Cinio Yfory...

Today has been hot and sunny, with little sign of a return to the storminess of the last few days: the humidity certainly ratcheted down a notch or two during the afternoon. Tomorrow, the four of us are heading out to Leintwardine, just over the border in Herefordshire, for lunch at The Lion: a place that has a reputation for knocking out some decent nosh.

Our usual watering-hole there is The Sun, which was, until the demise of its proprietress some years ago, one of the last 'domestic' pubs in the UK: that's to say a boozer in someone's own house. We visited it years ago when the landlady was quite old and infirm, and sat, swaddled, in a large, high-backed chair in the small parlour between the 'bar' and the scullery that housed a stillage holding a single barrel of ale. To purchase a pint, you paid the lady and pulled your own glass in the scullery, returning to the 'bar' to quaff. Like going back in time.

Today, the place has been extended out back to create a more 'normal' pub space, with actual 'facilities' such as lavatories, etc. The old part of the house, however, has been preserved as it was when the former incumbent passed on, and you can still take your pint down into the old place to drink if you choose. The old traditional arrangement of being allowed to buy fish & chips at the chippie on the corner and eat them at the pub, thankfully, remains; albeit now restricted to the covered outside area out back.

We've never even set foot inside The Lion, however, but it would seem that, according to all the pundits and the reviews we've read, the time is ripe to try it out. They sell themselves on the promise of well-cooked locally-sourced ingredients, and the prospect of Herefordshire fillet steak has whetted my appetite, though I seldom eat beef. I'll post on the experience tomorrow night: hopefully positively.