Well I hope you had a good Christmas! I meant to put in a festive greetings card before the “big day” but just didn’t have time. As it doesn’t specifically relate to 25th I’ll put it in now before I continue. It looks far nicer when enlarged so do click on the picture.
The lead up to Christmas was quite busy with preparation and a couple of pre-Christmas lunches and get togethers. 
Linda and I decided to take advantage of a special offer at what is thought of as a rather expensive hotel. Lunch at £10 for two courses sounded very interesting so we paid them a visit on Wednesday. I had never been there since I was a child and the family had afternoon tea there on occasions after a weekend walk in the country, but couldn’t remember anything about the place. The building is rather fine, built in 1860 to replace a previous house that was built around 1600. 
There’s a long tree-lined drive uphill and 
round to the front of the hotel, and impressively, we were greeted just outside the front door, and ushered inside through the hall – above left - to the lounge – above right.
When our table was ready we were taken upstairs to the dining room which was probably the drawing room in its pre-hotel life, judging by its panelled walls and beautifully painted ceiling, 
not to mention the splendid fireplace with portrait one of the ladies of the original family.
We had a beautiful meal, well worth the reasonable £10. Another few pounds and we could have had pudding/dessert/ sweet – choose the word that suits you. We call it pudding here! – but two courses were enough, an ample sufficiency, as my dad would have said! Apparently they hope to continue with a £10 menu into the New Year, so I am sure we’ll meet there again sometime soon.
On the way back to Peebles the sun was beginning to go down leaving a pastel glow in the western sky. The snow-covered landscape looked so pretty, but how we are getting sick of the snow!
I took photos down by Cuddy burn the next day. Frozen grasses and ice along the edge of the water made an attractive photo, as did the view downstream towards the Cuddy Bridge.
On Christmas day the snow was actually thawing, so dinner at Melrose was possible after all. 
We had been expecting more snow, but it didn’t happen, so all was well. It was another good meal at Burts hotel – too much turkey really – but we managed our puddings, and delicate little mincemeat pies with coffee back in the lounge. – left. Burts is another old hotel, possibly a coaching inn in centuries gone by. I should have taken pictures of the grand dining room and of a painting of the hotel on the wall of the bar! Another time!
So, since Christmas there has been a little more snow…. but now we are feeling almost warm with temperatures above freezing! One degree celsius is above freezing! The snow is slowly disappearing…. but guess what? We’re to get more snow next week! Hope we don’t get as much as the east coast of America is getting just now!
Talk again soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment