THE WEST ARMS HOTEL, LLANGOLLEN Deborah Ross SO poor James
Delingpole who, in his TV column a couple of weeks ago, said he'd been feeling pretty messed up and disillu- sioned about everything and that he hadn't touched his novel for two months now and that everything he writes is rubbish. Well, I don't know James or anything but I did want to call him up to say, 'Mr Delingpole, no one is as rubbish as me.' I once looked deep into my soul for my novel. 'Anyone in?' I asked. 'Piss off. I'm looking at the Pictures in Hello!,' replied my soul. Nothing of interest happens in my life. I have even started filling in the calendar in our kitchen in retrospect, so that it looks as if I might have been busy. The washing- machine leaks, as does the dishwasher. And after 23 years I've given up smoking. I'm into my third week now and it's horren- dous, totally disorientating. It's like sud- denly looking down and noticing a leg miss- ing. And then (yes, there is more) on top of all this I had to go to Wales for Easter. Now tell me, if life fails, what is the point of going to Wales? That's not my own thought, actually: I haven't had an original thought since 1972. I think it was Auden who said it. I can't now remember who Auden was. My brain just doesn't work properly without nicotine. Was he the bloke who wrote about Thomas the Tank Engine and was some kind of vicar?
I go to Wales to stay with my in-laws who live in a small village up in the north, just outside Wrexham. Here they still live in the house my partner's great-grandfather built with his own hands. Frankly I must say I find such boasting rather vulgar and lower- class and un-English. Plus, wouldn't it have been cleverer if he'd built it with someone else's hands? Like Barbra Streisand's, for example? This is a spiteful and nasty and snotty thing to say, I know. They are excep- tionally decent people and deserve better. But you can't expect me to give up unwar- ranted spite and smoking. Although, that said, I am trying to cut down from 30 spite- ful thoughts a day to 20. I'm trying not to be spiteful before 11 a.m. at least. This is hard too, as you can imagine. „,...Anyway — miserable, gloomy, rainy old Wales. Plus the food is crap. Sorry, but it's true. The Welsh can slaughter veg like no other nationality. They probably think Al Dente is some kind of Mafia boss. (Rather than that brilliant bloke who, of course, blacked himself up and did `Swaneel) Veg- etables in Wales aren't so much overcooked as stewed. Now I don't know about you but tell me, where is the fun in a Brussels sprout that doesn't fight back just a little bit? The last time we went out was to a pub we hap- pened to be passing. I ordered the only thing on the menu that wasn't gammon and pineapple or meat with two slaughtered veg, which was local trout served grilled or Veronique. I ordered it grilled. It came, an hour later, Veroniqued. I couldn't be both- ered to send it back. Do you know Veronique? Well, on having met her just the once, I'd describe her as not only frighten- ingly green and grapy, but also as the kind of gal who can wrestle a trout to the ground and beat the hell out of it. It was inedible.
This time I'm determined that we should find somewhere decent. However, this is complicated. Our in-laws will come with us, yes. Even I can see it would be ill-mannered to leave them at home in front of Count- down. But they have certain requirements. They are not adventurous people. They will not eat foreign, so this not only rules out Indian, Chinese, Thai, French, Italian, etc. but also rice, pasta, pitta bread, peppers, courgette, aubergine, fish that isn't cod, or fish that is cod but isn't battered. I think a sushi bar would be out of the question. Still, I look in my Good Food Guide and find there is a recommended restaurant at the West Arms Hotel in Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog which looks promising. I cross-ref- erence this in my Family Welcome Guide by Jill Foster and Malcolm Hamer on the basis that if it's in, we are not going. I just kind of know that Jill Foster and Malcolm Hamer are the sort of couple who wear anoraks. With the hoods up. Plus children aren't a breed apart. They don't need to be specifi- cally catered for. They are simply adults-in- waiting, who should do what their parents want them to do or get smacked and sent directly to bed until a week on Thursday. This may sound spiteful, but that's only because it's past 11 a.m., and is.
The West Arms turns out to be a 16th- century inn with slate-flagged floors, vast inglencroks, floral sofas and lots of timber- work. I suppose that had I not been so depressed I'd have thought it charming. Plus, they were very nice to our seven-year- old son who got patted on the head quite a bit. However, I could see immediately that the dinner menu — at £21.90 for three courses — was entirely unsuitable: salad of lemon and cucumber with marinated cray- fish tails draped in a champagne and soured-cream dressing; sauted strips of guinea fowl with spring onion and mustard set in a filo basket with a port-wine sauce; marinated breast of duck sliced on a duet of plum and red-wine sauce and a tarragon and butter sauce. It's very much a Mike Leigh kind of menu. I can't now quite remember who Mike Leigh is exactly, but do know he rather lost his looks after play- ing Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. The beard was a mistake, I think. No won- der Olivier divorced him!
My in-laws are understandably aghast. They do not drape or duet and will never drape or duet. Thankfully, though, a mem- ber of staff decides to drop off the lesser, bar menu. We are saved. They can have tomato soup, then country hotpot with Stil- ton dumplings, which is fine so long as the kitchen is instructed to hold the Stilton dumplings. I have the crayfish, then the duck. My partner has the grouse, then the duck. My partner thinks the duck is great. I don't. The plum and red-wine sauce is very jammy; the tarragon sauce is very creamy. They don't duet very well. It's like scooping up bits of meat from one of those Fruit Corner yogurt thingies. We all have syrup sponge and custard for pudding, which even in my foul temper I can tell is very good. My in-laws declare themselves well- satisfied, even though 'we'd have been just as happy with a sandwich'.
The meal, frankly, was as nice as a meal can be when you are dying for a fag. I am still dying for a fag. An ex-smoking friend of mine says that when the cravings hit big time heavy breathing helps. I didn't know you weren't meant to do it over the phone. I have now been arrested. Perhaps Mr Del- ingpole would like to visit me in my cell. It might cheer him up, at least.
The West Arms Hotel, Llanarmon Dyffiyn Ceiriog, Llangollen, North Wales; tel: 01691 600665; e-mail: gowestarms@aot com
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