Treat for Mum

Mum loves her cruising and as Marco Pierre White has restaurants on her favourite cruise line, I thought a treat in his local pub may spur her on to try out the speciality restaurants on board.

I’d booked a table at The Yew Tree in Highclere.  We opted for the lunchtime menu and at £15.50 a head for two courses was an absolute bargain for the quality of the food.  Mum opted for the Creme de Barry (frothy Cauliflower Soup) which she struggled to finish as it was served in a huge tureen.  I went for the Kipper Pate instead.  We both went for the Smoked Haddock on Colcannon with a Beurre Blanc Sauce.  If no-one else could see us, we’d have both licked the plate clean!!

Neither of us had any room left for pud (MPW take note … you need to scale back your portions and may be you could tempt us with pud!).

The one thing that really impressed – and surprised - me the most was receiving the bill and not having the restaurant automatically add a 10%-15% service charge on top.  Even when I paid by credit card, there was not an option to add a gratuity.  Just about managed to scrap enough coins together to leave a cash tip though!  11/10 !!

We did have a narrow escape though.  We were seated in a bay window next to a pull in car park.  I saw Mum flinch and I turned around and there was this elderly gentleman reversing into the parking space and he missed hitting the bay window by millimetres!!  I was ready to jump out of the way.  Whether superb skill or (in the words of Professor McGonnigal) sheer dumb luck, we’ll never know!  We lived to tell the tale.

I’m participating in a fab year-long Scrapbooking Class created by the fab Shimelle.  Document 2010 is a way to log what’s happened throughout the year to look back on in years to come.  I’ve just completed the January pages – snow (unsurprisingly!) is the main feature.

I’m using this as an opportunity to use up old stash (except for buying an album and divider pages).  Just hope that I can keep on top of this project rather than adding another project to a growing pile.

 

 

 

Patterned Papers: My Minds Eye – Laundry Line

Pass It On – Feb Layouts

The middle of the month is the deadline for me to email out my scraplifts for the Pass It On … CJ I’m participating in.  These are my two interpretations for this month.

Group 1 … CN Tower

This is one of my favourite photos from our hols in spite of it's simplicity. The journalling panels simply contain the tower’s vital statistics.

Group 2 … Manhattan Skyline

Before going to New York, someone gave us a tip. Catch the Staten Island Ferry but don't get off at the other end. Stay onboard and just come back. You will get the most amazing view of the skyline ... and you won't have to pay either!! You know what, they were so right. It's really only at a distance you can appreciate just how special the NY Skyline is. Judging by how many people failed to get off the ferry, others thought the same, and I guess by now the ferry people must have gotten wise to this and started to charge people when they board!

I really enjoyed this LO especially – love the effect from the bubble wrap painting and it’s a technique I will be using again.  The red star is attached to a journalling tag with memories from that day.

Meeting a Legend

We were lucky enough to meet a Goalkeeping legend today.  We heard the EON Great Saves road show was in Reading today … and the FA Cup (or at least one of the replicas) would be in attendance as would a famous goalie. 

We were convinced it would be David James … and if it was, Jon dared me to ask him the question, “so how does it feel to score an own goal then”.  Given that Portsmouth lost 5-0 to Man Utd the day before (and 3 goals were own goals – one scored by DJ himself), I didn’t think that would be best question to ask!

We were pleasantly surprised to see Peter Shilton was the star.  He was the England goalie who couldn’t keep out the Maradona goal scored by the “hand of god” back in 1986.  He was part of Italia ‘90 line up – the year we got so close and all the guys played their socks off but were again foiled by Team Germany in a penalty shoot-out.  That was the year of Gazza’s tears.

Anyway, Ollie and Tom were in their element.  All four boys took their turn in goal against the machine … Ollie, Tom and Callum each saving two out of three shots.

They saw how their arm span matched up against David James … and if they could jump as high as he could.  Plus a reaction speed test which Ollie comfortably won.

The boys also loved playing on the table football.  Team Tom (playing with Callum and Jon) thrashed Team Ollie (& Dan and David) 10-5.  Tom was a great forward and scored most of the goals.

Best of all, we got to have our photo taken with the FA Cup.  Callum will no doubt appreciate this more in years to come.

What surprised us was the whole event was free.  EON could have quite easily charged for the event, charged to have your photo taken with the FA Cup etc. but they didn’t. Fair’s fair … well done EON for allowing Joe Public, customers and non-customers to be able to take part in a great event.