The perils of a pub dinner.

 There was two pubs in the village of Saltfleet, both walkable from the cottage we were staying in. Happy days!

The New Inn backed onto a caravan/mobile home/holiday park site so they've pretty well got a  captured market. It was OK. We were amused to be asked  to sit in a different bar as we had Ida with us. The bar we could sit in was just as tatty & underwhelming as the non dog bar! Anyway, bit of a wait on food  but we were told this from the off so no problem there. Tara had her  two choices off the menu, even though I'd contacted them prior to see whether they did  gluten free and veggie. Two choices isn't exactly much of a choice! Tara had mushroom stroganoff  which was  fine and I steak & stilton pie......there're still looking for the stilton, there certainly wasn't any in my pie!  Choice of beer wasn't great either. A thoroughly underwhelming experience but worse was to come. 

As I said there was another pub in the village so all was not lost, or so we thought. On going up to the bar in The Crown  first of all the handpump beers were off, not a very inspiring start that just got worse. Pretty basic menu, only item flagged as gluten free & veggie was a pizza. Fine! pizza it is......'Sorry! Not doing pizzas tonight.' Anything else gluten free & veggie? 'Well there's chicken salad' said  our waitress who looked like she had Groucho Marx moustache as an eyebrow. I kid you not. What a dismal experience. Mission  abandoned  we went back to the cottage and rustled up  some grub that was both gluten free & veggie, with a very acceptable red wine.  

We'd just about given up on eating out but found a pub in nearby North Somercotes called the Axe & Cleaver.  I'd   phoned to book, went through our usual rigmarole of asking about their food and making sure we could take Ida. All good, we booked for  that evening. Though bizarrely when we got there, we were told someone had phoned an hour before and cancelled the booking! Even quoting the gluten free needs  etc, well it wasn't us!    However the staff couldn't have been more helpful and friendly and we were quickly found a table. Great food, a  good selection for Tara to choose from, all the staff just a delight. Had we been staying longer we'd have gone there  again, a sumptuous three sausage  ( Lincolnshire sausages of course!) mash and onion gravy for me and quorn shepherds pie for Tara  followed by sticky toffee pud and custard for me and Tara had probably the biggest Pavlova I've ever seen!  Here's the link to their website if you are ever in that area.https://www.axeandcleaver.com/ Well worth it! 

Ida and I had a pleasant walk along the sand dunes just before the weather broke on the last full day of our stay. We walked inland to a place called Hardy's Pullover, walking from the beach towards a red flag  in the car park. Next to the red flag was a sign  that stated not to go past this point if the red flag is flying it's an RAF gunnery range..... the direction from which we had just come! 

 We'd had a pleasant time in Lincolnshire though the roads even by Bedfordshire's low standards were pretty potholed and uneven  all adding greatly to T's discomfort. There's not a great amount to see or do on the Lincolnshire coast, we made the mistake of driving through Mablethorpe that seemed to be full of obese families  eating fish n chips, drinking Watney's Red Barrel & wearing Kiss me quick hats.   Absolutely great if you like that kind of thing. Saltfleet was a pleasant little place  but had a main road running through it which was a shame.