This past weekend Uns and I were over in Marlow, Buckinghamshire for our Saturday night dinner at The Hand & Flowers. They have a three month waiting list and I had managed, after trying the previous few months as well, to get a booking back in June for this past weekend. Talk about a restaurant being in demand! It's run and owned by chef Tom Kerridge and the only pub to be awarded two stars in the Michelin guide.

Anyway, on Saturday morning Uns and I headed over to Paddington Station, caught our train out to Marlow and checked in at The Glade End Guest House, about a ten minute walk from the station. After dropping our bags, we went in search of somewhere for lunch near to the high street and settled in at The Cedar cafe for a bite to eat. After lunch we walked down to the river and chilled out in the park enjoying the sunny afternoon weather.

After spending a bit of the afternoon down in the park, we headed back to the guest house to change and get ready for dinner. Once ready, we took a walk over to The Hand & Flowers which was only about a 15 minute walk away which was handy. Our reservation was for 18:30 which seemed rather early, but was the only time I could get when I booked. For dinner, I had the duck foie gras starter and the lamb bun (in the style of a lamb wellington) and Uns had the scallops followed by the beer roasted chicken - both very happy with our dinner choices :) After dinner, we moved to the front of the restaurant to finish up our bottle of wine, and then decide on a post-dinner walk and headed to the Compleat Angler where we stopped in for a cocktail before calling it a night.

After breakfast yesterday morning, we took a walk to the river, with the intention of hiring a boat for a couple of hours, especially after seeing everyone out in the sun on the water the previous day. Except yesterday had turned grey and breezy and quite a bit cooler, and the boat hire seemed to only be for full and half days, which we weren't too keen for, especially if it was about to bucket it down at any moment. So instead we decided on a coffee at The Perch cafe before heading back to the guest house, grabbed our bags and walked over to the train station. Since we were fairly early for the train, we stopped in at the Marlow Donkey pub for a soft drink and then caught the train back to London.

After a couple hours at home yesterday, Keithy came round to stay at ours for the night. He was over in London to play hockey, and was flying back today, so had decided to crash by ours last night for a bit of a catch up. Despite the drizzling rain and cooler weather outside, we still fired up the Weber and had ourselves a boerewors roll for dinner, along with some biltong and some Castles. Even with Una laughing at us both outside in the "less than ideal braaiing" weather, we were more than determined for our Sunday evening boerewors braai, come rain or sunshine!

It's still fairly rainy and miserable today, not the best start to September, really hoping it's not quite the end of summer yet, could ideally do with another month or so of nice weather, so here's hoping for that :)