Valentine's Day . . .

. . . in our house is celebrated a bit earlier than the rest of the world, as February 3rd is the day, 28 years ago, that GM and I become a couple.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable day, despite opening the curtains in the morning to see a slight covering of snow on the ground (which was completely gone by midday).

At lunch time we took ourselves off to a new pub, well not new but new to us, the Horse and Groom, situated in a tiny hamlet called East Woodlands, to the south-east of Frome. Our journey to the pub would be a story on its own, involving narrow lanes, a hedge-cutting tractor, a bank-climbing land rover, a ford (that's a river ford, not a vehicle!) and almost any other obstacle that you could think of, but that's for another day, possibly (or not). But the pub itself was a gem, a real old country pub serving real decent beer and real decent food.

We both enjoyed a couple of glasses of Butcombe Best (which is brewed not that far away, just to the south of Bristol) - despite what it says on my glass.

We sat near to the fire and were nice and warm

The baguettes that we ordered were really tasty but enormous, I couldn't finish all of mine.

It was one of those pubs that felt just right, no effort had been made to change it from its traditional role of being the social centre of the village (hamlet).

We loved it, and will definitely be going there again, only next time we'll take the slightly longer, but much quicker, route using the A362 and the A361.

I hope you all enjoy your Valentine's Day as much as we did ours.