St Nicholas Church Christmas Tree Festival (Fleckney)

Having lived in the village for, oooh, eleven years... I guess it was inevitable that one day we would venture into the church. There was a surprising number of trees on display, although the quality was rather hit and miss. Perhaps in future they could consider some sort of qualifiers to sort the wheat from the chaff, as it were... for every 'MOT Failure' and 'Haberdasher-tree' there was altogether too many crap ones made by Brownies. 

MEAL OUT: The Grey Goose (Gilmorton)

Another visit to the reliable Grey Goose, this time with Sally and Susan (from Australia) in tow. My burger was a little undercooked, but as it's pressed steak it's probably 'supposed' to be like that. Mental note to ask for it well done next time! Rose and I shared a 'Blondie', which is a brownie made with white chocolate... sort of. I wouldn't rush to have it again. Snowball ice cream was quite nice, although neither of us could really quite put our fingers on what it actually tasted of, kind of lemony, but not really.

MEAL OUT: The Old Bull's Head (Woodhouse Eaves)

Our fourth visit to The Old Bull's Head. Steak and Ale pale was rather disappointing, featuring as it did a wafer thin crust, watery gravy and fatty beef (hardly steak!). On the upside the decor is nice and the chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream rescued the culinary part of the evening.

MEAL OUT: Pitcher and Piano (London)

Just opposite the Royal Exchange (Nr Bank tube station), this grand looking building houses a very pleasant and agreeable eatery. Actually once you get inside it's not as posh as it looks, but it's a cut above a lot of places in London without being overly expensive or crammed. The food is good pub food, my Spicy Coated Chicken in particular was a pleasant surprise!

Can't vouch for the puddings however, tempting as the Sticky Toffee Pudding sounded, since we were holding out for our usual late afternoon appointment at Haagen Dasz, which was perfection!

Poppies at the Tower of London / City Cruises River Trip (London)

This was our second visit to the poppy display at the Tower of London (to mark 100 years since the start of WW1), and this time it was dark when we got there. It was well lit though and it was clear that there were far more poppies on site than when we had visited before. Afterwards we took a cruise up the Thames in the dark to the Millennium Pier, it was nice to see London all lit up but the reflections on the glass made it quite difficult to see at times. It was only about 20mins as well, which was a bit of a shame.

SHOPPING: The Royal Exchange (London)

Having seen this place on The Apprentice, we decided that we would pay it a visit. Inside the main hall it seemed a bit intimidating somehow, and we were slightly reluctant to browse in the shops selling extremely expensive watches and other luxury goods. But once we got outside and realised that the shops were on the outside of the building too we visited Jo Malone and Lulu Guinness, we even scored an Autumn/Winter product catalogue in LG!

Art of the Brick (London)

Nathan Sawaya's amazing Lego sculptures came to the Old Truman Brewery Gallery in London and we were pretty impressed by what we saw. A lot of the pieces looked better from a distance, which made you appreciate how hard it must be to have to work on the pieces close up.

SHOPPING: The Centre MK (Milton Keynes)

An unfortunately badly planned journey meant it took us a lot longer to get here than planned, but once there it was a surprisingly successful shopping trip. On the way home we called at Dunelm Mill in Northampton, but due to things taking longer than expected we abandoned plans to do more in Northampton and made our way home (via Waitrose for awesome cookies!)

MEAL OUT: The Grey Goose (Gilmorton)

Another Saturday lunchtime bloatfest, which inevitably left us beached on  the sofa for the remainder of the day. Immense baked strawberry cheesecake, which was totally epic and could have fed a small village fete.

GIG: Deathstars (Wolverhampton)

Our first visit to The Slade Rooms in Wolverhampton. A decent venue somewhat compromised by the pillars that flank the stage. Deathstars are underwhelming tonight, not helped by having a support band who come over as Deathstars II! Really can't say what it is about this gig, but it never really seems to catch light, not that you'd know it from the enthusiastic audience. The songs just seem so formulaic live, and the band look underdressed, a bit like the first time seeing Kiss without makeup, where are the uniforms?