My Birthday Week

My brother making a grand entrance...
(most of our visitors arrive by car)

This past week has been a busy and exciting one for me, full of eating and drinking and socialising. Last Friday was May 13th - a date some people are superstitious about, but not me. It was our 5th wedding anniversary, and we decided to spend the first part of our day in Lincoln.

After wandering around beautiful Lincoln Cathedral and the steep streets of the pretty old city, we had a tasty light lunch at the highly recommended Wig and Mitre pub. Next we drove to Huntingdon, where Barry had booked an overnight stay in one of my all time favourite places, The Old Bridge Hotel.

This is a wonderfully comfortable place to stay, owned by Master of Wine John Hoskins, and has a well deserved reputation for gourmet food and wine. We had a delicious cream tea before going shopping in the hotel's new wine shop where we couldn't resist a few purchases, and then enjoyed a memorable dinner and some great wine - the crab linguine with chilli and garlic was fantastic!

The beautiful cathedral at Lincoln

After a huge breakfast, we headed back home for chocolate cake and champagne with friends, who stayed over with us on Saturday night after we all had another great meal at the lovely Jolly Waggoner pub in Ardeley. I couldn't resist my favourite - slow-roasted pork belly, delicious!!!! Sunday morning breakfast was fresh croissants with homemade jam, before I had to dash off to play the organ at church, and then we were off to lunch with some more friends. By Sunday evening I'd eaten so much over the 3 days that I could hardly move!

Yesterday was very exciting, as my brother Julian dropped in - quite literally, because he landed his helicopter on the lawn! It's so long since we'd seen each other we exchanged 2 years worth of birthday presents! Mother lives in Malta and thanks to Julian I now have a fresh stock of my favourite Maltese wine, Marsovin's Cheval Franc, and a beautiful Maltese glass dish from Mdina Glass.

My baby brother loves flying!

What's that lurking in the garden?

Tomorrow, Thursday 19th May, it's my birthday. As a treat, Barry is taking me to dinner at St Michael's Manor in St Albans. I've not been there before and the food is said to be excellent, so I'm really looking forward to it. What an exciting week, and it's not over yet!!