Not very promising weather today, low cloud and very poor visibility, though some aircraft were landing and taking off.  We caught the bus to the top of the road which leads down to Petit Bot Bay.  When we reached the bay, we found a group of women were congregating for their Monday walk, dressed in shorts and tee shirts and talking of stripping off when the heat burnt through.  They invited Steve to join tem, but he chickened out.

We set off in the opposite direction  to the walking party and we went towards St Peter’s Port.  We walked along the cliff path in the cloud, the warm mists constantly swirling up the cliffs from the sea made the walk into a stroll through a Turkish bath.

Eventually made it to The Auberge restaurant on the Jerbourg road for luncheon.  Normally, there’s a fabulous view, but not today – even Castle Cornet eventually succumbs to the fog. But we were undaunted and started with a quick refreshing pint of lager while we ordered our meals.  I am afraid we went the whole hog and went for three courses with wine and coffee, though to keep costs down we chose from the tennerfest menu.  As we waited at our table, we sampled a snackrell of bread dipped into olive oil with tomato pesto, served cutely in a quirky plate.

Rosemary started with Crispy Aromatic Duck with a salad of salted cucumber plus honey roasted figs, baby spinach and spice plum and vanilla dressing, followed by fresh linguini with sautéed mushrooms, braised fennel, parsley and toasted pinenuts.  Steve chose the slow roasted cherry tomatoes in balsamic with basil, feta and olives, crispy parmesan, followed by grilled black bream, chorizo and coriander couscous salad, marinated carrot and courgette in lemon oil and tomato pesto.   Yummy.

The red wine we had to accompany the meal was, amazingly, from Telavi in Georgia. It is not often we see wines from Georgia.  Actually it was a good wine, and a lot better than what we had drunk when we visited that country.

The sweet course dishes were absolute works of art.  I took a picture of our sweets, and will publish them with this blog entry.  I ate, at the recommendation of the Latvian waitress, small, deep-fried doughnuts with a cappuccino flavoured mousse (served in an espresso cup), and a raspberry coulis dip (in shot glass).  Rosemary ate a spiced apple and pear crumble with special custard.  They sound over-ingrediented, but were again excellent.

After coffees and sweeties we caught the bus back to the flat, and vegged out for the rest of the day.

Off to Guernsey on holiday.  Left home at 6.00 am to catch the 8.20 from Southampton.  Uneventful flight, arrived, picked up our luggage and saw the number 7 bus we wanted leave promptly at its allotted 9.02 time.  So instead, we caught the 7A into town, and caught another 7A to Vazon Bay.

After dumping the luggage at La Grande Mare (our time-share since 1985!!), back into St Peter Port for a Tennerfest menu meal at one of our favourite’s, Da Nello’s.    R started with the bruschetta of grilled vegetables while I had raw tuna marinated in tomatoes, herbs and chilli flakes.  Good choices.  However, there were serious problems with ordering the main course.  I wanted the pork steak, and I believe R wanted the risotto.  R knew I was going to order the pork, so ordered the pork for herself; my rule is never to have the same as others on the table, so ordered the risotto.  We ended up eating what the other wanted.  R’s pork steak was lovely and juicy, the pork retaining a very slight pink colour.  The risotto was so very superior to any risotto I had in Italy on my last holiday.  We finished off with coffee and sweets.

Did a bit of shopping while we were in town, the market place is still being modernised and will be a long time before it is completely open.  The road on the north side had been pedestrianized, some old shops have re-opened.  Shockingly, a New Look and HMV have taken residence in the market hall.  Looked through HMV, but decided to support local trade and bought some DVDs, and CDs from No 19 –  a The Who compilation, Artic Monkies and a White Stripes album.  The DVDs were Oceans 12, Trainspotting and Outland.  The sales assistant said she couldn’t sell me the DVDs unless I could prove I was over 18. Ho, ho, ho.

To Safeways where R disgusted over lack of local produce and standard of vegetables and then back to the hotel to check in.  R sought out the local feline resident who has greeted us the past two years; he dutifully appeared but regarded our lack of milk as indecent and left.  Chilled out for the rest of the evening watching Oceans 12 on the laptop a good plot.