What a day, what a wonderful day!
Well last night I received a text saying the guy who does my
garden was coming. Be in, or do without your garden for the next five six or seven
weeks. Well, he didn’t say that but to be honest that is what would have
happened. He’s a great guy does a good job and is honest but he is so busy if
you don’t take him when he has a slot, tough for another few weeks plus.
Well isn’t that typical just when we were due to go out with
our friends? I text our friends and they said they would go somewhere else but I
felt bad as they wanted to go to this particular place. I was a bit gutted as I
did want to go out, anyway, long and short of it, our guy came and after two
hours, I asked him how long he was going to be and he said at least another
hour. Heck. I text our friends to tell them. They replied how about going
somewhere else? I thought they may have headed off without us but they waited
bless them. I told the gardener we were going out and would he lock up the
gates after he had finished? He agreed to do so and he can be so trusted I paid
him and put on my glad rags…
I was super excited. Boy Wonder had already headed off to
play paint balling at a Dadtular party. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I’m
just about getting my head around a baby shower. I have never…. Many years ago,
when I heard of such a party, it only happened in America. Our tradition in
England was not to buy the baby a gift before it was born… but tradition
smalition. Traditions are dying. So, the baby shower took place, and BW went to
the Dadtular. That is the opposite to where the Mother to be has her party, so
now days the guys/Dads also have a party. The ladies receive baby clothes and
the men/Dads, have fun. Haha. And todays fun was paintballing.
We got in our friend’s car and off we went. The weather was
stunning. Of course, I can’t see out of the car window but still I was enjoying
the start of our outing. Yesterdays plan was to drive an hour and a half each
way, today we only drove for just over half an hour. I could tell we were driving
in the countryside, as the air was thinner and cleaner. We arrived, I got out
of the car. The sun shone so brightly as it pounded down on us. Our friend took
Hubs arm and I took her Husbands arm and off we headed. Paid for the carpark
and through the narrow streets. Oh, Bloggets, the smells from the foods were
amazing. It was a food festival you see.
My friend told me of the shops we were passing. He was great
at doing that. There was a shop that sold walking clothes etc. another home
knitted jumper. The next one sold fruit and veg and then there was a gyn shop. Then
a delicatessen. A butcher. Sadly… but outside of the butchers there was a huge
BBQ where he was selling home made burgers. Oh, though I am a vegetarian, the
smell drove me crazy. Hub had his mind on one of those, but we went further in
to see what else there was. The tiny streets were full of quaint and small
shops. So different. I did wonder if we lived there how easy it would be to
find places as everything was so close together. The atmosphere was amazing. We
came to a market a stall selling everything to do with garlic. Including garlic
beer… gross? There were foods like cauliflower with some kind of garlic sauce
on. Hub and our friend tried some they said it was delicious. Then the garlic
kicked in and we almost needed to call the fire brigade. I tried some other
kind of sauce and it was amazing, it had seeds in may be pine nuts too? I bought
some of that, but the hot stuff Hub had no, I wasn’t going to entertain that.
There were waffles with strawberries, cream, ice cream and
chocolate. Yum, but what a mess I would have made with that. Then the coffee
stall. Hub bought some posh coffee. We passed the bakers stall and I got a home-made
cheese and onion pie, Hub bought a rabbit pie, gross, and a chicken and
mushroom pie. Oh, urg wait for this one, a stall selling black pudding. Double and
treble gross I say. For my Bloggets who don’t know what black pudding is? I think
it’s pigs, blood. Yes. Dry though. It’s with spices. Oh, I could be sick. But then
the cheese stall. With a very interesting character. After talking with him,
not sure I would want to buy from him. You know when someone just doesn’t sound
clean?
Haha
You don’t?
Bless him, he may have been just Hub and I spoke afterwards
and we both said we would not buy because of that same thought, but there was a
lady on another stall and we bought cheese from her. It was expensive but worth
it.
The bakers stall, I loved and could have bought more. There were
tray bakes of chocolate cakes and so on too. But we got our sweet fix from the
fudge stall. We got a ginger one, peanut butter one and finally a rum and raisin
flavoured fudge.
The shortbread stall, we sampled some of that too and bought
lemon and white chocolate shortbread. Then our friends bought some home-made
bread and Hub treat our friend who I was walking with to a dessert of strawberries
and cream with some kind of cake on the bottom. Hub also bought my friend and
myself a glass of Prosecco and sparkling vodka with a raspberry at the bottom. And
talking of raspberries, I got some raspberries and strawberries. The strawberries
are huge. And I think Hub ate most of the fruit before we got around the
market. It was packed full of people so we needed a break a seat in the sun
with a cup of Moroccan mint tea. Oh, that was so refreshing. The smell of the
fruit and the sweet doughnuts were inviting and we stopped at a stall selling
huge cakes. Then came the rhubarb gyn. Now, I don’t like alcohol. But when you
add rhubarb to something I was interested and had to try it for the benefit of
my Bloggets who may wish to purchase some in the future… oh, it was amazing,
nothing after that tasted close to being half as delicious. Hub tried some dark
rum. That was it, a bottle was purchased. The bottle has a wax cork in it. There
was sherry to try too but I declined.
And finally, I bought myself as they all tucked into
burgers, some halloumi. Oh, it was cut into cubes and deep fried. Wow double
wow. So not good for my waistline. But the amount of walking I did I excused
myself. Haha.
There was a stall selling dog biscuits too but the price of
those was breath-taking. And a stall selling one of my favourite things,
baskets. But again, no way I could justify that price. There was a small round
what I call static basket so not one for shopping, just one to put as an ornament,
it was weaved in all colours. It would have looked lovely as a fruit basket. But
£18? Nope. £14 perhaps, but not eighteen. It was small.
We came home walking to the car through the lovely narrow
lanes of little Victorian shops and got back here had a cup of tea in the back
garden. Shamrock came around for a while and BW went off to hers for a BBQ.
After sitting in the garden for a while, we came in Hubs listening
to the radio, a big football match is on and I’m now chilling. It was such a
great day.
Our friends were fabulous at telling us what we were
passing, what a difference it makes to know that kind of information. Nothing beats
seeing things, but at least we had the verbal details. And the smells of where
we were gosh, wow, I just loved today.
No comments:
Post a Comment