Anniversary ambitions

This week we celebrated our wedding anniversary. One effect (bonus?) of having a condition like MND is that such occasions take on extra significance. If you have one, you'll know what I mean. As every new day is a gift, so every landmark occasion reached is also a gift. One of the things our local MND Association branch has done for a year or two is send a cheque at New Year to people with MND in the county to spend however they want. It's a lovely gesture, since normally one's preoccupied with the mundane matters of disability.

Emily Watkins (Kingham Plough website)

From the Kingham Plough newsletter

When I received my gift in January, I knew how I wanted to spend it. One of our sons' friend had been involved in filming The Great British Menu and so we had watched it. The chef nearest to us in 2014 was Emily Watkins from The Plough in Kingham, and she won the regional round and in the final week her fish dish was chosen for the war veterans' banquet. As far as one could tell from TV, not only did she cook beautiful food but she also seemed a nice person. One day, I thought, I'd like to take Jane for a meal at her pub.....

What better excuse than a wedding anniversary meal? The whole day exceeded our expectations. It helped that the drive took us through the Cotswolds north of Burford; it helped that the day was sunny; it helped of course that it was our anniversary and we were still in love.

We were shown a table inside near the bar, but decided to sit outside in the sun. We ordered our first course - for me, smoked sea trout "Wellington"; for Jane, home-made coppa with broad bean and radish salad and three times cooked potato wedges. The bread, while we waited, was, I imagine, artisan-baked, delicious. We were surprised and delighted when Emily brought out the smoked sea trout. I'm not a gourmet or a food critic, and I have never come face-to-face with food quite this beautiful.

I won't play the TV critic by analysing the ingredients and flavour combinations, but you can see it - and you'll have to take it from me, it tasted as good as it looked. The Wellington itself had the fish itself at the centre, minced off-cuts (I think), then seared chard leaves and finally the thinnest pastry I've ever come across. It added to my enjoyment when Emily emerged from the kitchen to ask how I'd enjoyed it. She told us it was a new dish. She had had 20 goes at perfecting it - and this was the first time she'd been satisfied enough to serve it to a customer. Wow! I thought. I assured her it was brilliant. Sadly I wasn't with it enough to get a picture of us with her...!

Our puddings - sorry, desserts - were lemon posset with granola (Jane) and strawberry soufflé with clotted cream custard (me). And of course they too were lovely. So we drove home with a warm glow inside and out. 

To cap our day we spent the evening with old friends and new friends at our local coffee shop, Cornerstone, for the occasional meeting dubbed Face2Face. We shared food (again!) and music or poetry which meant something to each of us. My choice was Liszt's Les Préludes, which I first heard with Jane at an open-air concert at Kenwood House 44 years ago, intensely romantic and spiritual. Jane chose a song which resonates more with our present situation, Laura Story's Blessings, which asks questions about the mystery of unanswered prayer. She doesn't give definite answers, but keeps asking, "What if...?" To end with, Mary read a version of the Hungarian writer, Útmutató a Léleknek's often quoted/plagiarised parable, Do you believe in mother? And Pete prayed.

A rather, a very, good day - we slept gratefully and well.