Area 33 – Sunday Lunch – Aug 23rd -The Lion & Lamb, Little Canfield

What a day!
Linda & I had planned a nice early start to the new venue, The Lion and Lamb, Little Canfield and I wanted to take a cross country route rather than a blast along the A130/A120.
Well that was the plan. Unfortunately the best laid plans as they say…………….
As I shut the front door of the house I realised the key was still in the internal lock, but momentum took over and the door clicked shut! Oh dear.

Having done this once before we knew it is impossible to put the key in the outside lock to open the door; so we were locked out! Being security conscious Linda had also gone round and shut all the windows and we had no other keys to the back door either. I rang the double glazing company in expectation that they had a Sunday office but to no avail. We decided that lunch was calling and rather than get all hot and bothered about getting in we decided to have lunch and worry about getting in on return. We could always sleep in the car overnight until Monday then get a Lock-Smith!
The Lion and Lamb sits on the B1256, near Takeley, which runs parallel to the new A120, quite difficult to find as Larry found out and unfortunately missed lunch as he couldn’t!
By the time we arrived Peter & Brenda, Tina & Bernie and Sian & Tony were in the bar area together with new member Richard from Epping who came in a new XF and guest Roger from North London, who came in a very smart MkII; both had phoned me earlier in the week having seen our Lunch advert in the JDC magazine; so people do read other Area’s letters!
The menu has a broad selection to whet one’s appetite and for starters we chose breaded squid which was excellent whilst others had soup, also excellent.
For mains most of us chose the Roast Rib of Scottish Beef which turned out to be enormous helpings of really tender beef rib, cooked rare and with ample dishes of vegetables to accompany it. Other excellent selections included roast Turkey or vegetable Risotto. As always, some could squeeze down a pud and they chose syrup sponge and custard (of course!) or ice cream selection.
Naturally conversations turned to comparisons of both design and performance values of “old” i.e. MkII Jaguar’s and “new” i.e. XF Jaguar’s together with answers to Eric & Linda’s puzzle of how to get into their house!
The juries still out on new versus old Jaguar’s, both have their good and bad features and certainly both have their ardent enthusiasts; however, despite very intriguing ways of entering our house raised over lunchtime coffee and sweets we did manage to get home and in our house before dark.

Apart from our lock-out, it was an excellent day out and good to have new members and guests join current members at our Area 33 Sunday Lunch.

Looking forward to revisiting The Lion and Lamb next year.

Eric Hoile