Isn’t that gorgeous?  So elegant and perfect. So colourful, and yet in no way gaudy. Those glass shelves do a great job of showing off the goods without getting in the way, don’t they?

This week, for ABC Wednesday (the letter ‘G’), I’m going to give you some real contrasts in the world of shops and shopping.  I found that wonderful display of gloves in a Venice backstreet, which just goes to show that those Italians are so much more sophisticated than us English folk, don’t you think?  Of course, I haven’t had the chance to show you what they do to cakes, yet, but we’ll save that for another week.

So, from graceful and understated gloves in the gorgeous city of Venice, we go to …

George’s Fish Bar, in Bourne, Lincolnshire.  Now, George’s Fish Bar (so I’m told) has an excellent reputation and has been awarded four stars for hygiene, so it’s not in the least bit grimy, but elegant and understated?  I don’t think so, do you?  Love that shark’s head, George!   He has a great gaping grin!

After that, where shall we go?  Well, how about Dewey Beach, where the greyhound folk held a silent auction back in 2007, where this gigantic carved wood greyhound was the star attraction?

Not exactly a shop, but certainly a way of selling something.  Isn’t that grand? – and just look at that grain!

Talking of greyhounds, here’s a picture from a Meet and Greet I did with Sid last year.

It’s a little mini-shop, you see.  Just a table top with a few greyhound goodies for sale to help the hounds.  And it was held at the Rainbow supermarket in Bourne, where – despite the greyness of the day) the good people dropped quite a nice amount of money in our tins.

Another Meet and Greet we did was at a garden centre just before Christmas.   And here is a sweet girl greyhound doing a little shopping among all the glittery decorations and gift items.

Her name is Naughty Nellie, but she was being very good that day.

If you look at the bottom left hand corner of that photo, you’ll see a sign for a G Tech sweeper.  We have one of those little electric carpet sweepers and they are excellent!

Amazing what they have for sale at these Garden Centres.  I mean, they even have displays of garden furniture, and I love the St George flags hanging in garlands from roof to roof!

Can you imagine yourself gently swinging to and fro in this double swing seat?    I would imagine that many of you are also imagining yourself with a nice cool drink in your hand.  Just remember, never mix the grape and the grain if you want to avoid those hangovers!

Talking of which -

Have you ever noticed how many of our whiskies have names beginning with ‘G‘?  Look at that: Glenfiddich, Famous Grouse, Glenmorangie, Grants, Glenlivet … and further along the shelf are the gins.  They might even have some grappa.  Quite a few glugs there, for those that like a tipple!

I’m not going to take you very far away for this week’s ABC Wednesday. In fact, this particular ‘B‘ is only about five minutes walk from my house.

Now, it’s not the hanging basket (or its bracket), the Belisha beacon, the bushes, or the ‘blacktop‘ as my American friends call ‘tarmac’. It’s not the strengthening bolts in that big house to the right. It’s not even the burglar alarm that you might be able to pick out on the front of that end house.

I’m doing shops this time around, remember?

So this is the High Street of my village, looking west. The buildings in this part are mostly 18th century, and built from the local Barnack stone and this ‘B‘ is no exception.

You still don’t know what it is, do you? Does it help if I tell you that Sid loves walking past the (usually open) door, and that all of my dogs have tended to make a bee-line for it? Does it help if I tell you that features in this blog post here?

Okay. How about another picture?

This little pointy-roofed single storey building is our local butcher’s shop! There might be a blank space where the name should be, but everyone knows where it is. Also in this picture you’ll probably notice someone’s bottom as they bend over to do something in their driveway – there they are, just opposite their black bin*.

And if we go just a little closer, you might just be able to see the butcher’s meat saw and a couple of birds (possibly duck) hanging from the traditional butcher’s hooks inside that doorway.

How very obliging of that young lady to pose for us with her brolly, don’t you think?

It’s not a very posh shop – you might call it ‘basic‘ – but he’s painted it a beautiful blue, don’t you think?

* We do actually call them ‘black bins‘ to distinguish them from the green bins (recyclable rubbish) and brown bins (garden waste).

Poor Sid.

He’s been unwell for some weeks, as some of you know, with an upset gut following a course of strong antibiotics. This means that he’s on a very restricted menu at the moment, while we gradually re-introduce a more normal diet. For the first couple of weeks, he could only have tinned or dry prescription diet and no treats at all! So every time we turned around, this is what we’d see – his little face gazing at us hopefully. He was clearly thinking ‘Any minute now. Any minute now, they’ll remember the treats. Any minute. Now? Hmm. Any minute … now’

As soon as someone goes into the kitchen his head whips round.

‘Did you remember?? Did you?’

But poor Sid was only offered another plate of dry kibble. And yes, he’s lost weight, but only about a kilo, don’t let him fool you. He isn’t actually starving to death.

(’I am, you know!’)

It’s OK. He’s been having fresh, pressure cooked chicken and broth added to his meals for the last week, and all is going well. Yesterday, I added dried chicken meat strips for treats, and you should have seen the joy with which he ’spoke’ for a piece, and the speed with which he shot to his bed for some!

Next week, I’ll be cooking him lamb so see how that goes down.

Spoiled? You think?

Nah.

Snappy title, isn’t it? Add a little Yellow Swordfish and what have you got? A fun meeting with fellow bloggers over lunch at a local pub, that’s what!

I’ve only met one fellow blogger in person before – the lovely Kate, from iRamble, who very kindly came and visited me when I had my shoulder done – but I’ve got to know quite a few over the years. One of these blogging friends is Silverback of Retirement Rocks, who often pops up on IM when I’m using Facebook, and we’ve had some fun chats at odd times. Sometimes at very odd times, because I’m a night owl, and he spends half the year living the good life in Florida where he travels around by golf cart poking gentle fun at the locals. OH knew Silverback through his own blog ‘Yellow Swordfish‘ too, so when he suggested we could meet up in person before he goes back to Florida, I said yes, despite the risk that he might Not be What He Seemed.

Some of you will know that the very first person I met in person after talking with her online was fellow greyhound-owner and Johnny Depp fan, Tennesse Jenn. I took a bigger risk in meeting her, because she lives (yep) in Tennesee, whereas I live in England and I’d arranged to fly over and stay in a holiday rental with her. We had many semi-joking conversations about the possibility of her not being a ‘her’ at all, but an axe-murderer called Dave, but she wasn’t. TJ turned out to be exactly what I expected; a lovely, fun-loving Southern Belle with a most unladylike sense of humour (thank heavens), who only swooned over greyhounds and Johnny Depp. Interestingly, Ian made jokes about sharpening his axe ready to come and meet us, but he too turned out to be pretty much as I expected, only in his case, not a Southern Belle, but an Irishman transplanted to Leeds. Fun-loving he might be, but he appears to have no tendency towards chopping people into little pieces, or swooning, for that matter.

He brought Daphne with him, who writes My Dad’s A Communist and we all went out to lunch at the Rose Inn. And very nice it was too! We had a great time chatting over a very nice meal, and I for one was sorry when it was time for them to leave because Daphne had a deadline to meet, south of London. Silverback and Daphne are lovely people, and I hope we can all meet up again sometime in the not too distant future.

I’m adding this to the Friday Finding Beauty list, because to me it’s a very beautiful thing to find new friends, but also .. I mean, really. Take another look at the dessert up there. This is the Rose Inn’s rather idiosyncratic version of ‘cheesecake’. From the taste of it, it’s made with mascarpone cheese and cream, resting on a very well hidden layer of shortcake and strawberres. There is chocolate. There is an edible ’spoon’ of homemade toffee! There are far, far too many calories for any sane person, and wow. It even tastes beautiful!

The feeling of self-righteousness when you manage not to eat the entire pot is pretty nice, too!