Saturday (Stuffed!)

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I don’t think we’ve ever had a Saturday like this! It was pretty much wall-to-wall eating for the whole day! Tough life ehh!!! πŸ‘

Rushton Hall
Rushton Hall (again!)

First stop was a celebratory lunch at Rushton Hall with our good friend Chris A in honour of his recent birthday. It looked like the weather was going to stay dry, so we took the XKR for its first road trip this year!

My XKR
The Jaaag at rest

We arrived just before noon to be greeted with a fizzy reception, before heading to a private room for the twelve of us – and a full three-courser! Gill had made three flower arrangements for the table and one larger one for the mantelpiece all in ‘Lotty Yellow’. It looked beautiful!

The food was excellent!. I started with Tomato Soup, followed by Chicken and finished with Eton Mess. Both Ann and I had in mind that we were also eating a big meal tonight, but it was all too tasty to miss anything out!

By 3pm, we’d made it through all three courses and finished with teas and coffees. Everyone then took a short walk around the Gardens, where it had turned into a glorious afternoon with temperatures in the mid-twenties. After the walk, we said our goodbyes and we headed home.

Just an hour-or-so to go before we’re eating again!!! Prepare the Rennies!!!?


At 6.25pm we were off to the final part of our ‘food-frenzied-Saturday’ – the rescheduled 2020 Christmas Dinner at our friends, Trish & John’s! We picked up neighbour’s Paul and Karen and arrived just after 6.30.

Almost Ready!

It wasn’t just us four, it was a mass get-together of our neighbour-group too that included Tom, Julie, David & Rosi. It had certainly been a long while since we were all together like this – I reckon it must have been almost two years ago! πŸ˜‹

Conor and Matt

It was good to see Conor and Matt there too! With everyone assembled, the whole affair had a real party/Christmassy atmosphere to it! – no doubt helped by the festive napkins, the Christmas music …and of course, the Santa Loo Roll (Trish is good with details like that!!) πŸ‘

Our hosts – John and Trish
Ready!

Luckily, the weather was on our side (all evening, as it turned out!) and ‘plan A’ (to eat outside) worked out. John had done a great job in setting up the seating, and I think if it HAD rained, we could have coped! On the food front, Trish doesn’t disappoint when it comes to her annual neighbours’ Christmas Dinner – and tonight was no exception. It was wall-to-wall Turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings!

Yummy!

Ann did her bit by making fresh Cranberry & Port Sauce and also Mince Pies; David & Rosi supplied crackers and some rather delicious homemade Manchego and Chorizo biscuits (recipΓ© at https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/manchego-chorizo-melting-biscuits) whilst Julie and Karen brought the cheese & pickles!

(Not unusually for us) we weren’t short of alcohol either!! πŸ˜€

You can’t beat homemade!

All we needed to do now was pull the crackers, read out the jokes and don the party hats πŸ‘

And no Christmas would be complete without the obligatory Christmas Quiz would it? I was asking the questions and it’s fair to say it was a riotous affair that ended with all three teams tieing for first place! I hurriedly thought up a tie-breaker question: asking them to guess the mileage on Robert, 27 months in – ‘Team Redding’ triumphed having got closest to the right answer! 😍

My contribution? Nothing culinary, just the obligatory ‘Christmas Quiz’

With the Quiz out of the way, our thoughts and stomachs turned to the two Cheeseboards…

…and then to Dessert!

The weather remained perfect for the rest of the evening and we called it a night just after midnight! What a fantastic evening!

In a nutshell…

Trish & John – Thanks for hosting. See you in December for the next one! 😍

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