A mixed week

This week did not start off so well, I had my 4th vaccination on Sunday and felt a little under the weather on Monday. Hubby saved the day as always by coming home from town with cake!! 

Delicious! 

We've been trying to walk more often and include a long walk once a week. It's a bit boring walking the same places around where we live so we try to give our walk a purpose. This week we decided to walk to a local butcher as he has a large range of pork pies. The shop is just over two and a half miles from home, I hadn't realised they were all up hill. 

Thankfully the butcher also had pork and stuffing batches which we enjoyed on our route home ... all downhill yay! We bought pies for dinner, I had a scotch pie and the chaps had a Stockingford pasty (named after the area of town). We also bought a pork and stilton pie and a traditional pie - all tasty but the pastry wasn't quite right for me. My favourite pie comes from a butcher in Oakham, maybe we'll have a day out on the train to get one. 

We've certainly had mixed weather this week, some days have been quite warm but there's been a biting wind. For a change of scene and short walk we drove to Market Bosworth. A few years ago a group of us enjoyed a wine weekend with Thirty Fifty at Bosworth Hall Hotel, unbelievably that was 8 years ago and as you'll see in my blog post we had a super time, something to hopefully be repeated again soon. 

Our walk was around the country park opposite the hotel, it has a variety of trees as well as a large pond popular with ducks and geese. It was lovely to see the hedgerows beginning to show signs of spring. 

I have been sorting through my Grandfathers photos and documents trying to build up his life story. If I don't write what I know, and what I find out, down it will be lost. I'm at the research stage which is lovely as it means we're visiting relatives I haven't seen for many years. 

One of my relatives lives in Lichfield so we popped over for a visit. I was surprised and delighted to discover she knew the church where my grandparents married (second marriage for both) and who the other people in the photo were - her parents as my grandmother was her mother's sister. It was so nice to sit and chat and discover more about my family. 

After our visit we drove around a little and found the church, St Chad's. The doorway is still the same although the grave on the left of the photo has been moved to make way for a path. It felt quite surreal  to be there. 

After a quiet start to the week as I wanted to make sure the vaccination side effects had gone before enjoying a glass of wine. Yealands Sauvignon Blanc was my selection and what a good choice. A crisp wine full of flavour with an elegant lengthy finish, I thoroughly enjoyed every sip. 

Saturday we had an impromptu video chat with our quiz friends, no quiz just a chat whilst enjoying wines. We were very surprised that it was a year ago since we had our Virtual Cocktail Night - such fun, maybe one day we will have an actual cocktail night! 

Hubby and I had already opened a bottle of Les Dauphins Cotes du Rhone with our dinner. It's one of our favourite go to French wines, this was a gift from our friends for Hubby's birthday. Chatting is a social event, as is wine drinking and so a second bottle was opened, Laithwaites Cabalie, another super French wine.

Our chat went into the wee hours accompanied by a wee dram. We have quite a few whisky miniatures, it's a good way to try each style of whisky before deciding on whether it's nice enough to buy a full size one. 

Our first wee dram was Jura single malt 10 year old. I like Jura Journey and was looking forward to this, but oh I was initially disappointed when we discovered it was peated. As soon as I smell antiseptic I struggle, however this was very enjoyable as there was no antiseptic taste, just a lightness on the nose. It was a very smooth whisky which we would have again although maybe not buy a bottle.

Our second dram was not for me, it looked richer and as expected from it's colour it had a toffee aroma. However I really didn't like it's flavour, no toffee and very strong but not in a burning way. I was so looking forward to trying GlenAllachie but even with a few drops of angel tears (water) it just wasn't right. 

It just shows doesn't it that you never know from a label or how a whisky looks, they can be very different to expectations ... I guess that can be said for many other things including wine. 

This coming week brings Valentine's Day .... cheers!