Vocal Voices

We traditionally have a Christmas pub lunch out in early December (before all the office parties get going). This is where we went yesterday ..

https://www.thebullsheadmeriden.co.uk/c ... en/gallery

It's an old coaching inn, and dates from 1603 apparently. Meriden is a pleasant village mid-way between Coventry and Solihull and is traditionally regarded as being at "The Centre of England". On the village green, there's a large memorial to cyclists who were killed in the two World Wars.

At the pub, we both had "home-made smoked haddock & horseradish fishcakes with poached egg, spinach & hollandaise sauce" with side orders of sweet potato chips and winter greens, followed by "rum & raisin crème brûlée with coconut flavour sugar " for Mrs O, and "warm treacle tart with whipped cream and lemon verbena syrup" for the Ostrich; in all, with drinks, just under £40. It was very nice and we'd certainly consider going again at a lunchtime.

Are any of you also indulging yourselves before Christmas?

We gave up years ago when places started putting up their Christmas menus earlier and earlier. Many of the dishes were nothing special, but as they were on the Christmas menu they came with a Christmas price tag.

The only way to escape the Christmas profiteering was to travel well out of Leeds to the sort of place you went to, Ossie.

Some of the old coaching inn type places in the remote villages still only do a "Seasonal" menu in the run-up to Christmas and till New Year's day.

Love the sound of those fishcakes, but not the rum and raisin creme brulee Looks like a lovely place. We have no special treat planned, but will be having a night in a hotel in early January, we are going to an event there and thought it would be a nice post-Christmas treat.

Years ago a group of us used to go for our own Christmas lunch out.
It started with just Mum and I, the first year she wasn't working and I was working for myself and we realised we'd be missing out on office parties
The next year another two friends joined us; for about 13 or 14 years there were always us four and usually one or two others.

It was lovely, we'd always have the proper turkey lunch and exchange small presents - I still have a pretty china mug and when two of the ladies came to visit earlier this year I gave J her tea in it. She recognised it and said she still has hers too - she was actually the one who bought them but it was a set of four and she wanted us all to have one
Funny, those two friends, they were two of Mum's best friends, but were a good few years younger than her, so about the same number older than me.
As I got older they became my friends too. It's nice for me as I don't often see people who knew Mum that well

Answering the question though, no, we don't

We are off out tonight - when say I mean the 9 ladies from our book group. We don't scrimp though - where we go is rather posh and tends to cost us around £50 each.

Here is our menu - though I can't for the life of me remember what I ordered (fortunately our organiser will have her list)

http://www.stones-restaurant.co.uk/christmas-at-stones/

The food is really fancy and there are lots of little canapes between courses.

I also have my meal out with friends on Monday (10 of us) to the local pub and then the following Monday its our office do. We also usually go out with Micks business partner and his girlfriend though we haven't organised that yet so it will probably be in January and is usually at the Indian.

I've been there quite a few times Ossie and the food has always been fab.

Boss lady is taking all 10 of us out for a Chinese feast on Thursday night. She pays for everything.

We do Secret Santa too.

I'm going out with some of the girls from Weightwatchers on the 21st. We are going to Lily's which is a small restaurant down by the Cathedral. I've never been before, although I've often been past as it is opposite the Beatrix Potter Tailor of Gloucester shop and museum. Doreen has though and says the food is good We've had to choose our menu in advance, and I'm having spicy honeyed parsnip soup, roast beef and all the trimmings, and cheese and biscuits

Actually I will almost certainly be too full for the cheese, but none of the puds really appealed and I had to choose something

No matter how full I was I'd still eat the cheese Kaz.

I love cheese.

Me too
Puds I can usually resist quite easily.

I forgot, I am going out to lunch tomorrow, with three friends, but we didn't specifically arrange it as a Christmas thing
Oh no, hope none of them bring presents

Both Debih's and Kaz's menus look very nice .... I'm not showing them to Mrs O, though, or we'll be setting out for another meal tomorrow!