Sausage Baps and Tribute Bands

By now you faithful readers able to wade through my initial meanderings in each column are hopefully anticipating that they (usually) lead to something worthwhile. I start this month’s entry with that preamble because this will be the weirdest prelude yet to my main point, but I would not have had the inspiration without the events that are herein described (mercifully without great scatological detail). For the two or three of you dear supporters who ever find yourselves in the UK in Northumberland National Park in Bardon Mill County Parish (where I’m writing this in an AirBnB) traveling on the easterly-westerly B6318, eat at the Twice Brewed Inn (just west of the Sill National Landscape Discovery Centre) at your own risk. My wife and I were out for a long walk through the hills, valleys and part of Hadrian’s Wall and we stopped there for an early afternoon bite. It’s also a brewery and I wanted to sample a couple of ales I knew I’d find nowhere else. The beer’s quality was not as highly above average as was its price, but I reasoned this is a touristy pub so what can one expect? What one shouldn’t expect is food poisoning from an under-cooked sausage roll (or bap as they’re sometimes called)—funny, my autocorrect attempted to change that word to “bad” three times. All was fine until we left the pub to continue the two-and-a-half mile return journey to our Air