A Day for Celebrations

Slightly delayed but yesterday was spent celebrating a huge event in friend L's life ... the safe delivery of her first granddaughter who was born a few days ago. It's wonderful news and I know just how excited she is.

We continued with our plan to try a new place to eat every month and this time tried out The Three Magpies at Seend. One of L's friends had eaten there recently and commented on how much they had enjoyed the food so we agreed to give it a try.

We rarely have starters and this time we both chose the same meal from the Special's Board ... homemade chicken and leek pie with mixed greens and mashed potato (it looks like a huge portion of mashed potato in the photo below but it's to do with the camera angle and it wasn't really that big!). It was delicious and the homemade pastry was the tastiest I've had for a long time. Definitely a tick in the box for this course!

We did give in and sample the dessert menu as well ... banoffee waffle for me and a summer fruits pavlova for L. I don't know why we still pretend that we'll go without dessert because we always have one! Both desserts were lovely although L wasn't too impressed about having ice cream with her pavlova so that ended up on my plate and she had my cream instead!

The afternoon was slightly spoiled by one of the other customers who brought his dog into the pub. I don't have a problem with dogs in pubs if they are well trained and well behaved but unfortunately this one wasn't and proceeded to bark loudly at anyone and everyone. It really ruined the afternoon so we decided to leave and get a coffee somewhere else. However as we were paying we were asked if we'd enjoyed the meal and we both said that we'd loved the food but were leaving early because the noise the dog was making made conversation impossible and they offered us complementary coffees and a seat in the restaurant area well away from the dog as compensation. We accepted their offer and both thought it was kind of them ... the service generally couldn't be faulted and we did see the manager talk to the dog owner as we settled ourselves in the restaurant and he stopped his dog barking straight away, so we spend the remaining part of the afternoon having a long chat and catching up with all the baby news. 

It was a lovely day. I always enjoy L's company and baby pics are always a joy to look at. I have nothing planned now until Monday so will have some quiet days at home. I've just started reading A Conspiracy of Bones by Kathy Reichs so will carry on with that and I also want to make some progress on my granny square blanket before next week's Creative Yarn group meets for the second session. I started it but didn't touch it at all when I was poorly so it'll be something relaxing to do. I have some TV programmes to catch up with but definitely have not reached the stage where I can crochet and watch TV at the same time ... I feel that achievement is a long way in my future!