Out for lunch!

Keith and I took Sophie to the train station this morning for her trip to London with Vikesh and his cousins. There were nine of them going, and she'd been looking forward to the day out.

Keith and I returned home for breakfast and pootled about for the rest of the morning. We'd booked a table at the pub in the village, so we walked up at midday rather than take the car the short distance. We were lucky with the weather which was dry and sunny, albeit a little chilly.

There was a lovely atmosphere in the pub and it was warm and welcoming. Matthew took our drinks order and said that he was leaving in six months to go travelling and then teach in Vietnam. We were impressed and said that he'd be a loss to the pub. He's the same age as Mike with no responsibilities, so good luck to him!

We sat down at a window table and perused the menu with our drinks - a pint of Neck Oil for Keith, and half a Guinness for me. There was a definite Scottish theme going on - probably because of the recent Burns' Night - and I ordered the haggis and neeps in a whisky sauce for a main course. Keith chose the steak and ale pie and we asked for some bread, olives and feta to start the meal.

The bread and olives were delicious, and my haggis and neeps were perfect! I ended the meal with cranachan, a Scottish dessert with raspberries, cream and oats, which was lovely.

Bread, olives and oil mixed with Balsamic vinegar

Yummy!

Over the meal, we'd talked about Keith's family, and he wondered whether his brother-in-law's brother was still alive. Keith used to work for the family and they'd been a big influence on his life as Keith's father had died when he was fourteen. I said that, when we got home, we'd look him up on the internet and see what we could find.

We walked home and had a look on Ancestry to see what was available. Purely by chance, we stumbled across a family tree that included Keith's brothers and sister. The weird thing was that there was another female sibling listed along with them... as far as we were aware there were only four of them, with a big gap between Keith's brother Val, born in 1930, and Keith who was born in 1946. We decided to contact the owner of the family tree to find out more. It was intriguing!

I went upstairs with the cats to watch television and came back down at about 6pm. Sophie was having problems getting home, due to damaged overhead lines, and they had even talked about getting a taxi back to Northampton. However, they managed to get onto the 7pm train although she said that there had been a real scrum to get on board, with people running and jostling. She sounded a bit fed up.

Keith wanted to watch the game between Newcastle and Fulham so I sat on the sofa with him and read. Sophie arrived home at almost 9pm, tired and cold from all the travelling, and sat with us while we had a late supper of prawn cocktail. She told us about her day and we mentioned the intrigue surrounding Keith's parents. I checked my messages and there was one from the family tree owner, who lives in Australia! 

He was adamant that there had only been one marriage at the time and the surnames were correct. I have now sent off for the birth certificate for one of the children, so let's see what happens!