Happy Days

The picture below was taken at a local garden centre that had an added extra. Before reaching the plants and other gardening paraphernalia the shoppers had to pass a small, rather quaint building from which emanated a tantalising smell of cooking. Within, there was a sight for sore eyes: beautiful china, modern cookware in fabulous colours, and rows of goodies in jars. On the far side was the cause of the smell. A chef, resplendent in white and wearing the traditional chef's hat, was cooking sausages and slicing them into small portions for the customers to taste. And taste I did.

The sausages were home made and simply faaaaaabulous. I confess to going back for more. There was pork sausage with honey and ginger, pork and leak, pork and herbs, pork and apricot, pork and apple, to name but a few. My favourite was the one with herbs. None of your prepacked goods there. Further on there was a a freezer full of home made ready meals, a section for cake lovers, home made sweets, and a display of locally made sauces for the connoisseur. I treated myself to a small round pot of cranberry sauce, as much for the unique pot as the sauce.

The photograph reminds me of the old sweet shops when sweets were in jars and children waited impatiently for the shopkeeper to weigh out a couple of ounces before shovelling them into a pointed paper bag. Ah yes, I remember it well. All in all the visit to the garden centre was like going back in time. Happy days.