Just over the hill from Bangor lies Newtownards, the town where our twin daughters were born almost forty years ago. Although a life defining moment for us, we barely know the town itself. When we lived in County Down we tended to go directly Bangor⇔Belfast and Newtownards did not figure on that route. It is on the way to Castle Espie, however, a nature reserve on the shores of Strangford Lough where we were heading today. Purely by chance we parked our car opposite this place, No 8 Court Street and it looked like a pretty good bet for a scone. We weren’t wrong, although scones were in short supply … nothing other than rhubarb and ginger ones left. Lately, there have been soooo many places where we have missed the scones completely or maybe just got the last one. We may have to make scone time a wee bit earlier. This is the roller coaster of uncertainty and  chance that we ride every day on your behalf.  Anyway rhubarb and ginger sounded exciting enough.

Beefy chunks

No 8 is a great place with an excellent downstairs restaurant  but upstairs they have a couple of very comfortable areas laid out with big soft armchairs and a cornucopia of antique furniture.

All the serving staff were bubbly and enthusiastic, nothing was too much trouble. After a delicious lunch our scones arrived. They were huge and at first we thought we would not be able to finish them. No worries, they were so good that they did not last long. They were warm and the wonderful texture combined with beefy chunks of rhubarb and ginger made for an unusual but wonderful experience. Everything was nice here. You could tell that the owners had put a lot of thought into the interior design as well as the food. The scone was presented beautifully together with a variety of coffee cans full of cream and jam. Yes, so far it’s three topscones in a row for Northern Ireland … yeagh!

Important things

You may think that news concerning a troika of scones is a trifling matter compared to the news that half of Jeremy Corbyn’s colleagues voted for other parties in the EU elections. Come to think of it, it is debatable which is the more important … or more trifling?

BT23 4JT           tel: 028 9181 2430             No 8

///strumming.tennis.taps

ps: Castle Espie was excellent. You could say that going to a WWT site like this is cheating when it comes to a bird list. Pat, however, was very honest and only noted birds in the ‘wild’ section of the reserve. Currently, her total is 42 different species and that is without a blue tit or a great tit, neither of which we have seen yet.