The Red Lion – Caston

Visit Date: July 25th, 2019

Overall Rating: 4 Star

Meals Ordered: 2 Burgers, 1 Scampi, 1 Baked Mushrooms, 1 Fish Pie

Let’s start this week by saying we’d been warned there might be some storms round later on in the evening but all the usual weather apps we had between us had shown no such thing.

A trip southwest this week to the village of Caston and a visit to The Red Lion. a first for the website but a previously visited destination by the MAMILS. The ride started just fine, a little warm maybe but other than that a pleasant evening for a bike ride, or so we thought!

Due to the melting tarmac on the A11 at Wymondham There was a little more traffic than usual using the old A11 through Wymondham Town Centre itself, a good time to be a cyclist rather than being stuck in all the traffic.
Shortly after turning off the main road and leaving all the traffic behind Ed got another puncture so we stopped in the evening sun to replace the inner tube, this didn’t stop us for long and it was a welcome stop in the heat of the evening.

Once repaired we continued our journey onward and arrived without any further issues at The Red Lion in Caston arriving exactly the same time as Mike, as Mike had made his way there.

We had booked a table outside were glad we had as the temperature showed very little sign of dropping and it was a great evening to be outdoors.

Not long after ordering the food we started to see a bit of lightning quite a way off in the distance with some very low rumbles of Thunder, but this soon cleared up and the sky in front of us looked clear again.

Tonights Orders

Chris & Nick – Monterey Jack cheeseburger Ground steak burger topped with smoky BBQ sauce, onion rings, and Monterey Jack cheese, served on a toasted salad bap with skinny fries

Ed – Fish Pie – Smoked haddock, salmon and cod poached in white wine, broccoli and parsley cream sauce and topped with cheddar glazed mashed potato

Mike – Oven Baked Mushrooms – Portobello mushrooms filled with baby spinach, cream cheese and stilton. Served with a honey and mustard dressed salad and skinny fries

Steve – Wholetail Scampi – Breade wholetail scampi with salad, skinny fries and lemo mayonaise

The food was very good, the burgers were excellent and have made there way into the top 5, the onion rings it came with were perfect

Ed said that his fish pie ‘was the best he’d ever tasted’ strong praise indeed!

As is usual there was very little left.

And then the fun began….

We got a few miles out of Caston and stopped and watched the storm developing over towards Norwich our home destination. At this particular point, it was mainly just lightning off in the distance although the wind was starting to pick up a bit too, we carried on regardless.

A few miles further down the road, Mike and I split from the rest of the team and headed our way back towards Barnham Broom where we would then split to head to our own homes. By this time the lightning had intensified quite a lot, but still seemed to be all it was, lightning, we couldn’t hear any thunder and there hadn’t been any/much rain. But that was all about to change.  As we neared Barnham Broom the roads were wet and large, heavy drops of rain started to fall as Mike and I went our own separate ways I realised just how bad the storm had got and did think about calling for a lift a couple of times, but being only a few miles from home decided to ride on regardless, looking back I think the lift would’ve been a better choice!  We did both make it home safely though, not without having to avoid some very large puddles and storm debris!

And here is the account from the other group;

Having left you and Mike just south of Hingham, Chris, Steve and I headed east towards Norwich, only to realise that the thunder storm was straight ahead of us. We decided to take cover at Hingham to let the storm pass by (half thinking we might come across you guys again) and watched a terrific light show from the shelter on the Green. After 40 minutes (which gave us time to resolve the issues of Brexit and the Irish backstop) we were back on the bikes, hoping the storm would have moved north by the time we reached Norwich. But the lightning flashes didn’t move and they became more regular.

All very spectacular but we just wanted to get home without being struck by lightning. We stopped again, on the forecourt of a window blinds factory and reluctantly concluded that it was too risky to carry on. I phoned Mrs Ed and pleaded for a lift for the three of us, but there’d be no room for the bikes. We locked them up behind the factory but in doing so we set off the security alarm, which resulted in the owner turning up, with his son “riding shotgun”. Fortunately they were friendly and sympathetic, even offering to store our bikes in the factory overnight. Mrs Ed had a tricky journey through heavy rain – she didn’t know the road, which was strewn with debris from the storm, but she eventually found us at 11.30, somewhat wet and bedraggled. Safely in the car we were alarmed to pass a roadside tree that had been struck by lightning. Having felt guilty about calling for a lift, seeing that tree convinced us we had made the right decision. We dropped off Steve and Chris in the city and eventually arrived back in Home at 12.20. With my puncture on the ride out, this was indeed an eventful evening ride!