Pub report as follows:

'And so we wended our way along the the warm and sleepy green lanes of Oxfordshire.'

In real life it was more of a blast through the winding, blind corner roads of Oxfordshire trying to outrun the rain front. But we made it to the pub okay.

Kingston Lisle is a very pretty, Cotswold looking village, lots of thatched cottages and old stone buildings. The Blowing Stone is a free inn, whatever that means :) and its obviously quite popular with the locals. Its been re-furbed in recent times but not in a self-conscious 'country pub' kind of way. There's a shady garden out the back with benches and a pond, they have a no-smoking conservatory restaurant area, and a two bar areas. It was fairly quiet when we got there, but I imagine that it does get quite crowded at the height of summer. The staff are very friendly, as was one of the local's terriers who came and had a good sniff and a tail wag at us before going back to the other bar.

The food is pretty good, they have the usual bar snack menu as well as the full 3 course kind. We tried two main courses: calf liver, bacon and mash (which was well flavoured and had that melting consistency) and boar sausages and mash (good gamey flavour and had an excellent gravy). The main courses we had were £6.00 each, the bar menu was about £3.00-£5.00. There were fish and vegetarian main courses available, salmon, sea bass, fettucini and summer vegetable tart I think. Didn't sample the beers this time.

I hope this will be of help, for future reference if not for the suggested outing on 13th July.

Sounds very nice!

Isn't it great when you can do research that's actually fun? ;-)



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

If all research was that enjoyable I think I would've tried a new career :) it was fun though, I'd definitely like to do more 'research' in the future.

How does one become a full-time pub researcher/reviewer, the hours might be okay but what's the money like? And would I have to start drinking bitter because I'm not very good at that.

"Free inn" = An inn that's not tied to a particular brewery, and is thus free to serve whatever brands of beer its landlord thinks he can sell.

The food sounds nice. OK, I'll accept eating there instead of a picnic.

Did you happen to notice how wide a variety of ciders they serve, for those of us who don't really like beer?

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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."



Post Edited (06-09-03 18:35)

Blast! Sorry, Simon, I didn't notice I was a bit preoccupied with looking at the wine menu. Been awhile since I was offered a wine menu in a pub when ordering just one glass. I can say it was a nice Australian Sauvignon Blanc.

I don't mind at all if you want me to go back and check! :)

No, that's OK, if there's a reasonable wine list then that will certainly do instead of cider or beer.


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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."

I'm glad wine will be okay, but you're *quite* sure that you don't want me to check out the cider? (No, I'm not fishing for another excuse to revisit at all lol)

btw Simon do you have a randomly changing ISP address? Couldn't help notice that.

A randomly-changing ISP address? Do I? (The technical side of these gadgets is something that I've never studied...) I thought that it was just one address at work (which is sreeve@lancing.org.uk) and a different one (which is simreeve@hotmail.com) via the public library...

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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."

Ah that explains it, two server addresses are showing by your ID at different times is all. 'Randomly changing' was my poorly expressed exaggeration, not to worry :)

I am a cider drinker too. I won't touch the nasssty stuff sold in most pubs, but there are a few pubs in Sheffield that sell the good stuff. 'Waterloo Sunset' and 'Ruby Tuesday' are highly recommended.

There seems to be a thing for naming cider after rock tunes ... Claire has discovered a local pub sells Purple Haze (8% alcohol by volume - ouch).

Purple Haze all in my brain
Too much cider sends a man insane
This stuff's strong, that ain't no lie
'Scuse me while I eat this pie



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

heheh That's great! Is there no musical form you can't parody Jon?

I swore off cider after too much experimenting with truly awful examples in my teenage years. Same goes for that remarkable fortified wine 'Thunderbird'. I only wish that alcopops had been around in those days :)

Funnily enough, I know a couple of other people who won't touch cider after unfortunate experiences in their teenage years.

And yes, good ciders can be a *tad* stronger than beer !

@#$%& ciders have a lot to answer for! At least I didn't do what my husband did in his early drinking years; Malibu binging. He couldn't even look at a Bounty bar for ages after that, so he's told me.

I got alcoholic poisoning at a christmas party one year. One glass of punch. Not happy! But there was Malibu in the punch and I kept saying to hubby that I could smell coconut even though there was none within a bulls roar.

Kaz - 'A bulls roar', what a great expression :) I may have to nick that one!

Despite having just about every alcoholic beverage that you can make a cocktail out of Malibu is still banned from the house!

Southern comfort for me, or is Johnny Walker still available? Blast it, I can't remember the difference betwen the red and black labels, it's been so long since I saw any.

my dad had a favourite anecdote about cider (more specifically scrumpy). My dad, his brother and some mates went down south for the weekend to scrumpy country (I can't remember where). His mates were big lads, miners, who could drink 15 pints a night with no ill effects. My dad had a couple of scrumpies, and the last he recalled was falling off his stool and waking up on the train home. One of the miners had a few more and got lost in a toilet cubicle...

Splendid. He'd been told to tell me off as I'd been out the night before and had 16 jack daniels in about 2 hours and was ill (I blame the hot dog and pint of guinness), but instead it turned into a swapping 'getting drunk' stories. His argument was that he was in no position to tell me off as he was worse than I was at that age. My mother was assured that I had been ticked off good n proper.

:)

Advice for anybody who's going out drinking _
Whatever you plan to drink, if there's a significant chance that you'll be waking up with a hangover next morning then make sure that you won't be sleeping in the same room as a canary. (Two words: DAWN CHORUS...)
Never again!

It's rather appropriate that this topic is in the 'White Horse' thread, I suppose... Are you all familiar with Michael Flanders' "Built-up Area" sketch?
("I think it's supposed to be some sort of advert for mead. They don't call them the 'Beaker Folk' for nothing..." :-)

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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."



Post Edited (06-11-03 14:17)

Sylvester does a dawn chorus, it's really pretty but it doesn't hapen at dawn, he prefers 10am ish



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Sylvester says.... *plock*




actually he says peep, cheep, chirrup, squalk,muttermuttergrumblegrumble, oh and now he falls off his pirch whish is followed by a sheepish peek round to see if anyone was looking and a quick scramble back up