Christmas Dinner

Well the weather really isn't right for rambling so I shall continue to waffle on about food. I attended my work's Christmas Dinner at The Bargeman's Rest, Newport on Friday last and had a jolly time. Pleasant company was accompanied by good food in sizeable portions.

 

I began with a Spinach and Ricotta  parcel and salad. I had expected the parcel to be of delicate pastry, and was surprised when it turned out to be rather chunky and pie-like. However, it tasted very nice, as did the salad. For my main course I was given a huge portion of stuffed, slow roasted pork loin with an arch of very crackly crackling, and roast potatoes. Vegetables provided separately were cauliflower cheese, carrots, sprouts, and boiled potatoes, and there was also cranberry sauce and gravy. Absolutely delicious all round, and the pork was cooked to perfection. Pudding had been pre-ordered, and was a gluten free chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce and squirty cream. This wasn't such an impressive course; the brownie was rather thin and large, rather than small, chunky and oozing chocolatey gooeyness, the sauce wasn't necessary (or at least so much of it), and the cream should have come in a jug. By that stage I was so stuffed from the first two courses that pudding didn't really matter!

 

The service was excellent all round, from bar staff to waiting staff and I would definitely eat there again.

Symphony Orchestra

Today has been very wet and windy, so not really hiking weather for lightweights like me. My Mum had a spare ticket to the first concert of the Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra's new season, so I joined her. It was the first of their concerts that I had attended, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The orchestra has a sizeable string section, a reasonably sized brass section and enough woodwind and percussion to make a difference. There were three compositions on the programme tonight:

• Overture: Portsmouth Point (Walton)
• Violin Concerto No. 1 (Bruch)
• Symphony No.1 (Mahler)

The overture was jolly, with a nice introduction by the conductor, Jonathan Butcher, who explained the difference between rhythm and metre to the audience. The orchestra then demonstrated exceedingly clearly during the performance. A good start!

The violin concerto was magnificent; the soloist was Alexander Sitkovetsky, who came in all in black, shirt untucked, with wild hair, and gave a spellbinding performance ably accompanied by the orchestra. My occasional feeble scratchings on my fiddle were put very much to shame. Superb.

After the interval (Minghella ice cream was consumed, of course), we were treated to the Mahler symphony. This had four movements, all of which were well performed. I was entranced by the oboists, who kept pointing their oboes up in the air during the more exciting parts.

All in all, a lovely way to spend a miserable November evening, and I shall certainly go to more of their concerts in future.

Roman Lunch

We had a trip on the North Island again today, and stopped off for lunch at Fishbourne Roman Palace. We didn't view the remains of the palace as we'd been before - worth a visit if you haven't been though. I had the Roman Platter which consisted of two large slices of olive bread, a good dollop of hummous, plenty of black olives, lots of feta cheese and some salad. Delicious, and washed down with cups of tea from the generous 'pot of tea for one'. The teenager had a cheese and tomato panini which I was assured was also delicious.

 

The view from the café was pleasant, looking onto a turfed area, with a couple of hillocks, several oak trees, and a small pavilion. It looked as though some archaeology was happening on one of the hillocks. There was a horse in the distance and lots of trees just changing into their autumn colours. I think that we'll stop off there regularly!