Today, we are out wandering with the intention of finding somewhere for dinner in the evening. Not entirely random, however, we do have a little French restaurant called the Barley Bree in mind. It’s in the lovely conservation village of Muthill and we used to go there quite often to visit our aunt. The story gets a little convoluted but bear with us. Unfortunately when we looked it up on the internet it seemed to be closed and up for sale. Phone calls went unanswered. Not to worry, it had been a long time since we had been in this beautiful part of Perthshire so we decided to carry on and find somewhere in the next town, Crieff.
However, when we were driving through Muthill we passed the Barley Bree and Pat thought that it looked as if it was open. We couldn’t stop because of the traffic so we carried on another couple of miles to Crieff. Hence you find us here in the middle of the afternoon in Craobh, slap bang in the centre of town. However, wonder of wonders, in the course of the afternoon we discovered that the Barley Bree was now called the Coorie Inn (a play on the Scots saying “coorie in” meaning to snuggle). We got their phone number and voila, we had a booking for later!
Parking again!
Back to Craobh! We parked right outside and surprise, surprise had to pay via an app. After our previous experience at the Old Mill in Christchurch this gave us a touch of the heebie-jeebies. Guess what, it failed again! We asked a passing lady if she could get it to work. She just laughed and shook her head. However she did tell us that we could park round the corner for free. What a woman! Pat went off to park while I went into the restaurant. To be fair to this app called RingGo, other people seem to use the it without difficulty so we suspect that our version has developed a glitch.
Craobh is Gaelic for ‘tree’ and is pronounced “kroov”. Perthsire is famous for its big trees, hence the name. It’s a lovely restaurant with quite a few tables at the front and then several more through the back. It was completely deserted. The Mary Celeste had more folk. There was only a couple of young girls behind the counter.
They welcomed us and confirmed that they did have scones … hurrah! Then they spent some time consulting their reservation book to see if they could fit us in. Curious, because as far as we could make out every single table was available. Turned out that they were actually fully booked for dinners so were probably just checking that we were not going to interfere with their first reservations. Anyway it was great to hear that they were fully booked and by the sounds of it that was the case most nights … fantastic!
Slate plates
Since we were having dinner later we just asked for a scone to share and some coffee. It, or rather they, arrived nicely presented on a piece of slate. Obviously this would upset the bellyachers at wewantplates.com. 
They get terribly upset about food served on anything other than a plate. Thankfully we have never been known to bellyache about anything! We can tolerate a bit of slate … especially if it’s adorned with warm scones, jam and cream. And we did have side plates. With this sort of attention to detail we began to understand why this place might be so popular. We thought that they just managed to squeak into our topscone category. Well done Croabh!
Stranger than fiction
Goodness, it’s all going on in the world. On one hand we have a Russian president gayly murdering anyone he doesn’t approve of.
On the other we have a former US president being fingerprinted and mugshotted. As an ex-professional photographer I can honestly say that I would have been sacked if I had taken a mugshot like that. Besides the subject matter, there just isn’t anything right about it. Trump, as ever, is up to his old school boy tricks, deflecting attention so that nothing of substance ever gets discussed. And yet his supporters keep following like mesmerised cattle apparently oblivious to the harm he does to the US and the world.
In sporting news it is all about the president of total plonkers Luis Rubiales and the turmoil created by THE KISS. If any of our most imaginative readers were asked to make up a surreal, fantastical week of news it would probably fall well short of the actual reality.
Schwarzenegger says
Our dinner at the Coorie Inn was great. It’s been taken over by Andrew, Phil and Lisa … all previously of the five star Gleneagles Hotel. They’ve only had it for five weeks so still settling in but they seem to be making a real go of it. We wish them well. After a delicious dinner we discovered that they do scones every afternoon! We will be back!
PH7 3EY tel: 01764 650762 Craobh
///accompany.inkjet.ideals
ps: This notice was in Craobh …. discuss! Think we know why it’s from “source unknown”.
Hello Bill and Pat. I always enjoy reading about your adventures and learning about what’s going on in the world. Yes, the “mesmerized cattle” in the US is a baffling and frustrating situation. Thank you for bringing the smile and a laugh.
You are welcome Theresa, always great to hear from you. have you moved to somewhere else in Utah?
We always enjoy your commentary, Bill, whether about scones or politics, but we’re puzzled by your observation, “… apparently oblivious to the harm he does to the US and the world.” Can you be a bit more specific as to which harms he did, please? While we are more than willing to seriously consider other candidates because of the turmoil that has surrounded him since his election, from our domestic point of view, his policies performed well for us. And in the greater world, he avoided wars and nurtured peace in the Middle East through the Abraham Accords, something nobody else had been able to achieve.
I know Milan, there was some good stuff. However, to the outside world he seems to make a laughing stock of the US and that is never good. His MAGA crusade can only succeed at a cost to the rest of the world.
It is a long time since we were in Muthill or Crieff but we did have a lovely scone in Crieff and a very quick visit to Strathearn Gallery, it said on the door that they closed at 5.00, we arrived at 4.55, but the lovely girl inside didn’t seem bothered and didn’t mind us having a look round. Then it was back to Muthill and the Coorie Inn, well worth a visit if you find yourselves in that neck of the woods. We will be back.