VEGANS AND VEGETARIANS LOOK AWAY NOW!

I had decided that it was so lovely to see blue sky and fluffy clouds today that my Blip would be just that and a good shot for Wide Wednesday - so I took several shots on our way to Cirencester.  However, that changed and you can see why by reading below - but I have put my original shot in as an extra - which the vegans and vegetarians may prefer!

You may remember that I have a Remoska, which is an electric portable oven, loved by many who have motorhomes and me too, which I have been using since October 2020, making my big oven redundant.  Sadly, the handle started to part company with the lid, so after ringing Lakeland Customer Service yesterday, which I have to say is second to none, I was able to return it to the Lakeland Store in Dobbies Garden Centre, near Cirencester, where they gave me a replacement.  There was nothing else we wanted at the Garden Centre, so we made our way home, passing The Butts Farm Rare Breeds Butchery and Farm Shop on our way and staying off the busy A419 for a while.

This is one of those places that when you pass it, you say “We really must stop there” but never seem to - however, that was not the case today.  We stopped!  All the meat, including several varieties of sausage on show looked wonderful and there were lots of other things to see in the Farm Shop too.  We hadn’t intended to buy, just to look, but seeing the wonderful array of meat, I enquired about a leg of lamb for Christmas.  As we are on our own for Christmas, we decided that we would do what we did last year and have one of my favourite meats - lamb - and there will definitely NOT be any Yorkshire Puddings or pigs in blankets served with it!  It will just be cooked with garlic and rosemary and I will make some onion sauce, so with all the other vegetables, including some out of the garden, we hope - it sounds good already!

We could see this young man butchering some meat, which turned out to be lamb, so when Mr. HCB said to me and Tarryn, the lady behind the counter, that you don’t see sights like that in many places nowadays, I decided that I would ask if I could take a shot of him doing his job.  I explained about Blip and he said that was fine.  We found out his name was Carl (with a C and not a K because I checked!) and Tarryn encouraged him to smile, so he stopped mid-cut so that I could take my shot.  I told him I would give them a “shout- out” as it’s called on the radio - so here it is!  I have quite a bit of meat in my freezer at home, but Tarryn said that the other lady, named Laura, had made some quiches this morning, broccoli and blue cheese and cheese and onion, if we were interested and indeed she makes all the pies, sausage rolls and other frozen meals.  She brought one out and they looked delicious so we decided to treat ourselves and I’m sure we will enjoy it later for our evening meal.

What a pleasant way to spend half an hour, and we chatted about all sorts including how so many people eat takeaway meals these days so often don’t know how to cook meat and also board games that we enjoy - not sure what that has to do with a butcher’s shop - but we were talking about what we do at Christmas - and Tarryn wrote down the game “Sequence” as she said her two daughters liked competitive games, so we said it was definitely that!  Tarryn also told us that they were taking orders for Christmas, so we bit the bullet and ordered our leg of lamb to be deboned and vacuum packed so, at least we don’t have to worry about our Christmas meat.

Mr. HCB was also interested to hear that if he called over after 11 o’clock on Saturday morning, they would have tasters of the various sausages that they make including beer and garlic, which sounds great.  Now I wonder if the Silly Saturday Gang would like a little trip out on Saturday?  

“Food may be essential
     as fuel for the body,
          but good food 
               is fuel for the soul.”
Malcolm Forbes