Met up with Valerie and Norman, their daughter & her fiancé, for lunch at the James Figg pub in Thame. They had been attending a wedding at Notley Abbey nearby. We had never been to the James Figg, and to be honest we have not been to most of the pubs and restaurants in Thame.  Steve frequents Costa when Rosemary is doing her round of charity shops.

The James Figg is themed on boxing, named after James Figg an English bare-knuckle boxer. He is widely recognized as the first English bare-knuckle boxing champion, reigning from 1719 to 1730.  He was born in Thame. It’s a good pub, with a good choice or real ales, or is that cask ale, or the new trendy phrase of craft ale. In any case, it caters well for beers. Extensive menu, though we wanted to eat relatively lightly, so we all went for starters, each choosing three starters for £10.  This was a kind of tapas meal.

Yes, I can quite recommend the James Figg, maybe Costa is going to see a lot less of me.

We departed for home, Norm and Vallerie driving over to our house for the weekend, while Rosemary and I quickly dropped into Waitrose to buy some more Monkfish. We had decided tonight’s menu was Monkfish. I was looking for a Kilo for the four of us. My first shop the previous day was Tesco in Bicester where they had one filet, just under 350 grams. I bought this, at the same time phoning Sainsburys in Bicester. They too had one small fillet in stock, so I reserved that and walked over there to buy their’s. Good thing I had reserved it because someone else wanted it. It was small, 250 grams.

Waitrose had masses of Monkfish, and large fillets. I bought 400 grams to make up my dish. So, Waitrose came up trumps, but a high premium. Sainsbury was £16 a kilo, Tesco was £20 a kilo and Waitrose £26. Quite a difference in price