Alone Again

Our visitors are safely away and on the way to Florida for a few days before they head back to London. Good visit and lots of laughing and gin and tonic put away not to mention my wine stores severely depleted. Got through the week of vegetarian cooking with no problems and since one of our friends does eat fish I didn't have to go completely vegan. I actually created some new recipes that are keepers even in a carnivorous world which I will share at some point. One is for a nice big tomato stuffed with brown rice, lentils, apple and raisins that turned out to be very tasty as well as a completely nutritious side dish. The other was a beet soup that was hearty and tasty as well.

I know it has been rather quiet here but life intrudes at times and I wouldn't have missed their visit for anything. Right now there is a plan to head their way in April or May and return the favor. They live about half way between London and Cambridge near Stanstead Airport and while it is still pretty much metro London it is on the fringes and you can still get a sense of the English countryside. We'll probably take advantage of the trip to invade our other English friends as well and they are truly in the wilds of England and actually live up north in Derbyshire in the Peaks National Park and it is truly bucolic and very restful...lots of stacked stone walls, sheep, cows and horses. I can almost taste the pub grub now, not to mention the fine English beer. Yeah, I know I can buy good English beer here with the little widgets in the can that make it appear to be freshly pulled from the cask but there is nothing quite like having the friendly publican putting it in front of you while you stand in a building that was serving good beer before Columbus was even a twinkle in his father's eye.

Have some post visitor errands to catch up on this afternoon but we'll be back and we might have to break down and pick up a four pack of Boddington's now that we're thinking about it... we'll be right there replenishing the Bombay gin supply so might as well. I think there might be a nice little New York strip in my near future as well.