Curly's Capers

Page one It is foretold . All things have rhythms . The urgency of passion, The avian need for nests, The daily opening and closing  of the lily pad.  The slow and gradual growth of plants and trees. It is foretold.  We are controlled by seasons . A cycle of change. Spring rains wake the soil. causing green shoots to rise, stretching  like sleepers from the moist earth. It is foretold. Summer sun will tan and darken the shoots to golden brown. The wheat will rise and ripen. Their heads will caress the  prairie wind in an endless undulating dance to the horizon. It is foretold . In a stygian blackness  nitrogen- rich yellow thunder  spears will anoint the earth and  pods will awake and open  seeding the sky with plague. Leaving the wheat to crumble and die in the iron-fist of the winter frost. It is foretold. As numbers decline like shoals o...

The trouble with a place or feature, which is close to where you live is that you  don't visit it too often. Such was the case with Berkeley Castle, which was only about six miles away from Cam near Dursley, where I lived for eleven years. Indeed, our youngest daughter d. had never visited, she claimed. So it was to rectify this admission, that last Wednesday ( 29/ 06/ '16 ) we set sail for Berkeley, now twenty four miles away. I remembered that close to the castle was the redoubtable Salutation Inn. It had earned the title of ' Camra pub of the year 2014 ' and was one establishment I had not visited. Salutation As you can see from the link above it offers real ale and real 'home cooked ' food. The interior is small in size, with  two rooms, bar and lounge. Because of this you cannot book a table in advance. We sat in the bar area and enjoyed the 'dish of the day' which was pork chops ( sourced from their own pigs) cooked with cider and must...