Treat for Mum

Mum loves her cruising and as Marco Pierre White has restaurants on her favourite cruise line, I thought a treat in his local pub may spur her on to try out the speciality restaurants on board.

I’d booked a table at The Yew Tree in Highclere.  We opted for the lunchtime menu and at £15.50 a head for two courses was an absolute bargain for the quality of the food.  Mum opted for the Creme de Barry (frothy Cauliflower Soup) which she struggled to finish as it was served in a huge tureen.  I went for the Kipper Pate instead.  We both went for the Smoked Haddock on Colcannon with a Beurre Blanc Sauce.  If no-one else could see us, we’d have both licked the plate clean!!

Neither of us had any room left for pud (MPW take note … you need to scale back your portions and may be you could tempt us with pud!).

The one thing that really impressed – and surprised - me the most was receiving the bill and not having the restaurant automatically add a 10%-15% service charge on top.  Even when I paid by credit card, there was not an option to add a gratuity.  Just about managed to scrap enough coins together to leave a cash tip though!  11/10 !!

We did have a narrow escape though.  We were seated in a bay window next to a pull in car park.  I saw Mum flinch and I turned around and there was this elderly gentleman reversing into the parking space and he missed hitting the bay window by millimetres!!  I was ready to jump out of the way.  Whether superb skill or (in the words of Professor McGonnigal) sheer dumb luck, we’ll never know!  We lived to tell the tale.

I’m participating in a fab year-long Scrapbooking Class created by the fab Shimelle.  Document 2010 is a way to log what’s happened throughout the year to look back on in years to come.  I’ve just completed the January pages – snow (unsurprisingly!) is the main feature.

I’m using this as an opportunity to use up old stash (except for buying an album and divider pages).  Just hope that I can keep on top of this project rather than adding another project to a growing pile.

 

 

 

Patterned Papers: My Minds Eye – Laundry Line