My New Year Start

I decided to do a small project for this year. The idea is to finish it this year, preferably in the first half. It's a Chatelaine design, one of the mini mandalas. One day's work isn't too shabby.

A Real English Tea

 After our tour of Warwick Castle, we had a real English tea.  The weather was perfect for it - chill and damp.  The china was in mode, too.  I had mushroom soup to start, and we shared a plate meant for two but which could feed four.  Everything was excellent and we left stuffed.

Barbecue In Leamington Spa

 We found fried pickles in England!  Granted, they're no where near as good as most in Texas, but they had them.  Andreas and I ducked into a little pub off the main drag in Leamington Spa as we were shopping and had lunch.  The food was okay, but not great.  The hand crafted root beer didn't taste nearly as good as IBC.  But it was something different that we haven't had in a long time, and we get to look forward to good barbecue again in a few months.

Cider And Pizza

 Zizzi is a rather pretentious pizza place in Warwick.  Evidently, it's a chain.  The cider I had was below par, but local.  The antipasto was good.  We also had some bruschetta, which was mediocre.

The pizzas were good, but not spectacular.  At least we were going to see Rogue One immediately after!

My Glengoyne Photo

I took this photo just after we arrived at Glengoyne in December.  Our visit there was wonderful, and we'll definitely go back.  I would also like to thank Glengoyne.  Once we got home, one of our master class glasses broke.  Andreas asked if he could buy a new one.  Glengoyne is sending him a replacement for free.  How nice of them!

Turkish Trivet

One of my colleagues went to Turkey for a wedding and brought back this trivet for me.  It's pretty!  Thank you, Oliver!  Took so long to post this because Andreas accidentally left this in his office for a couple of months.

  

Lunch In Kendal

 This restaurant was recommended by the lady we bought the mint cakes from.  It was Italian and crowded, but we found the food sort of bland.  The olives were good, though, and the service was friendly.

Tree Of Life

Andreas found this for me at the museum gift shop in Kendal after we bought loads of mint cakes.  I like the design a lot.

Tins

Saw these at the Gloucester roadside services and bought them just for the tins.  They're cute!

Glasgow At Night

Just a couple of photos of Glasgow downtown on a dark and rainy night in December.

Asian In Scotland

After wandering through Edinburgh, we decided on Asian food when we got back to Glasgow.  It was a good meal, and big!  Between the three of us, we had a couple of appetizers and four entrees (thank you Andreas).  This is a small chain in the area, and they evidently do a thriving business.

Owling About

The Stirling Castle gift shop had these beautiful owls.  We decided to add to Andreas' collection.

Lunch In Edinburgh

 
I showed you photos of the place where we at lunch in Edinburgh last week.  This is what we ate.  (Different cameras.)  Andreas got this enormous milkshake that was full of mint and chocolate.  He loved it.  I had a special Christmas drink that was delicious, especially the blackberry.  We had burgers and fries and onion rings.  Since Cheryl's sandwich was the same as Andreas', no photo of hers.  I got mine bunless.  It was the right choice!  There was so much food we rolled out the door because we were stuffed with goodness.

Dinner In Glasgow

We were looking for Greek food, but ended up at this place because of the smell of the bruschetta wafting into the street.  The bruschetta was as good as it smelled.  I had Irn Bru to drink.  For some reason, I was the only one of the three of us to like it.  I do like it a lot.  Cheryl and I had shepherd's pie and Andreas had duck.  We also had a very Scottish nationalist waiter who was proud I drink Irn Bru.  We talked quite a bit about Scottish and British politics and he was great.  

For Warmth

I was very cold in Edinburgh, so Andreas bought me a cashmere scarf.  I love it - the colors are me, and it's so soft.  It also kept me warm the rest of the week we were in Britain.

Pho In Manchester

After looking around the Christmas markets a bit, we realized we were hungry.  We had no clue what we wanted to eat, so we ducked into the old Corn Exchange and found a pho restaurant.  Both of us decided pho would be a good idea on a chilly evening, so that's what we had.  It was good!  The drink is a mojito made with Vietnamese liquors.  We both slurped up all our pho and went back out to downtown Manchester and walked more Christmas markets, all warmed up inside.