Just back…

…is a favourite phrase which I haven’t been able to employ lately. In the autumn our visit to France had to be cancelled as our house was surrounded by so much scaffolding that any burglar would have had a field day. My birthday visit to the West Country went ahead thankfully, so we have spent time (and money) in Bath where I trained to teach. We stayed in a lovely hotel which offered a varied menu, but why do vegetables need to be served so al dente that a table knife won’t cut them? Carrots, French beans and broccoli so undercooked they were inedible. Sally Lunns hospitality was charming as ever and we marvelled at the architecture, as we always have done and catching up with far-flung family members is always a treat before we travelled on to Burford. There we discovered that Huffkins had been revamped but the lovely Jane made up for the slightly more formal atmosphere. Our last meal was at The Masons Arms in Clanfield where we found plenty of interesting dishes on the menu and Sadie left us to finish the excellent chips while we polished off the last of the wine. Road closures with no diversions signed made for complicated routes, but I can assure you that whilst we think our pot holes are bad in Suffolk, they are nothing like the ones we encountered in Somerset and West Oxfordshire…take heart ❤