Trip up north

Oops, fell off the blog wagon for a few days. 40 hail mofos for my sins! We went on a little holiday and consequently I neglected blogging because it was too fiddly to do on my phone. I did get some piccies though!

First we visited our fabulous friends Mr. and Mrs. A and their gorgeous boy in Lancaster. It's cold and frosty up north but they kept us warm in their cosy Victorian townhouse with big mugs of tea, fresh baked bread and foraged berry wine. Mr. A cooked up a feast of roast veggie wraps with salad and hummus. Top meal! There was also blackberry wine courtesy of the lovely laden Mrs. A.







Lancaster, as it turns out, is a bit of a vegan haven. There are lots of vegan-friendly cafes and a lots of the type of people Mrs. A affectionately refers to as 'knitted'. We went for lunch at the Whale Tail cafe where everything is vegetarian and a V on the menu means vegan - hooray!




I chose a tasty lunch of chips and a sausage bun. The chips there are really good. Chris's big healthy salad makes my choice look rather unvirtuous. Perhaps he is actually more knitted than I am?


They had some lovely cakes at the counter so we took a selection home. My favourite was the chocolate cake. The portions were very generous!





Next we went to Morecambe for a little sightseeing ...


Eric was there to greet us and it looked like someone had been feeding him biscuits. Is this a custom? Perhaps I'll take him some vegan cookies next time we visit.



On our way to Manchester we stopped for lunch in Clitheroe. We went to Exchange coffee where I had a beautiful soya latte in a big bowl-like cup which I warmed my freezing hands around. Not only did they have the tastiest coffee I've had in ages but they had very cool ragtime music playing and the lovely old decor made me feel like I was in the kind of place my Nan might have hung out in when she was a hip young thing. There was nothing actually vegan to eat on the menu but they were really helpful about veganising something for me.



In Manchester we went to Earth Cafe, thanks to a tip off on Tea and Sympatico's blog. To my amazement, everything on the menu is vegan!



The cakes looked really good so we shared some chocolate cake mid morning before going back again for lunch. It was light and chocolatey with gooey topping. Perfect.



For lunch we had black bean stew, roulade, roasted veggies and rice. It was really scrummy and good value too at £5 each.



Just right to keep us going for the rest of a long day of sightseeing!