Lunching at the Company Shed (again)

Lunch with a friend at Mersea's legendary Company Shed today (more links here, here, here and here - oh and also here for pics of the oysters being harvested (go to 'food' and then 'oyster fishermen' ).

We shared scallops in cream with bacon and salad, herrings with yoghurt and dill sauce, and a big bowl of steaming mussels in cider. Bread and wine from Guntons (at the Shed, as I've mentioned before, you just order fish and salad - if you want bread and wine, you bring it along with you).

D-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s.

More than could be said for the polystyrene-flavoured takeaway tea, purchased elsewhere, with which we attempted to round off the meal, sitting on a bench by the sea, buffetted by a very brisk, cold wind. It was sooooo horrible we were reluctantly forced to take the taste away by eating lots of chocolate.

Put in a few more hours' work and then set off for the beach again at sundown, with boy and dog. Wind even brisker, and skin-scouringly bitter. Didn't trudge for very long in the end. Retreating to a warm house and a mug of (nice) hot tea quickly seemed like a far, far better idea.

Am paying for all this gadding about by having to work all evening now - but . . . it was well worth it.

Tomorrow, lunch will be at Mersea's other fishy eating-place, The Oyster Bar (which got a brief mention in this article late last year) and then it'll be time to snuggle down and watch the first two game in this year's Six Nations. Cosy.