The 'Upper' & 'Lower Slaughter' walk

Well this was the first walk that we have done since the 21 mile 5 valleys walk, now amazingly a month ago,
and guess what! I left my phone at home and there for have no pictures to take unless I go back that way today for Sunday lunch and take a few then.
it wont be quite the same. So this blog will be quite short and with one photo.
Walkers today were Dave and I, Liz was at work which is quite normal if we walk on a Saturday.
We set off from Naunton which featured in a walk a little while ago. Dave soon spotted a mushroom which we picked, I've been waiting for mushroom season to start so was well chuffed to find these beauties, they were pretty huge too.


We came upon the brilliantly named 'Upper Slaughter' which is where I had a weird experience- Dave and I were trying to find our way on the map when we heard a beep from a car,
Considering this is a sleepy Cotswold village, I bumped into a couple (Clive & Lucy) who live in Dublin (Ireland) that I had known a few years who were driving around aimlessly looking for friends that live in ether 'Upper' Or 'Lower' Slaughter' without even having their address's or phone numbers. ( I could say that this sounds very irish- but I had better not, it is not terribly P.C.)
After a quick chat we went on our merry little way, it was nice to see them! (I hope Munster win for you today Clive)
We then went off to 'lower Slaughter' both these places are very picture perfect and very posh, but a bit to many tourists for me to want to live there.
After skirting passed 'Bourton on the water' we then walked along the valley back to Naunton for a quick lime and soda as I've decided to give up alcohol for 6 weeks in preparation for my Holiday to Thailand and Australia. The Black horse was pretty busy so we hotfooted it back to Cheltenham for lunch at the Strand (my local).
And thats is for this week, next time i'll remember to take my camera phone with me.
Cheers for reading,
Carl.

No Walking today It was a complete Wash out.

After phoning the usual guys Dave, Liz and now Tony.
Sophie expressed an interest on Friday night so I rang her too to arrange a time of 10 am.
Everyone was prompt but by then the rain was lashing down.


We all had tea and waited a while, but then the storm became one of the biggest ones of the year so far.
So thats it really- no walk no blog, and everyone went their separate ways.
But wait, remember the Halfway house in Kineton?
The roast was pretty good there a couple of weeks ago and now I'm not so hung over, I had to find out, would it taste any better? or was it just a blip and that they just got luck with it?
We should soon find out.
So Tom, Jon, Tony and I went over in my car also taking along my new foraging kit (more of that later),
Jon & Tom are new to this blog and show no interest in walking, but they do like to meet up for the good food sometimes.
Talking of which lets get onto the food. The Halfway House was fairly busy and every table was taken, luckily for us we a found the last one.
We ordered 3 roast beef (or how they like to call it here 'rare roast beef') and one pork for me, plus 4 pints of 'BB'.
Now I like to think that I have a bit of knowledge when it comes to a good Sunday roast as I eat out pretty much every week.

But this one surpassed every roast that i've eaten, I kid you not it was the tastiest and (as Tom pointed out) the most colorful roasts Ever.
I'm afraid that my photo does not really do it justice, but it came with Pork, roast potatoes, cabbage, mashed carrot, red cabbage, roasted parsnips, broccoli, cauliflower cheese, crackling, apple sauce and one of the nicest gravies which sadly let down many a good meal in other establishments.
This meal was truly amazing and I highly recommend it! (As you'll be able to see by are very cleaned up plates.)

It could not possibly get any better. . . . . . . . . but it did!
Now I'm not really into desserts but we were so impressed we had to order some,
and WOW!
Pineapple with a cocoanut ice-cream with some sort of raspberry sauce does not sound too great to me and it was my 3rd choice, but they had ran out of everything else.
It was delicious to the extreme, the temperature was right, the taste was spectacular and it went down a treat, unbelievable was the comment from someone.

After a quick chat with the chef to tell her what we thought and that we would be back very soon.
I took my foraging kit from the car and off we went to find some Hazelnuts or as Tony later found out via his good lady Michele, they are called 'cob nuts'.

I was mainly scrapping around on the roadside trying to find the ones that had not been eaten by the squirrels.
I had found quite a hearty lot but it wasn't till I got back to the car that Tony had found by far the best place and hundreds of them were just lying around,
in-fact we walked straight pass them at the very begin.

And what started as a wash out has now turned into a very fruitful if not nutty day
but as they say every cloud has a silver lining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . but I think ours was gold today.
Cheers Carl.