Half a ton

Last Sunday I turned 50. 

I'm in denial.

I actually don't feel much like an adult most days, I still feel 17, how can I possibly be 50?

OH is happy, now we are the same age, at least for 8 months.

As per usual on birthdays we had a drive out, visited an English Heritage property, this time to Witley Court, where the young lady who made me a hot drink from their machine told me about her mothers recent 50th birthday, and then driving down unknown roads to find the nearest pub serving food and having a meal. We hit the bullseye with the pub when we arrived at The Dog Inn in Dunley, no sniggering at the name please, it took a while for the penny to drop!  The French maitre d' made us feel most welcome and the French chef created a masterpiece, large portions, low prices, and as it was chucking it down outside, hardly any other customers!

Here's what we had, huge gammon with an egg on a bed of fried onions, with fried mushrooms and tomatoes cooked on the vine, with extra chips. It looks small, the gammon was 9 inches wide and half an inch thick! This lot was £9.95

Witley was unbelievably wet, we were only the second party to arrive that day.  We had a swift walk over to the house and a swift walk back!

All shots were taken undercover!  

As we left the Dog after our huge meal, it had thankfully stopped raining so I was able to get a nice shot of the pub sign

As you can see from the photo below, we were able to eat in solitude, it felt quite exclusive

On New Year's Day, we took a ride out to the National Trust managed Packwood House in nearby Warwickshire.  I love Packwood and Baddesley at Christmas, as they dress the houses and it is so atmospheric.  Before going to Packwood, we stopped in a village where I had heard about an Anthony Gormley statue alongside the canal, we had to visit.

I felt the need to copy the pose, but love the old lock keeper's cottage on the towpath side, isn't it gorgeous?  

Packwood, of course, was a delight, from the little wren in the car park

to all the Christmas trees and decorations

  I lost count of all the trees, and missed some too

 Outside, the topiary and the gardens were dormant

We had a pot of tea and admired the hand made Packwood tiles

I hope all of you have had a good Christmas and a great start to the year.  We were spoiled with food and drink gifts and I am feeling like I weigh half a ton already!  Much exercise is needed to rectify the situation.

 I am hoping this year will be good for us here, we have so many things to do so we are hitting the ground running hard and fast into 2016.  Hopefully, I will soon be blogging regularly again, in the meantime keep an eye out on my facebook page for snippets!