Festive fare

Following the visit to Polesden Lacey noticed at reference 1, we returned last week to partake of their festive fare.

We arrived at around 1230 to find the cafeteria busy, so settled for an early lunch and walk after, rather than the other way around.

For £9.99 or so we got a perfectly respectable canteen style lunch, built around two or three slices of very thinly and very neatly cut slices of turkey. As is our wont, we wondered about the form in which the turkey had arrived on the premises, with me arguing that it was most unlikely to have arrived in the form of turkeys. But very likely that the turkeys had been through the stage called turkey roll, which meant that it could be very neatly sliced. Possibly the drill is to buy a suitable number of such rolls, cook them, put them through a slicer when cold and then freeze for use in due course. At the point of consumption all that needs to be done is to pour a thin gravy over the slices and warm them up in oven or microwave, au choix.

A variation would be to buy the stuff in in vacuum packs, ready cooked and sliced. In the way that you buy cooked meats in places like Sainsbury's.

Add a dab of a red cabbage confection. Some small pieces of roast parsnip and roast carrot. Some roast potatoes. A thick slice of rather superior sausage, taken from a roll about an inch and a half thick. Much better than your average real sausage. The rather quaintly named 'pig in blanket', otherwise a cocktail sausage wrapped up in a sliver of streaky bacon.

All quite eatable and quite reasonable value. Entirely suited to the pensioner pocket and digestion. Topped out with a warm mince pie.

Out to inspect the grounds, rather than the gardens, which we have not done for a while. I had forgotten about the fine walks, views and trees. Mrs. Greville had done herself proud.

Only slightly marred by one of those posters printed on some kind of plastic sheet which you see all over the place these days, illustrated above. A pity that the managers of the estate found such a thing necessary, that something more tasteful, something more in keeping with the nicely heritage gates would not have done.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/christmas-grotto.html.

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