yellow pole. All you have to do is find the stiles which isn’t always easy.

Just before North Nook you cross a road and along a path that feels a bit like you are walking through someone’s garden. Across the garden are two stiles close together. Once you come out the other side you are looking for a tall stile which isn’t quite where it’s marked on the OS map.

You’ll now make your way through some young woodland and then out into some more open scrub. You are looking for a path heading left on a steep incline. You are heading up into an area known as the Rosemary Bullivant Memorial Forest where each of the trees is dedicated to someone.

From the Memorial Forest you work your way to the right either via the visitors centre and toilets, or a less travelled route via the Jubilee Memorial.

There’s a path from the end of the visitor centre car park, across from the Orme sculpture, that takes you back up onto Larch Avenue and back to the Sheepfold car park.

Alternatives and Variations

There are so many variations to this walk I nearly didn’t write any. The country park is criss-crossed with paths that you can use to shorten or elongate this walk. I’ve already mentioned the option of missing out the down-dale part but then it would only be half the walk.

You can start the walk in one of the other car parks the walk passes nearby to most of them.

There are several sculptures around the park; this route only passes a couple of them, you can add in more of them if you head straight to the top from Sheepfold, passing the Heron, the Walking Snake and the Bat as you go. From there you can partially double back down to the tarn, or head down to the circular route and the Lizard Kissing Chair.

On the map there are various options from extending the down-dale part of the walk also, but I’ve not walked any of them so can’t comment on their suitability.

Larch Avenue
The Tarn
From the top
Some more of the view from the top
Across the boggy bit – look out for the yellow topped posts
The view across to Parlick and Fair Snape from the down-dale bit
Back to the top

No.15 Cafe House, Macmillans, Penwortham | Graham’s Guides

It’s time for brunch, and a glorious brunch it was too.

Graham’s Guidelines* Rating (1 to 5)
Coffee4*
Food5*
Conversation5*
People Watching3*

It’s Saturday morning and we are looking forward to spending most of our day as guests at a wedding. The timing of weddings makes for interesting eating. It’s called a wedding breakfast but that’s happening later in the day and it’s traditional that the wedding itself happens at about the time you would normally be eating your lunch. Experience has taught us that the best way to prepare for a wedding is to have a good breakfast, or brunch, which will see you through to the wedding reception.

Our chosen location is not new to us, we’ve been on many occasions. I suspect that Sue and I have had a similar brunch on a similar occasion, Sue might even remember the exact day and occasion but my memory doesn’t work that way.

If the truth be told, we’ve visited often enough that we know the menu and our order is set before we’ve walked in the door. That doesn’t stop us both reading the menu thinking that we might do something different. We don’t, we know what we like. It’s poached eggs on granary toast with bacon or sausage and topped off with mushrooms. To drink we will both have some orange juice and a black americano. The coffee is Carvetii which is roasted in Threlkeld, not too far from where Sue spent her early years. It’s a full body roast which is well prepared in the No. 15 espresso machine.

No. 15 Cafe House is a cosy place hidden away from Penwortham high street on the quieter side of Priory Lane adjacent to, and connected with, Macmillans gift shop.

The display of cakes is always a delight, but they aren’t on the order for today.

There’s normally parking available on the street outside, but even if there isn’t there’s plenty of on-street parking around.

It’s advisable to book, we didn’t, but there were only the two of us.

We settle down and talk through the people we think are going to be at the wedding. Weddings are great occasions for reconnecting. We’ve known many of the people who will be there a very long time.

It was quiet on this particular visit which meant that the people watching was somewhat restricted. Everyone quietly getting on with their Saturday morning. The most notable thing was a man who had the full breakfast, which is substantial, buying some of the rather large scones, on his way out, stating that he would be eating them for his mid-morning snack. I was impressed by his ability to eat anything mid-morning after such a feast.

The food is, as ever, excellent, the staff are warm and friends, and the coffee is good.

Food eaten, I decide to indulge in a second cup of the Corvetii while Sue does a tour of the gifts having previously reminded herself of the upcoming events requiring a card, gift, etc.. If it was left to me we wouldn’t send anything like as many cards even though I know how much people value the connection that they bring.

Coffee drunk it’s time for the rest of a very special day knowing that we’ve taken on the calories we need to see us through to breakfast.

No. 15 Cafe House,
Macmillans of Penwortham
15 Priory Lane,
Penwortham,
Preston
PR1 0AR

No. 15 Cafe
In the conservatory

“You did what?” I switching to a MacBook as my ‘home’ laptop

The joys and frustrations of retraining myself to use a MacBook after decades as a Windows person.

For personal reasons it became an opportune time to refresh the device that I use for ‘home’ and for the first time I chose an Apple MacBook.

You did what?

There are people for whom the choice between Windows and Mac is almost a religious one, I’m a bit more pragmatic than that, I want what makes me productive.

A long time ago there were the famous and celebrated Get a Mac adverts which pitched PC v Mac, these adverts had the opposite effect on me and pushed me away from the Mac.

For most of my working career I have been a Microsoft Windows user, before that I was a DOS, VMS, UNIX and MVS user. If you don’t know what most of those acronyms mean, then don’t worry about it all they indicate is that I have been using Windows for about as long as it has existed.

In many ways, Windows is how I think when I look at a screen.

My ‘smart’ mobile life, however, has been almost exclusively Apple iPhone and iPad. Again, there was a time before the iPhone when I spent a lot of my life bashing away on a Blackberry Keyboard, but that’s a different history.

For the last couple of years, I’ve also been an Apple Watch wearer. So even further into the Apple ecosystem.

My employer is heavily Microsoft Windows, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon, so Windows isn’t going anywhere for much of my life.

I considered not having a “home” laptop at all, after all surely I can do everything I need to do on an iPad? Why do I even need a full-fat operating system?

Decisions are always a mixture of logic and feelings; in this case it was the feelings that won. There really wasn’t a deal breaker with any of the options I was considering, there were some things I really liked about the MacBook, so I purchased a MacBook.

Impressions so far

My first concern was how long it would take me to become productive.

So much of what we do on our devices has become instinctive, we don’t really think our way through the menu options or the keyboard shortcuts, we just use them when we need them. I have developed a way of working in Windows that I think is efficient, would the MacOS get in the way of that?

There has been some frustration along the way, but for the most part things are working quite well.

Thankfully I’ve not had to replace any apps, what I use is either available on both Windows and Mac, or I already prefer the Apple version from my iPhone.

Some time ago I switched to a desk setup that made use of a USB-C switch the connected to a suitable power supply for my work Windows Laptop, peripherals, monitor, etc. I was delighted when I first plugged my MacBook into this set-up and everything just worked.

It took me less than a half a day to get to a working setup that gave me 80% to 90% of what I needed to be productive.

I’ve found most of the interface changes easy to get used to, even the closing of a window which is in the opposite corner for a Windows person.

Further Joys

I might be giving up on Windows for personal use, but I’m not giving up on Office just yet. I use OneDrive for storage, my email is in Outlook, I’m used to using Excel, Word and PowerPoint. In the past Office on Mac was clunky and didn’t really feel like it was either Office or a truly Mac. From my experience so far those days are thankfully behind us.

I’m a big keyboard-shortcut user and for the most part these are the same between Mac and Windows, although some of the keys are in different places. The basic set using the same letters – cut (command+x), copy (command+c), paste (command+v), undo (command+z), select all (command+a).

Before I purchased the MacBook several people raved about the Apple processors and the amazing battery life that this enabled. So far, I agree with them wholeheartedly. I’ve been working away from home for a few days this week and several times a day I’m having to find power for my work HP Z-Book, but the MacBook that I’ve used almost as much is still sitting at 70% battery. I didn’t think that the battery issue was one that would really impact me, but I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve noticed it, or rather, not noticed it, I just assume that the MacBook has power.

I am loving the ecosystem integrations. Having photos on my MacBook is brilliant, when I write the Graham’s Guides having the photos there, on a map, is excellent. Not having to switch to my iPhone to send a message is another one.

I am privileged to have a Windows laptop with a camera that supports Windows Hello for authentication, something that just works. I wasn’t looking forward to using the fingerprint reader on the MacBook, but little did I know that Apple had built in Apple Watch proximity recognition so for most of the time I don’t need to.

The physical build quality of the MacBook is so good.

Some Frustrations

My primary annoyance is that some keys are in different places, the main one being the swap of the @ and the “.

The other strange one that keeps interrupting my flow is the position of the command key in comparison to the ctrl key on Windows keyboards. I’m still having to look down to find the command key, finding the ctrl key on Windows is still second-nature.

I do miss the home key and the end key; it’s taking me a long time to make the mental shift to command+right-arrow and command+left-arrow. This is particularly irksome when I use an external keyboard that also has a home and end key that both do something very different to their function on Windows.

Another key I miss is the Windows key as a rapid way to access the Windows Start screen. I quite regularly start applications by pressing the Windows key and typing the name of the app. Spotlight via Command-Space is another mental shift I haven’t yet got used to.

Mouse scroll direction is another interesting one. When I sit at a desk, I like to use an external keyboard and an ergonomic mouse. The mouse has a scroll wheel – the default scroll on the MacBook is in the opposite direction to Windows. I can change this, but I haven’t yet decided whether I want to, I don’t want to be one of those people who buy a Mac and set it up to work like Windows. I’ve also toyed with the idea of changing the direction on my Windows setup.

When I am working on multiple screens, I would love the Mac Dock to be visible on all of them, that’s a personal preference I know, but seems like such an obvious thing to do. The option to automatically hide and show the Dock goes part way there and may become my option of choice.

Yet to be Fully Explored

I can’t honestly say that I’ve properly explored the capabilities of the MacBook trackpad. I’ve never been a huge fan of any of the trackpad technologies, even on Windows, so I’ve got some way to go before I can honestly say I’m proficient.

I like the way on Windows that you can navigate to the window that you want from the taskbar, control+click on the app icon in the Dock doesn’t yet feel as intuitive.

The Apple Watch recognition works most of the time, but sometimes it doesn’t and then I need to enter my password. I’m not sure why this is; the cause doesn’t seem clear.

Finder and the way it’s structured still feels a bit strange, I’m not even sure I know what it is, but something makes me wary of it. One little example is the file save dialogue in applications, on Windows it seems obvious how to create a new folder, this isn’t obvious to me on the MacBook.

Other Oddities

I have a Bluetooth keyboard and ergonomic mouse that support multiple connections. I’ve used this combination to support both my work and home laptops at the same time on my desk. This makes for relatively easy switching from device-to-device, I say “relatively” because the keyboard switch is very easy having physical keys dedicated to the different input, the mouse also has a button to switch, but it’s tiny and it’s on the base of the device. Having to pick up the mouse and press a tiny button only takes a few seconds, but the fact that it’s a two-handed operation makes it feel like an utter faff. I suspect that there is a combination of keys on the mouse that will do the switch, but the manual for this model doesn’t mention one. I may have to investigate an alternative; I’ve had this mouse a long while.

This blog, and others, was first written in Typora, a markdown editor, the license nicely includes the ability to run more than one device. I was really pleased to experience that the Typora app on the MacBook is just as good as the Windows version and I can run both at the same time.

Concluding

I’m very happy with my purchase; the joys are outshining the frustrations. There is certainly some confirmation bias in this statement, but it would be a strange situation if there wasn’t. There isn’t any buyers remorse.

Header Image: This is Crummock Water on a glorious day just before we went for a swim. Crummock can get quite busy in places, but it can also be gloriously tranquil if you know where to look.

Atkinsons The Castle, Lancaster | Graham’s Guides

One of Lancaster’s emporiums for the coffee lover

Graham’s Guidelines* Rating (1 to 5)
Coffee5*
Food4*
Conversation5*
People Watching4*

Atkinsons is a highly regarded, award winning, coffee roaster in Lancaster, also known as coffeehopper on social media due to their logo. They operate three cafes within quite a small area of the city. On this occasion we are visiting Atkinsons at Lancaster Castle, we’ll cover The Hall and The Music Room another time. There shop, near to The Hall, is itself a wonder to behold.

Each of the Atkinsons cafes in Lancaster serves the same great coffee, but has a different feel. Atkinsons The Castle is, as the name suggests, within the grounds of Lancaster Castle which has stood on these ground for nearly 1,000 years dating back to the Normans and probably before. Prior to its most recent refurbishment the castle was, until 2011, a prison. One quirk of this history is that Lancaster Castle is still owned by the Duchy of Lancaster and hence by the Sovereign (the King).

As you enter the castle square through the imposing keep you can feel the history everywhere. The Castle Cafe is in an opposing corner to the castle keep to the right. The cafe sits in what was a portion of the castle kitchen and a newly covered area with glass doors opening out into the square. The seating is within the new area with additional seating outside in the square. If the weather is good you should expect to loiter for a while to get an outside seat. The whole place looks particularly atmospheric on a dark winter’s day.

On this occasion we are making a quick visit for coffee and cake. We are rewarding ourselves having just been to give blood at the local hospital.

This isn’t a place to visit for a huge lunch, or even brunch, the food menu is limited to cakes, pastries and sandwiches, which are always excellent.

Today we are sticking to the house Americano based on their Archetype blend, but this wouldn’t be Atkinsons if there weren’t choices for the coffee connoisseur and here at the castle they are offered as speciality pour-over brews. The menu of pour-over changing on regular basis depending on what is in season.

They also do speciality teas at the castle, but I’ve never tried one so couldn’t comment. If I’m coming to the castle I’m here for the coffee.

Each of the Atkinsons cafes attracts an eclectic mix of people making for excellent people watching – the flirty couple on the high table, the family outside over-reacting to a solitary wasp, the two ladies in dry-robes on a glorious warm and dry day in the middle of a city, the arty student in the corner typing away on his MacBook wearing expensive beige coloured over-the-ear headphones, the older gentleman sat outside in his summer hat.

You do have to be able to walk up a short steep hill on cables to get to the castle whichever way you come.

We normally park just down the hill from the entrance on Castle Hill, accessed via Market Street, where there are a few roadside pay-and-display/RingGo spaces.

Atkinsons The Castle
Castle Hill,
Lancaster
LA1 1YN

https://www.thecoffeehopper.com/locations/lancaster-castle/
https://maps.app.goo.gl/soF71NU7pD6Vfc7T9

The Castle Square
Atkinsons The Castle on a Wet Lancashire Day
A day for sitting out
Looking up at the keep on the way in

The Lingholm Kitchen and Walled Garden, Portinscale, Keswick | Graham’s Guides

A great place to start a walk, a good stop part-way through a circular ramble and an equally great place for sustenance after a bimble.

Graham’s Guidelines* Rating (1 to 5)
Coffee4*
Food4*
Conversation5*
People Watching4*

The Lingholm Kitchen and Walled Garden sits near to the shore of Derwentwater just outside Portinscale which itself is just outside Keswick. It’s location sites it just off the circular walking route of the lake and not far below Cat Bells making it an ideal start, finish and stop-off point on several walks.

On this occasion we were meeting some good friends who were just finishing off a week’s holiday in Keswick. After warm hugs I was greeted by the words “‘You’ll struggle to get lost’ you said” as one of our friends lifted up her arm showing a graze on her elbow. It felt strange having my words repeated back to me. While in the area our friends had decided to follow my Tarn Hows Circular via Tom Gill guide, a confusion at the beginning had led them along a completely different path to the one I’d intended them to follow. It turns out that their route was a lot steeper than the one I’d guided and some water on a rock had resulted in a fall and the displayed wound. I’ve always regarded the beginning of any walk as the most dangerous part for navigation, get it wrong then and you are always going to be wrong.

We laughed a lot during our time together and it was wonderful to catch up.

There’s a good car park at Lingholm which you do pay for. The parking fee is currently £5 for 3 hours and has been for a long while, but you will get £4 of this back when you pay in the cafe. The car park is a short walk from the cafe itself, but there is also accessible parking which is accessed via some electric gates for which you need a code. The code is obtained by calling the cafe.

You access the car park from a driveway that is well signposted from the Portinscale to Grange road which winds around the ‘back of the lake.’ I’ve always known it as that as that’s what the Keswick locals call the area on the other side of Derwentwater. The car park is near to the end of the driveway with additional room running alongside the driveway itself.

Further along from the car park is an entrance through an archway which takes you into the grounds of the Lingholm Estate. Follow the path along the stream, around the field where there are often Alpaca, past the entrance to the walled garden and up onto the veranda entrance to the cafe.

Take time to look around as you walk though, this place has an interesting history. The large house behind the cafe was a regular holiday rental for the Potter family. From the age of 19, Beatrix Potter spent 10 summers here, over a 20 year period. These are the days when a summer holiday lasted a couple of months and the house had to be big enough for servants. Some of Beatrix’s most popular stories were inspired by these grounds. The drawings of Owl Islands in The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin were based on St Herbert’s Islands on Derwentwater which is just across from the shoreline. The cottage gardens at Lingholm was one of the inspirations behind Mr McGregor’s garden in Peter Rabbit.

It’s worth wandering around the walled garden and imagining being here at the end of the nineteenth, start of the twentieth century, before either world war.

The cafe itself is constructed with a glass wall down one side giving views of the Skiddaw range of hills and making them some of the best cafe views in the Lake District.

Lingholm Kitchen is another cafe that serves Carvetii, which is roasted just the other side of Keswick in Threlkeld, they know how to make a good coffee. The cakes are always good with the scones being a particular favourite. Sue and I have been known to order a cheese scone and a fruit scone then split them half-and-half. We’ve regularly used Lingholm as a lunch stop, there’s always something interesting on the specials board with the soup being a regular choice there’s also much that we like on the regular menu.

I’m a few cafe guides in now and I’ve realised that I need to do a better job of taking pictures that show the places themselves. Apologies if the few in this one don’t really give you a good view of what type of place it is. I do have lots of pictures of shelves of cakes, but that’s not very helpful if they have different cakes on when you go. Why do I have lots of pictures of cakes? It’s the easiest way of explaining to people what the options are without each one of us going to the counter to see. Did I mention that the scones are always a good choice?

The Lingholm Kitchen and Walled Garden
The Lingholm Estate,
Portinscale,
Keswick,
Cumbria,
CA12 5TZ

https://thelingholmkitchen.co.uk
https://maps.app.goo.gl/GKvMm1VV595duogP9

Scones are always a good choice

Roberts & Co Coffee Roastery & Espresso Bar, Cedar Farm | Graham’s Guides

For us, these seats carry a lot of nostalgia.

Graham’s Guidelines* Rating (1 to 5)
Coffee5*
Food4*
Conversation5*
People Watching4*

There are some cafes that are just right for a summers day with great outdoor seating and fabulous views, there are other cafes that are a cozy place to hide on a duller day. The Roberts and Co Roastery and Espresso Bar at the back of the Studios at Cedar Farm is lovely at any time but comes into its own when the weather is more inclement.

You may already know that I like places where they roast their own coffee, and as the name suggests the Espresso Bar is inside the Roastery. There’s an antique industrial feel as you sit amongst the roasting equipment. Behind the bar are old style coffee storage canisters that remind me of a shop I used to go into as a child. The chalk board above outlines the array of single-origin and blends that are available. The walls are decorated with old coffee bags from around the globe.

If you are looking for sleek modern straight lines and matching furniture this isn’t the place for you. The Espresso Bar is a quirky selection of sofas and chairs, some made out of shipping pallets, interspersed with similarly eclectic tables. There are shelves loaded with items that I’m quite confident were there when we first started coming which must be more than 20 years ago.

We are fortunate today, one of the voluminous sofas are free. We ask the people sat on the facing sofa whether they mind us joining them – they aren’t going to say “no”, and we know they aren’t going to say “no”, but it’s the British thing to ask.

We choose a muffin each and one of the South American single origin coffees, it’s normally Columbian. It comes in a cafeteria with enough for at least four people, we sometimes feel a bit guilty at the amount we leave.

If you want something more substantial than a cake or some crisps then I recommend that you head out of the Roastery, down the corridor and into The Barn which is the adjoining building. Here you will find a wide selection of food options including another outlet for Roberts.

When the children were younger Cedar Farm was a place we would come on a wet Sunday afternoon to catch up with each other’s lives. These days it’s more often a trip with just the two of us, but the purpose is the same – we regularly have the diaries out or sit and complete a crossword together. There’s often a recent newspaper left by someone who no longer has a use for it.

There’s always an interesting group of people in the Roastery, on this occasion it was a mum, dad and two daughters discussing the challenges of student accommodation.

Having relished our coffee and savoured our muffin we head over to the counter to order some beans to take home with us, it’s normally the Napoli Blend and some Dark Decaf.

Coffee Bags