The beach at Southampton

On Monday, two of Ruth’s friends from her nursing-school days in Guelph, Ontario arrived for a two-day visit. Marg and Barb arrived around noon and they were a lot of fun. We spent most of the afternoon outside until the rain came. And when it came, it poured for a couple of hours – and hard – hard enough to knock some leaves off the trees. We probably got half-an-inch, all tolled.

We had a nice dinner together, then spent the evening playing Scrabble, a game I love to play both with friends around the table, as well as playing online, against two of my friends as well as my daughter, Lisa. Barb brought her game as she is known to do whenever she travels, and why not, Scrabble is always a lot of fun and puts your grey matter to good use!

Downtown Southampton, with great shops for ladies wear!

On Tuesday, I had an appointment to see Brenda at Sauble Hairwaves and, in no time at all, she had my hair just the way I like it! We had an interesting day, although it was exceptionally windy and cold, cold, cold. We were off to Southampton, about a half-hour drive from Sauble Beach, heading south. There, the four of us checked out three stores on one side of the street. Each of these stores offered a great selection of clothing, with designer brands like famous designer Joseph Ribkoff as well as Lissette L, both from Montreal. One store was called L & Co., the second was called Sisters on Huron– owned by 7 sisters, and a brand new store called Cottage Chic, which had men’s clothing and furniture in addition to the ladies wear – and seems to be the talk of the town! Southampton is a diamond in the rough when it comes to great fashion at reasonable prices!

Like Sauble Beach, Southampton is on Lake Huron, and on the mouth of the Saugeen River (just a stone’s throw from the Saugeen Golf Course I told you about yesterday!) We managed to keep our cameras still enough to take some pictures of the beach – but swimming was definitely out of the question!

Maureen, Ruth, Barb and Marg at Lord Elgin’s Fish and Chips

We drove along the Great Lake from Southampton further south to Port Elgin, headed for the famous (at least to the locals) Lord Elgin’s Fish and Chips. True to the advertising, they had all-you-can-eat haddock, but we opted for the halibut instead, and all of us enjoyed our meal. Then, we stopped at the Farmer’s Market where I bought 5 pounds of fresh asparagus for $5.00! We came home and had a fantastic dinner of pork tenderloin with fresh vegetables and for dessert, I whipped together another rhubarb strawberry crumble. It turned out really well, so I’m going to share the recipe with you, below.

Rhubarb Strawberry Crumble with frozen yoghurt on top

Rhubarb Strawberry Crumble
1/2 cup melted butter         3 cups cubed rhubarb
1 1/2 cups rolled oats          1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup flour                         1 1/2 tbsp. flour
2/3 cup brown sugar           2 cups sliced strawberries
Combine butter, rolled oats, 1/2 cup flour and brown sugar. Put 2/3 of this mixture in an 8″x 8″ cake pan.  Cover with rhubarb and strawberries. Combine granulated sugar with 1 1/2 tbsp flour then sprinkle over top.  Spread remaining oat mixture on top of everything.  Bake 45 minutes at 350 F.  Serve with frozen vanilla yogurt or ice cream.

Marg and Barb left for home at the same time Ruth and I headed to Pinewoods Golf Club to join the ladies group for nine holes. I had a partner on the cart and, our group was a threesome. This time, I played with Deryn Preston and Carol Bohnert and we had a lot of fun. Deryn spends half the year in England and the other 6 months here at Sauble Beach. What a lady! She hit the ball pretty darn good and has a lot of class! After golf, she insisted I had given her so many tips, she was buying me a drink! She ordered a Coors Light for herself and a Palm Bay Lime and Cherry for me. My game was one stroke better than last week and I was low gross again! More bragging rights!