Off we went to Ripon to admire Ripon Cathedral and were lucky enough to see the ‘Threads through Creation’  exhibition – a double whammy. When we left Thirsk the weather was looking forbidding, and by the time we arrived it actually was. The heavens had opened.

This is the stage at which you realise your mac isn’t actually waterproof. None the less a very swift walk from the Market Square to the Cathedral and into the warm and dry and quite  beautiful  small but perfectly formed (as they say) building, with its Arts and Craft pulpit. Off we toddled, looking at this and that, and then came upon the twelve huge textile panels of the Threads through Creation exhibition.  Someone we chatted to thoughr that the panels had probably been created using a long arm on the machine. However it was done, it was a fascinating retelling of the story of creation from Genesis, moving from the whites greys and blacks to the fulsomeness of nature.

Dick the engineer was particularly fascinated at the swirls and spirals and shapes the stitches created, we lingered looking from the embroidered panels to the quite exquisite stained glass windows, and that pulpit, which kept dragging me back, but then, quite frankly, a spot of lunch called. .

So off into the storm we strode, or scuttled perhaps, back to the Market Square and fell into the SO! Bar and Eats and the warmth of their welcome. ‘Were we wet, cold?’ they asked.

‘All of those things,’

So they found us a table slap bang next to the radiator, and by the time we had ordered a pino grigio for me and for Dick a Black Sheep beer, brewed at Masham nearby, from a great menu we were already drying out.

The menu ranged from a quick lunch, even just a sandwich to more of a feast. The starters included marinated olives and yes, Yorkshire Poutine. The main extended from, Charred Mackeral through to Superfood salad and on to the more usual pub grub, Ribs, burgers, and the classics, which is where I headed, longing for haddock and chips. Dick had a massive burger.

But great though the food was, and the heat of the radiator, it was the warmth and helpfulness of the welcome from the staff that we remember particularly. Nothing was too much trouble, and reminded us so much of The Wellington on the Strand in London, where we so often go when down there. So we ate, talked, laughed to one another, and the staff, until it was time to get wet all over again and zip to the bus. We were sorry to leave.

All in all an unexpectedly perfect day.

Info. So! Bar and Eats, 60 Old Market Square, Ripon HG4 1EQ. 017

01765 601 639

Website: sobarandeats.co.uk