Greetings, folks. We’re back on tour! Due to the recent unpleasantness you might have noticed that the ability to travel has been ever-so-slightly curtailed (travel situation as summed up by a BBC pundit last week: ‘purely for the bold and desperate’). So, what do you do when you want a break because your life is collapsing and you need to get away from the omnishambles that is your existence? Simple: you have a staycation – the single most uninspiring word in the English language – so you can focus on the omnishambles that is your existence in a room with a kettle and a bin under the sink (you may be wondering what terrible incident would cause your intrepid guide – all-round superstar and manic pixie dream harpy – to head North. Well, folks, it’s a love thing. Or a dating thing. Or a not dating thing. Very complicated. Dating may be like riding a bike to some but for me it is like riding a bike that is on fire through molasses as snipers shoot final reminders at you that are attached to paving slabs. I’ll get therapy later)

So, I’m off to Staffordshire, birthplace of Robbie Williams and… er, give me a minute (furiously types ‘famous people from Staffordshire’ into Google) scrubbing bubble Anthea Turner, panto re-offender Jonathan Wilkes, radio presenter and alleged domestic abuser Bruno Brookes (you can say anything you like if you include the word allegedly in your statement, allegedly) and the first host of comedy show ‘Room 101’ that no one remembers, Nick Hancock. And then there’s me. I’ve built up quite a following over the years, mostly by store detectives trailing me around make-up counters in department stores, but still, I have a presence, so I count myself among the celebrated few who survived the experience and tunneled their way to freedom, dropping aitches all the way

But that is more of a criticism of Hanley and certain parts of Stoke-on-Trent. I lived here from the time I was just a glint in the milkman’s eye until the age of 11. I struggled. It was hard to find museums and books and cakes with edible ball bearings in this inhospitable frozen tundra (I might be confusing Stoke with Baffin Island. I’ll roll with it). Nowadays it is notable for being one of the most prominent locations featured on ‘Homes Under The Hammer’, where a two-bed terraced house with a downstairs bog sells for £0.59p at auction. It was also the hometown of many a guest featured on the now defunct Jeremy Kyle Show, a program where guests threw chairs at one another as Mike from Bentilee was proven to be the father of his sister’s baby whilst on crystal meth after the lie detector proved he had stolen the family’s collection of Hobnobs. There is something about ceramics in Stoke-on-Trent’s DNA, but it is mostly pot of a different kind that prevails in the area today, whilst the vibrant art scene involves a clock, a crucified Edward Scissorhands and a statute of Stanley Matthews usually streaked in pigeon shit

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If it seems like I’m not selling the place well, that would be correct. I was born here, I was bullied at school here. I still have the thick accent that sounds to untrained ears like watered-down Liverpudlian (I refrain from using the term ‘duck’, though. A similar-sounding word, yes, but never duck). I’m allowed to find fault and exploit those faults for comedic effect. And don’t be fooled by the standard Staffordshire refrain of ‘we’re friendly up here’. No one ever went anywhere because the locals might talk to them on the bus. I’m from ‘up here’ and I can state categorically that I’ve never said a single nice thing to anyone ever. That’s a good quality. You’d feel no qualms about turning me down if I asked you for a tinny outside the Potteries Shopping Center

Yet here I am, back on home turf for a staycation in Leek, a pretty market town 10-miles north-east of Stoke, and as the town motto states ‘ARTE FAVENTE NIL DESPERANDUM’, which roughly translate to ‘with our skills assisting us, there is no cause for despair’. Erm… kinda makes you wonder what kind of despair they are expecting you to overcome. My skills stretch to knowing 95% of the lyrics to all Queen album tracks and reading too much into any situation. That isn’t going to help when the rains fail and the boll weevils get at the crops again. But then, the rains don’t fail. My extremely shorty shorts remain untouched as I slosh around in puddles having converted a man’s XXX shirt into a coat/rain mac/extra bedsheet because my hotel room doubles as a walk-in bloody freezer etc. So, let’s take a closer look at these stunning and not-so stunning locations. We have so much to see and so little interest in seeing it, but here goes:

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Hanley

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Bloom: 29 Piccadilly, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 1EN

Folks, I tried. I tried really hard to find something positive to say about Hanley. I grew up here. I ate black pudding in the BHS café here until my dad told me what it was made of and I spat it back on the plate. I went to the cinema here with my friend Carla in 1997 to watch ‘Liar, Liar’, missing half the film as she was crawling under the seats to find a fifty-pence piece she dropped even though my mum brought her a Twister ice lolly to make up for it. I have fond memories of this place

By the time this goes to print the M&S in the town center will have closed its doors forever, the only store together with Waterstones to confer a touch of elegance to this atrophying boondock. The photos I took of the area aren’t doctored. I didn’t go at 6:00am to take pictures of empty roads to deliberately conjure up images of ’28 Days Later’. This was midday on a Friday afternoon. Admittedly it was raining, but rain only gets you so far when trying to explain why somewhere looks so lifeless. It would look like this is the dark, in the sunshine, or if I applied a filter of fireworks and rainbows and bunny rabbits humping in a meadow. Its industries died and no one had any ideas of what it should become, so it gradually became nothing; the Detroit of the West Midlands, though with decidedly worse music

However, there was one highlight I was able to find. Bloom is the EL&N of Stoke-on-Trent. Actually, if EL&N was a video cassette, Bloom would be the jumpy, slightly faded version you’d get if you’d pirated EL&N with a couple of scart leads. It’s pink and flowery and very, very girly. You can imagine a lot of horrible hen nights starting off here before the vomit started to fly. And with nothing else to focus on except photographing used tampons littering the high street (it was on the floor next to a scratchcard. It struck me as a metaphor for the town. Don’t worry, I’ll spare you that picture), Bloom was a welcomed retreat from the gloom. I had a Strawberry Colada mocktail loaded with pineapple juice and coconut cream which tasted gorgeous… and rather like the last milkshake I brought from McDonald’s. However, as we all know, mocktails are milkshakes with A Levels, so this was lovely. Well done, Hanley. Bloom and a Tampax Compak are the stand-outs of this journey. Why oh why didn’t I go to Alton Towers instead?

Dovedale, Peak District

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High Peak Bookstore and Café: Brierlow Bar, Buxton, SK17 9PY

I love this place. It doesn’t have the vibe of a bookshop. It actually reminds me of a garden center, one of those on the outskirts that they stick a café in so you can feel like you’ve had a full day out to justify a twenty-mile round trip when you could have just brought that potted cactus from Tesco for £3.99. It feels like a place that the locals (well-meaning folk who leave cartons of eggs out on their driveways. I assume these are votive offerings to appease the chicken God’s) would use as their go-to social hub in the area. If I lived here I’d get a table at 9:00am every day and stay until they switched the Gaggia off. Partly this is because I suspect there is little else to do if you’re not painting blue patches on sheep or erecting a wicker man for the May Day festival. Mostly though I just love the lay-out and overall feel of the place. It’s like they actually want you to stay and enjoy yourself, which is odd because we all know that shops ideally want you to buy £300 worth of stuff in three minutes and bugger off as soon as possible. I rather ruined the experience by buying some fancy local jam that turned out to be anything but fancy, but at least these purveyors of mediocre conserves weren’t dressed as goats eager to set fire to Edward Woodward

Leek

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Scrumbles Cake Shop: 60b St Edward St, Leek, ST13 5DL

A selection of stunning brownies, cookies and other confections. These went down a storm with a two-year-old who happily shared half the white chocolate cookie with me as we held hands and drank plastic beakers of milk. To clarify, the child is a relative of mine. I don’t buy cakes with the aim of luring children into vans with a short wheel base

Sprout Brew House: 70 St Edward St, Leek, ST13 5DL

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The Infamous Mumbai Breakfast, added to my top-ten list of words that have no place on a restaurant menu. Unless the breakfast killed your family or held up your stagecoach, the use of the word ‘infamous’ doesn’t make sense in this context. Maybe try ‘The Bastard Mumbai Breakfast’ instead. Still wouldn’t make sense but it would be funnier. Also, if anyone knows what Mumbai as to do with anything please fill me in. Again, ‘The Bastard Macclesfield Breakfast’ would work just as well at confusing people

Anyway, this “infamous” breakfast consists of Walsh rabbits with bacon and eggs and a hint of chili. It is, baffling description aside, really lovely, as is the slice of Lime & Coconut cake to follow. There is also a vintage bumper car you can sit in out in the back garden. Sadly I was one bum cheek in before I had visions of fireman pulling me out with rescue cutters

Leek Butter Market: 11 Market Pl, Leek ST13 5HH

Do you like cheese? Do you like tin advertising signs? Do you like stalls selling vacuum cleaner nozzle attachments? Then you are in for a treat, you weirdo, you. At the Butter Market you can get parts for a Bush Bagged Cylinder, pick up a block of cheddar and cover your walls in signs for Spangles (I’m not sure what Spangles were exactly but they scream ‘the 70’s’, like Ruby Flipper or DJ’s groping minors). There is a faintly suspicious, ‘this is a local shop for local people’ vibe from certain stallholders, maybe because I’m wandering around with a camera and they can’t understand my fascination with Eccles cakes, but it sells lots of food and that makes me happy. It also has trestle tables at the back selling surgical stockings and Ordnance Survey maps of Knutsford from 1986. That makes me less happy

Wrights Pies

For the last few weeks I’ve conducted a mini tour of ye’ olde pie and mash shops in London. I like pies. I like mash. I like mugs of tea sold for a quid. What I’m not so keen on is cockney culture. Dick Van Dyke. Pearly kings. Women with names like Fanny Felching singing ‘My Old Man’s a Mushroom’ in a pub thick with handlebar moustaches and cholera. Not my thing at all. My dislike was compounded further when I reached a startling conclusion based on my 47 minutes of research: Londoners cannot make pies!

Yes, there are a lot of Mrs. Lovett’s knocking about the capital today. Soggy pastry. Black mince with a hint of gristle. Molten ooze running across the plate when you stab a fork through the middle. It wasn’t a one-off. Two of the most famous surviving pie shops spewed out the exact same muck with the exact same indifference to taste and quality. They cannot match the unbridled joy of sitting in a car with a bag of hot Wrights pies on your lap before heading home to gobble pastry crusts and potatoes and meat you don’t question the provenance of because it’s just too damn nice to care

Wrights are a family run outfit which operates out of Stoke and deliver as far as Birmingham, which means if I need a fix I’d need to go to Fenton, Tunstall, or other destination you’ve only ever read about in fairy tales. How Greggs and its vegan baked bean melts made it to every high street in the country whilst Wrights and its lovely pies remain a regional phenomenon is a mystery. Maybe because pies are subconsciously associated with whippets and flat caps and storing coal in the bath (I’m very much a equal opportunities defamer. I’ll stereotype anyone) which – no matter what Blur or other Britpoppers might have suggested in the 90’s – was never cool. Plus, ‘Who ate all the vegan baked bean melts?’ hasn’t passed into the lexicon of insults yet, though I urge my readers to start this trend immediately. It’s time we had a new synonym for flatulence

Hatters: 4 Sheep Market, Leek, ST13 5HW

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I failed here, people. I really wanted to try the afternoon tea but my stomach couldn’t countenance another scone. This was a disappointment. Alice in Wonderland is a popular theme for afternoon tea, probably because you can get away with a lot of weird stuff and if that stuff doesn’t work you can put the blame on Wonderland. Eel and custard tart? The March Hare would have snaffled that in seconds. What’s your problem? Because of this I’m drawn to Alice-themed locations, and this was very… er, Alice-y. Wallpaper. Cushions. Ornaments. It’s comforting to me that a character like The Mad Hatter – beloved by all as the acceptable face of manic depression – is honoured in such a colourful and charming way. I settled for a delicious smoothie full of fruity green things and a pot of Chi tea, so I’d still be afforded a place opposite the dormouse during a tea party

Lobby

Apologies for the poor photography here, folks. The steam kept fogging up my camera lens. This, believe it or not, is meant to be a stew. The cousin of ‘Scouse’, which sounds less like food and more like a skin complaint. Beef. Carrots. Diced potatoes. My mum used to threaten me with it as a child. If I did anything wrong – sprayed weed killer into my face by accident; broke into the neighbours shed to play with his garden shears; invited a friend to play ‘Aladdin’ on my Saga Mega Drive without the requisite six-months notice etc. – ‘we’re having lobby’ would ring out from the kitchen to scare me straight. It was grim. I thought it was just how my mum cooked it. Surely a regional delicacy gains popularity based on something more than stodge and cheapness. I owe my mum an apology. She was cooking it just as it was meant to be cooked. That’s what makes it so bad. No food should ever look like the pavement outside a nightclub on Friday night. This is what depression looks like. It is, quite simply, edible despair

However, I can report that after spoon feeding the taste equivalent of a wet weekend in Rhyl to my brother’s two “babies”, Molly and Stanley, I am now their best friend and they happily lick my ankles and stick their snouts up my skirt at every opportunity (Molly and Stanley are dogs, by the way, not humans. That would be unnatural. We’re not from Norfolk, you know). They don’t pee in the corner though at the sight of me. Apparently this is the true sign that they are excited to see someone. I can only dream of inspiring that kind of recognition, whether the mammal’s walk on two legs or four

Staffordshire Oatcakes

Not to be confused with the inedible coasters served north of the boarder (sorry, Scotland, I really admire the red socks/John McClane vest combo modelled by the Scots Porridge Oats bloke. Hope that softens the blow), I cannot underestimate the importance of oatcakes on the Stoke psyche. They are our special thing; a local delicacy even people who hate everything else about Stoke can agree is first rate. I was raised on them, hence why in P.E. I looked like Ned Beatty after the rednecks showed up in ‘Deliverance’

Oatcakes themselves are actually quite healthy and have a high-fiber content. It’s what you put inside them that determines whether you’ll be pulling your pants up over your third belly. I’ve eaten them warm with Nutella, my mum serves them with bacon, melted cheese and the juice from tinned tomatoes as a breakfast treat, but the best version is a simple ham and cheese filling washed down with tea. However, I’ve picked cheese and mushrooms today as I had bacon for breakfast and I like to limit myself to one pig per day. I’m reliably informed that Dolly Birds Catering (more on them in a later post) serves the best in all of Staffordshire, the downside being that you have to drive miles to a random van in a random car park near a random field in a random village. They are good, but for convenience I’d advise popping into any café in Stoke and seeing how you get on. Personally, I’d recommend getting your oatcakes from Neal’s Yard Dairy or the bakery aisle in Sainsbury’s Chiswick, so you can experience the great pride of Stoke-on-Trent without doing anything as reckless as actually visiting Stoke-on-Trent

I sense a lot of hate mail coming my way after this post goes live

Coffee Beans Café: 58-60 Derby St, Leek, ST13 5AJ

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£8.95 for afternoon tea. That is unheard of. In London £8.95 just about covers the service charge for afternoon tea. What strange realm of reasonable prices have we stumbled into? Well, in this realm we have the crappy metal teapots I vented at length about in a previous post. We also have vegetables taking up an entire tier of the stand as though it should be classed as a course in itself, which of course it shouldn’t. No one wants to eat the bottom of a rabbit hutch. Salads are God’s way of punishing you for having too many puddings when you thought he wasn’t looking. Then, one day, the sands of time shift to your arse and cold green things suddenly become the go-to food if you don’t want rippling arm fat to cause a draft when you wave. Fortunately I have been blessed with a quick metabolism and a love of Encona hot pepper sauce (nature’s laxative), so salad remains something that happens to other people, like marriage proposals or successful PPI claims

The ham sandwiches are doorstep thick but rather nice, and not since the work of Kandinsky has there been so many triangles of differing styles and sizes occupying one space. Clearly this was intentional and not because people cannot cut bread correctly. But then we come to the scone… Oh, the scone. I might be indifferent to the little buggers most of the time, but that is because cherry scones are thin on the ground, and as we all know, cherry scones are the holy grail of the baked goods universe. This beauty – looking more like a rock cake or something you’d lob through a ex’s windscreen after an argument – is loaded with juicy glacé cherries and is complimented by ample amounts of cream and strawberry jam. This is one fine scone, which is good because the café itself has all the warmth and character of a police interview room, so anything that distracts from the lack of atmosphere is welcomed

And there we have it, folks. There are a couple of extra treats I plan to upload separately because they deserve extra love, but otherwise I hope you’ve enjoyed this slog journey through Staffordshire and the Moorlands. Tickerty-tonk, ducks* xxx

*Damn! I knew I’d start using that word if I stayed up North too long

Feel free to share stories, views and tips in the comments section below. Always fun to hear from fellow teaholics xx