Ise Shima, Japan, November 2024

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Mostly at The Swan

It is possible that if you walked into your local pub to be greeted with a big kiss from the landlord you might be a bit worried that it suggested you were spending too much time in there.  It would certainly worry me - largely because I've never set foot in either of our village pubs.  They have never inspired much confidence. And in fact, one of them has been closed for months, and the other one has inspired the few people that I know who have ever been in (including The Builder) to suggest that I might like to save myself the trouble.  We have been into both of the pubs on the edge of the village. But we don't tend to go to pubs for drinking purposes, unless we are out walking. Mostly we go for food. And while the two local-ish pubs do do acceptable food, they're not foodie pubs so we don't bother. We hop in the car and go to The Nettle, usually. Or to try some of the other country pubs hereabouts.

But I wasn't in the least bit worried when I ambled into The Swan on Tuesday evening to be greeted in the foyer by Carl the Landlord (who had seen me crossing the road) with the key to our room, and a hearty kiss on the cheek.  It was, after all, Christmas. And although we don't count as locals (The Swan is a 3.5 hour car trip away, so not especially handy if we randomly decide to go out for lunch or dinner!), we must surely count as regulars.  We go 6 or 7 times a year and stay at least one night and sometimes two. It's one of my favourite food pubs.  I rather like the bedrooms as well!

We were joined that evening by Jeanette, Matthew, Rebecca and Evie who had come to see us and to have a rather nice dinner.  The food was delicious.  The log fire was burning (although in truth the night was remarkably mild for a late December evening). There was lots of wine. And a very great deal of fun and laughter. Then they all took themselves back to Whiteley, and The Builder and I dragged our weary and well-fed bones the huge great distance up the stairs to our room.

There was more feasting on Wednesday.  We dropped around to Nunton and collected Gwen and took her across to Warminster, where we were having lunch at Barb's house.  Some while ago, Barb and her brother Greg were round at out place for lunch and we were discussing that we were all of us increasingly finding it difficult to push Gwen around in her wheelchair when we took her out.  We pondered the possibility of buying a second hand motorised scooter to replace it. The only problem was that it would need to fit in the boots of our cars.  And while we have a hugely capacious boot - you could probably fit the houses of Parliament in if you stacked them brick by brick - you can't put anything particularly large in because of the design of the opening.  We went our merry ways and kept an eye on eBay and Amazon and local-to-each-of-us mobility shops.  One day Barb found just the very things based in Southampton and bought it.  We all four contributed to its purchase and arranged to give it to Gwen for Christmas.  And Wednesday was the handover day :-)

So we all exchange presents and gave Gwen her scooter.  She was extremely surprised (noone had mentioned it to her) and highly delighted.  Barb provided us with a delicious fish pie for lunch and lots and lots of wine.  To our surprise, for she is largely teetotal, Gwen had not one, not two but THREE glasses of wine!!!  We all had a go trying out the scooter. It's remarkably easy to drive and really rather fun. Then we took Gwen home and repaired back to The Swan for more food and more wine.

It was a great day.  There was lots more fun and laughter. It was a very happy afternoon. Although it is quite possible that I really didn't need to eat a full cooked breakfast, a two course cooked lunch and a two course cooked dinner!!!  I'm a bit scared about getting up and trying my trousers on :-S

But must get up.  We're heading back home today. And there is another cooked breakfast on offer before we go  :-D

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