A jolly day out

Once a year the Ski Famille team puts the answerphone on and gets out in the sunshine for a bike ride and, very importantly, a spot of lunch. We also discuss a few work related bits and pieces that we rarely find the time for in the office.

This year we decided to cycle locally, partly to explore the countryside on our own doorstep, but also so that lunch could include more than a half of shandy if anyone felt that way inclined.

The weather was on our side and we decided to make the most of it with an ambitious pre-lunch route including canal towpath, off-road paths, bridleways and country lanes. If you want to duplicate the route (which we all enjoyed enormously) it went something like this:

A brief trundle along the Basingstoke Canal from the centre of Fleet to Velmead Common, then across to Ceasar's Camp via the Eelmore Plain and Tweesledown Racecourse (we got a little lost in this section...). We then crossed the A287 and dropped down the side of Farnham on bridleways before heading across to Crondall. From Crondall we cut up to Crookham Village to our lunch stop.

The views from Ceasar's camp were stunning and this must be a prize vantage point when the Farnborough Airshow is on in a few weeks time. All in all the ride made us realise how lucky we are to live in such a stunning bit of England. Admittedly a lot of the land we cycled across is only undeveloped because it's crawling with squaddies practicing blowing each other up and crashing Land Rovers, but that doesn't detract from the views!

Our lunch stop on the outskirts of Crookham Village was The Exchequer. This pub was called the George and Lobster until recently but has changed hands and undergone a revamp. It looks great inside and the menu was very promising. When the meals came out they didn't disappoint. Seafood is a strong point at this pub and most of us went for fishy options all of which were well presented and packed some great flavours. Service was also superb and there were some interesting real ales on tap alongside a well balanced wine list.

Lunch was so good (bar my Summer Pudding - but I am something of a Summer Pudding aficionado ... even if I do say so myself) that I went back again for another meal to celebrate my Birthday two days later. I think all of us will be making excuses to head back to The Exchequer over the summer months.

With lunch out of the way we discussed the business of the day (how best to celebrate 20 years of Ski Famille being the prime topic) before wobbling back to Fleet via the Basingstoke Canal towpath.

A good time was had by all.

Chris
www.skifamille.co.uk