Holiday Diaries...Adventures in Rural England : Horncastle

We had a lovely time in Lincolnshire visiting Chris' Dad. Well mostly lovely. I developed a painful rash on my face which was quite painful and felt quite unwell. Being generally unwell meant I wasn't able to finish some crafting for an exhibition back home which left me quite despondent.

But I had lots of lovely times with Chris and his new family as I met Howard's partner and respective children. Had a great time chatting to a lovely Canadian, watching Glastonbury on the telly and laughing at the inability of English people to cook barbeques ( a 1pm lunch was ready about 6pm hehe). I was quite merry after plenty of gin and tonics by then of course! Gin is incredibly cheap in England.

Here's a lovely cafe which opened in Horncastle. The bottom floor was an old style tea house and upstairs was a wonderful bookshop of cooking, craft and gardening books! My dream shop! Just beautiful!

In general, food in England is pretty poor. I bemoan the lack of green vegetables and salads in cafes and vegetables. More than once I bought sandwiches to find they'd gone off or were otherwise inedible. Here's an example from a day out: a Cheese and Bacon salad. There's not nearly enough cheese there....

Fortunately there are some cute little cafes if you look hard:

We also had a lovely evening in a fancy restaurant where I tried venison and bombe alaska for the first time! Very decadent, a lovely treat. We also sampled the nightlife of Horncastle with a hilarious open mike night at a bar which included Elvis, AC/DC and Pink Flloyd covers! We got rather merry on the cheap drinks!

Here's some local wildlife:

Howard's front garden: