Going out out

So, in the words of Micky Flanagan, last night we went out out. Not just out, but proper out out. We went out into Windsor town centre on a Saturday night, with some mitigations of course.

Firstly we decided to cycle into town as we both wanted to drink and don’t feel comfortable going back in an Uber again. It was so good to be back on our bikes again. It was a warm evening with a sense of freedom as my new long locks flew out behind me as I got some speed up on the bike. Here are our locked up bikes waiting patiently for us to finish enjoying ourselves in town. Luckily they didn’t get nicked as there have been a lot of bike thefts in Windsor recently. We only have one lock at the moment which we put around both bikes but we’re going to get another one. They’re not expensive bikes, but they’re the only ones we’ve got.

We went down to Boatman, which is a pub restaurant on the river front. We were lucky that they managed to find us an outside table. I think the tables were bigger than before. It was busy but the staff made us feel very safe as they all wore masks and gloves and kept a very safe distance back from our table. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the clientele. The worst were a bunch of 6 girls who arrived hugging and kissing each other (which looks so weird in our current times), they posed close up together for photos and basically ignored social distancing completely. One of them had a very loud grating voice. Anyway, ignoring that, we had a lovely meal of grilled tiger prawns to start followed by roasted lamb shoulder with green beans, mashed potato, gravy and mint sauce. I was too full for pudding and had a cappuccino whilst David had some vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.

After dinner we walked up the hill to have a look at what was going on up by the castle. There were A LOT of people out on the town. In particular there was a long queue outside The King and Castle Wetherspoons pub. Didn’t look very socially distanced in the queue to me..

We looked around the cobbled streets. The bars were busy outside. The sky was very beautiful last night. This is the Queen Victoria statue outside the castle.

We then decided to escape the busy crowds and head back for a final drink at The Swan in Clewer, our first visit back there since lock down. They have their own bike racks there now which is great, and they’d set up the garden area well for distancing. Even better I remembered I had a £10. credit to spend there which I bought to help out the pub during lockdown. It was a Budweiser deal where the pub could claim back an equal amount of money from Budweiser to help keep them going. So we had a free round of drinks using my credit, some of our favourite lager Republika from the local Windsor and Eton brewery. We whizzed back home a little merry on our bikes (cycle path most of the way home). All in all it was a very pleasant evening and a step towards building our confidence going out in public again. I’m taking the view we need to make the most of this window of summer when the virus seems to be under control and the weather’s warm enough to sit outside in the evening.

On the food at home front, I promised to let you know about Gary Rhodes’ prawn and crème fraîche tart. It did not disappoint. It was absolutely delicious and the pastry so crumbly and tasty. I would definitely make this again.

On Friday we had the rest of it for lunch. I had mine as a socially distanced picnic with Julie at work. Unfortunately I was plagued by flies who were very interested in this dish too. They didn’t seem to want any of Julie’s lunch and also were not interested in my strawberries, so that was a relief by the time I made it to dessert at least.

Friday evening I made this chilli con carne from the Good Housekeeping Express cookbook. It was good, though not as good as the prawn tart…

Yesterday for lunch we had bacon sandwiches in the garden. Today we had this soup from Waitrose, Thai green chicken curry, it’s very flavoursome. I like the crunchiness of the water chestnuts in it, David is not so keen.

I was so happy I had time to make another rhubarb cake yesterday. I really love this rhubarb cake. The recipe is here. There is loads for me, yum yum, as David doesn’t want to try it. I know a couple of you have already tried making this yourselves at home. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

For tonight I now have roast pork cooking in the oven which we will have with home grown potatoes and probably green beans and/or carrots and gravy. It might just be warm enough to eat outside, we will see. For pudding I have some figs to try. My friend Erica kindly dropped these round for me from her garden. I can’t remember if I like figs, it’s been such a long time since I tried one. I think I’ll try one raw first with some crème fraîche and maybe honey, as suggested by Erica. I’ll let you know how I get on! Have a good week everybody. Happy cooking and eating. May the sun shine all week. 😎🌞🌻xx