Friday 11 December - St. Chad's Concert and lunch at the Market.

Building of the day - at the corner of High Street and Pride Hill.

There was a lunch time concert at St. Chad's today.  Walking there we foubd several interesting features.

College Hill

Bottle Glass in the front door of the Admiral Benbow Pub, Swan Hill

In a wall on Swan Hill, the Shrewsbury Town coat of arms.

The Severn Wind Quintet gave the concert.  The only composer I recognized was Joseph Haydn but the pieces were melodic and well received by the good sized audience.

Click above to hear the Shoulder Blade Dance by Ferenc Farcas

View from the upper floor of the market building

A short walk took us to the Market Building where we managed to find two places in the small fish restaurant.  Everything is prepared while you wait so you know everything is fresh.  Mary and I both had the Bouillabaisse which was delicious - full of all kinds of fish and shell fish (clams, mussels, scallops, shrimp etc).

The Bouillabaisse came with a great plate of delicious bread and butter which made a great accompaniment to the glass of Sancerre.

One of the features about the market restaurants is that space is very limited and people are seated close to each other. Today we came into conversation with a couple living in Shrewsbury but who owned the Boathouse restaurant in Ellesmere at which we always eat when we visit the Mere - we were there last Wednesday.  The food is all prepared on site and I mentioned the wonderful Shropshire game pie which is prepared from ingredients supplied from the market here (see Wednesday for a picture).  It seems that the warning about finding shot in the pie is a serious one, We were sitting next to a young couple, the girl's parents lived in Church Stretton.  He was a software designer who has travelled the world.  We had a wide ranging discussion and managed to solve most of the world's problems in short order.

Our interesting and delightful lunch companions.

 Lunch took longer than expected because of the pleasant company and we had to rush to the Bear Steps Coffee House to get a coffee and a iece of iced cake before they closed at 1600.