The Spotted Dog

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When we Face Timed Michaelin before we left California, she said it was raining; so we told her we would bring California weather with us to England - and we did!  It was a beautiful sunny day, as we drove to a nearby park to take a long leisurely early-morning walk.  The English really know how to create parks.  The parks are acres and acres of lush green grass, with trees, and hundreds of varieties of flowers. Queen Victoria's Park also had a small lake with swimming ducks, swans, and geese.  Lee and Stella took a ride in a paddle boat on the lake.

For lunch we drove for another half hour through shaded country lanes to a restaurant called The Spotted Dog.  A red and white Irish Setter greeted us as we walked into the Pub and we wondered if the dog was the namesake for the restaurant.

England is very dog-friendly, and we see owners and dogs in many public places.  Most dogs seem to be well behaved as they lay at their owner's feet while they eat breakfast, lunch or dinner.

We will be lucky if we can fit into any of the clothes we brought on our trip if we keep eating this great English food.  They love real butter and clotted cream!  Of course it is all about choices and you can believe that the dessert choice at The Spotted Dog was a good one!  We learned that the English call any dessert pudding, so the Treacle Pudding we ordered was more like a shortcake with a custard sauce on top. Yum!

We enjoyed a walk down a short footpath overlooking a valley.  This was the view from the window of the restaurant.  The yellow flowers we see all along the countryside are fields and more fields of grape seed.

When we came back to Bramley Cottage, we were expecting Kevin's parents to come for tea and biscuits and we wanted to sit outside since it was so lovely and quite warm.  However, the backyard's lawn was in need of cutting so Lee thought he would try a hand at it.  This helps to envision just how
large the yard and orchards are in the back of the house. The picture was taken early evening from our bedroom window.