Too Old Codgers

Not having to repack on the morning of our rest day was a huge treat – perhaps a sign we'd been on the road for too long. Breakfast was delightful – fresh fruit salad followed by eggs benedict. After breakfast Mary dealt with work emails while Graham caught up with diary notes and reviewed our finances. It was reassuring to know we weren't going to run out of money.

'Frenchgate from the window of our B&B'

We went out at 10.30 and, on the recommendation of our host at the B&B as well as the friends we had met at Boot, we went on the guided tour of the Georgian theatre which we greatly enjoyed. We did some shopping at Boots (where we met one of the Leicester 10 – they weren't staying in Richmond, just passing through), the supermarket, and an outdoors store where Graham bought a hat with a stiff brim (he was fed up with the floppy brim on his old hat either slapping across his eyes or being blown back so it provided no sun protection, especially in the strong wind on the previous day).

'Richmond's Georgian theatre'

'Market square, Richmond'

We then went looking for a ploughman's lunch. Firstly we went into the King's Head - when the Theakston's beer wasn't good, we decided not to stay. We found our way to the Buck Inn, where lunch and a cold beer in the beer garden on a lovely, sunny afternoon overlooking the castle was just what we were looking for. Graham was reminded of the words of the classic Kinks' song 'now I'm sitting here, sipping at my ice cold beer, lazing on a sunny afternoon'. On our way back towards the B&B we stopped at the lolly shop at the north-eastern corner of the marketplace. It was a gem of a place, just like the lolly shops of our childhoods with hundreds of jars of different sweets. We ordered ice-cream cones, one vanilla and one Cointreau, and sat in the sun outside the shop to enjoy them.

'Lazing on a sunny afternoon – Buck Inn beergarden'

'The lolly shop – a real gem'

We could have spent the afternoon at some of the other Richmond highlights, but we were in 'lazing on a sunny afternoon' mode. Mary slept for several hours while Graham reviewed photographs and sent an illustrated email to family and friends.

At 6.15 we went out to find a pub for a drink before dinner. The Wetherspoon's was so popular there was no space at the bar, the Blaize had only a limited selection of white wines and none that Mary wanted, the Talbot was inhabited by patrons using foul language (we realised that this was the first pub on our holiday that we had heard such language and, although we are no puritans, we had enjoyed the absence), and the Turf was barren, but we had run out of options so Graham had a Timothy Taylor Landlord's (good) and Mary had an Italian pinot grigio (poor).

Fortunately the Rustique restaurant quickly restored our spirits. The French wines were good. We began with bread and olives followed by assiette crustaces (prawns, crab, smoked salmon and superb rollmops). Mary had a very good salmon fillet for her main course and Graham had pork belly with red cabbage and celeriac, which was a pleasant change from steak and ale pie. We finished with crepe suzette and coffee. It was one of the better meals of our holiday.

Next >>>>