It was Liam's birthday yesterday, so to celebrate we had booked a table in The Parish Oven in Thorpe Salvin. A pub we had only just discovered but had heard good reviews about the food, so we thought we would give it a go.
I will start firstly by saying that the pub is very well fitted out, very clean and very welcoming. Even on a wet, cold and miserable June Tuesday evening we received a very warm welcome from the staff and were quickly seated and enjoying a drink of our choice.
The food however did not deliver as expected. My fish and chunky chips were really very good. Sadly the same can not be said for Liam's Ribeye steak which was firstly not cooked how he asked for it, it was far too rare for him, but secondly was for the most part inedible and chewy. Even Sydney has a struggle with it!
Will we visit again? We will certainly give it another try. Every pub can suffer from a less than perfect batch of steaks. We will perhaps try other items on the menu though.
After a wet and windy Saturday on the boat yesterday dawned bright and sunny with light winds. Perfect boating weather.
We had a breakfast of sausage muffins on the way back to Saxilby where we had a brief stop to visit the shops and let Sydney have a good run around with his ball on the playing fields before heading back to the marina at dinnertime.
With the boat packed up we headed home, put the cola gammon in the slow cooker and then decided to head out and go for a walk around Cresswell Crags. Another local spot ideal for walking the dog. We will certainly go back here, Syd loved it.
It has been a weekend of mixed weather. If we had not arranged to meet friends at Torksey on Saturday afternoon we most probably wouldn't have gone to the boat. But we had so we battled through the wind and rain. We had a lovely evening in good company.
Today has been a much better day and the run back was in glorious sunshine.
Last night we met up with some friends in one of the local pubs for a bite to eat. We met in the Romans Rest which is about a 10 minute walk from our house. It is a sprawling family pub with a childrens play room, restaurant, bar area and games area which serves the now typical pub grub. The food won't blow you away but it is perfectly acceptable pub grub and you can't complain for the price. The two for £10 menu is definitely excellent value.
We are having an evening at home tonight. The weather forecast later looks none so clever so we will take the chance to have an evening in and get a few jobs done at home in the morning before we head to the boat to meet up with some friends at Torksey later in the afternoon. We have been putting off putting up the remaining blinds for too long now. They need to go up in the kitchen and in bedroom three.
At home we are still very much exploring our new surroundings and finding new places to visit and take Sydney for his evening walks.
Yesterday evening we visited the pretty little village of Thorpe Salvin. We stumbled across it quite by accident and having previously heard great things about the village pub we have booked a table for one evening next week when it is Liam's birthday.
At the weekend a friend of ours got out his Cadac Safari Chef so that we could have an outdoor breakfast. We were very impressed with this piece of kit, so much so that we have decided that we really should get one ourselves. So tonight we are heading to Go Outdoors to hopefully pick one up.
The Cada Safari Chef is essentially a small portable gas BBQ but thanks to its many attachment and plate options it can also be used as an over, pizza oven, grill, wok and most other cooking surfaces you could conjour up.
Now as regular readers will already know we are not blessed with a choice of cooking options on Naughty-Cal so the Cadac will open up a range of other meals that we can cook by the riverside with the added bonus of keeping the cooking smells and spitting fat out of the boat.
Now of course this will only be of any use when the weather is suitable to cook outdoors. So no doubt we have just let us all in for a wet and windy summer ahead as we plan to do most of this years cooking outdoors!
Sorry everyone!
Just a few more pictures from Saturday for you today. We didn't do anything interesting at all to share with you yesterday. We just locked up the boat and headed home to chill out and have a roast chicken dinner before hitting the sack for an early night.
Well we certainly dropped lucky with the weather yesterday for our first weekend back afloat. We couldn't have asked for better. We had a brilliant day in Saxilby with a couple of drinks at the Pavilion before heading back to the boats for a bbq.
