Driving and Pork Belly

Our mini vacation was coming to an end as we travelled without incident to Darlington and after setting up the van and a lovely cool ginger cordial we both managed a nap before heading out for a walk into Darlington in the balmy 27 deg evening. Our destination was Al Forno, an Italian restaurant LV had eaten at 4 years earlier and was a fitting way to end our relaxing few days.

I don’t normally post food photos as they rarely do justice to the most important aspect - taste. However, we both ordered this exceptional pork belly in peppercorn sauce with crispy onions and mash. It was delicious and deserves a spot on blip.

When we returned we tackled the “Speedy” crossword in the Observer - this is a fiendish crossword and “Speedy” hardly makes an apt description. We relentlessly deliberated over virtually every clue that seemed to have multiple answers, all of which contained the wrong number of letters! Finally we had to cheat when it came to the following clue “extracts essence by boiling?” We knew it began with “D” and so immediately “Distill came to mind. But not, far too obvious - the word we finally looked up was “Decocts”. Really? If you know this word your vocabulary certainly exceeds the pair of us! Speedy crosswords shouldn’t have obscure words in them - just my 2 cents!