25th Anniversary of our First Date! (Arthingworth)

Well, we were a couple of days early, truth be told... but since it was a Bank Holiday weekend, we decided to take a trip over to Arthingworth slightly early to celebrate 25 years since our first date. Unfortunately we couldn't sit in the same seats because someone else was sitting there, but it didn't really matter, we sat on the next table with Steve and Kirsty and dissected the events of the barbecue the evening before.

Sandra's 70th Birthday Party

A party outside in April might not be the warmest and indeed it wasn't, we all sat in coats for the latter part while we watched Mark, Andrew and Paul cooking on the BBQ for what seemed like hours. With the kids running about it looked like an episode of Casualty waiting to happen, and it nearly was later on.

The food was cooked, if crunchy, so no worries about food poisoning and it was quite a good party on the whole. Sandra's birthday cake was pretty good for a bought cake as well. The only major downside apart from the cold, was the inordinate amount of smoke generated first by the BBQs and then the fire pit.

Things took a turn for the dramatic when Paul decided to put something on the firepit, not sure what it was but it was obviously highly flammable since it went up like crazy and caught the canister on fire. I actually thought his arm was on fire but it seems not. Not content with escaping Paul tried several more times to burn himself but to no avail.

After a bit longer sitting outside, freezing and breathing in lungfulls of smoke we finally headed inside and sat in the warm for a bit before going home... where we immediately put everything we had been wearing in the wash (even our coats!).

DAY OUT: London

After some well advised and meticulous planning, we arrived at Euston at about 10:30am and headed straight for Oxford Circus. From there we descended Regent Street, our first port of call being Kate Spade.

Among the many cool bags on display we saw the 'Full Plume Wicker Peacock',  'Cameron St Tangier Floral', 'Full Plume Mint Leaf Crossbody', 'Full Plume Tea Glass Bag', 'Cameron St Lantern Tile Clarise', 'Rambling Roses Lantern Bag', 'Cameron St Floral Margot', 'Whimsies Triceratops Crossbody' and the 'Whimsies Balloon Unicorn Clutch'. We also went upstairs for the first time, we hadn't realised there was more up there. Mostly 'home' stuff and a small amount of children's wear.

Kate Spade Scenic Route Car Bag - £495

From here we headed over the road to Watches of Switzerland, nothing very exciting in here really, some nice Hublot's and a very cool purple/pink Zenith ladies watch.

Zenith Elite Automatic Moonphase

We left Regent Street and headed down to Leicester Square where we had a very nice chicken and chips in All Bar One. Afterwards we shared a piece of (quite nice but not really amazing) Orange Mouse Cake. The mouse was nice but the sponge was nothing to get excited about really. Then we had a cocktail each (Pina Colada and a Long Island Ice Tea) before heading off past the Lego shop towards the tube.

We caught the tube at Piccadily and changed at South Kensington on our way to Kensington High St where we visited the London Design Museum. I have to say this was somewhat disappointing, it seems there is a rather large building with a small amount of stuff shoved into one corner on one floor. The rest of the place seems completely empty and rather pointless. A case of bad design one might suggest...

Thankfully the visit wasn't completely without merit as there was an exhibition on Russian architecture in the basement which was quite interesting. No really, it actually was! 'Imagine Moscow' was about six buildings which were planned to be built in the 1920's but never came about, including a crazy 400m high skyscraper with a 100m high statue of Lenin on the top. Also some other crazy buildings that looked like they should have been in a Flash Gordon film...

Leaving here we walked through Kensington and down Young Street to a pub called The Builder's Arms where we enjoyed a nice (and surprisingly reasonably priced) Coke and a sit down. The barman looked like George Clarke and it took him nearly 'fifteen minutes' to put two cokes in the till. Not literally put the Cokes in the till, that would be silly.

1 Kensington Court Place

Then we headed for Gloucester Rd where we passed an estate agent and marvelled at the £7m houses on offer. Astonishing and utterly mental. At the bottom of the road we found another Richoux and noted it for future reference. We took the tube up to Kensington and then visited Harrods. There were some pretty cool handbags here too, not least the Dolce and Gabbana resin bags with lights inside. Pretty cool!

Also we saw some HUGE Fendi pom-pom things that were £450! Which is totally ridiculous, we didn't even look to see how much the Fendi bags were. Too much, probably.

As entertaining as the handbags were, the main reason to visit Harrods was to see the Watch Room. This was pretty amazing and featured watches from TAG Heuer, Omega, IWC, Roger Dubuis, Breguet, Audemars Piguet, Richard Mille, Vacheron Constantin, Jaeger le Coultre, Longines, Lange and Sohn, Chopard, Tudor, Zenith, Gerard Perrigaux, Ulysse Nardin, Panerai and of course Rolex. Strangely no Breitling though... (also there was Graff and Dior etc in the jewellery room).

Not many of the watches had prices on, we had a good look around the Roger Dubuis boutique where we saw some pretty amazing pieces, including a Knights of the Round Table II (a snip at $268,000) and a Velvet Ribbon Haute Joaillerie diamond encrusted ladies watch (54 carats) which the internet doesn't seem to be able to inform us the price of...

Richard Mille had some pretty amazing watches in the window too, including the Evil Eye RM26-02 Tourbillon below...

We also saw a £250,000 Lange and Sohne watch and a hideous AP Royal Oak with a sort of knuckle duster on the side for about £80,000. Truly awful...

We walked back up towards Green Park through Knightsbridge and spotted a Ferrari showroom which had a 2015 F1 car in the window...

A little further along we passed The Wellesley Hotel, outside of which was parked a Lamborghini Aventador, truly the most bonkers car we've ever seen in the flesh (and considering we'd just seen a Formula One car about three minutes before!).

It was pretty much the same as this one, except it didn't have the wing on the back.

Then it was past The Ritz and on to Richoux where we enjoyed our now customary snack of garlic bread and fries to share, and this time we indulged in a slice of carrot cake (which was excellent), we will definitely be back.

The plan from here was to walk up Bond Street and ogle the watches in the windows, sadly there weren't any watches in the windows because all the shops were shut, so we decided to call it a day and zipped back to Euston to catch the 7:13 home.

LINK TO ARTICLE ABOUT THE 'IMAGINE MOSCOW' EXHIBITION:

https://www.dezeen.com/2017/03/15/design-museum-imagine-moscow-exhibition-unbuilt-soviet-architecture-el-lissitzky-moscow-russia/

MEAL OUT: The Grey Goose (Gilmorton)

As Rose's birthday meal was slightly disappointing, particularly my steak, we started our week off (well, my three days...) with a trip to the 'Goose', and predictably it was lovely. We sat in the table pictured above and as it was Saturday night we were 'obliged' to have the three courses for £30 menu. I had brocilli and blue cheese soup, followed by steak and chips followed by vanilla cheesecake with mango sorbet. Rose had pigeon, lamb shoulder and frangipan (a bit like bakewell tart). Couldn't really fault the meal and the service was great, what else could you ask for really...

GIG: Aesthetic Perfection (Manchester)

Our second visit to the Ruby Lounge in Manchester, and after the debacle that was getting there for Faderhead, this time it all went remarkably smoothly. We parked in the Arndale Centre car park right opposite and after a quick trip back to the car to collect the forgotten glow sticks, made our way down the stairs just in time to see Army of the Underground packing up their kit.

It was about a twenty minute wait for William Control, so we headed over to the bar to buy a couple of flat as fuck Rola Kola's (no way was that Pepsi). It was rather hot down here in the Ruby Lounge, but if we were hot William Control must have been cooking in his waistcoat and long sleeve shirt/tie.

As I kinda expected, he started well and quickly tailed off into being annoying and a bit of a knob. When I listened to his album it had much the same effect, but I still like the song 'Revelator'

Which of course he didn't play. Even though he made a video for it. Arse.

So by the end, Rose and I were feeling little but contempt, still... you can't deny his popularity and he is a good frontman.

Anyway, least said, soonest mended...

So we cooled off a bit between the bands and then just before AP came on we decided to get right to the front. Which was a good move in some respects, but no doubt we paid for it in sweat! It was flipping hot in there, but Daniel and the chaps put on a good show. Hilarious as always in his sparkly jacket and Fedora (which he played with like a cross between Jim Carrey in the Mask and Michael Jackson), Daniel led the troops through a great selection of tunes including 'The Ones', 'Love Like Lies', 'Antibody', 'The Siren', 'The New Black', 'The Great Depression'... even 'LAX' sounded good live and the band closed the show with 'Spit it Out'.

They played for about an hour all together, which was less than the signs on the wall suggested, but probably long enough. Besides, we were happy to leave a little earlier than expected with such a long journey home ahead of us. All in all, AP staked their claim for gig of the year and came out on top, narrowly beating Cyferdyne and Assemblage23. This was a much better show than the stripped down AP we saw supporting Mesh last year, and great to see Daniel enjoying himself so much onstage after Bristol where he was clearly ill.

MEAL OUT: The Joiner's Arms (Bruntingthorpe)

Our first visit to The Joiner's Arms, a bit of a risk on Rose's birthday, but it largely passed this most acid of tests. Rose had medallions of beef with dauphinoise potatoes (much less plodgy looking than usual, looked more like a cream slice in fact). I had rib eye steak, which was a lot more fatty than I'm used to, and a little undercooked in parts, but generally quite nice. The chips were lovely though and the peppercorn sauce was very rich and tasty.

For dessert Rose had a blueberry souffle and ice cream, she liked it but I thought it was a bit slimy. Maybe souffles always taste like that, neither of us had ever had one before. I had the coconut ice dessert, which is a coconut parfait, with a macaroon biscuit, a small piece of coconut ice and a small jar of panna cotta with a raspberry jam topping. It was very unusual and quite a change from cheesecake, but a little coconut flavour goes a long way, so while it was nice, I don't think I'd have it again.

All in all, not bad at all. The staff were very nice and the service was relaxed, and I think we'd go back once in a while, but it certainly hasn't really got the means to unseat The Grey Goose from it's long held throne.

THEATRE: Bouncers (Market Harborough)

Penned by the guy who did the hilarious 'The 39 Steps', this had a lot to live up to and for the most part it held it's own. Unusually sweary for the Harborough Theatre, the pensioners seemed to be laughing their heads off all the same and the applause at the end was louder than for most plays we've seen.

The play was very clever, with four actors playing the parts of bouncers, girls, guys, DJ's, hairdressers, barbers, you name it... and occasionally the mood turned darker, though thankfully not for too long. I guess nightclubs do always have that dark undercurrent with the potential for violence never far away.

I don't think it was quite as good as 'The 39 Steps', but it was still head and shoulders above pretty much everything else we've seen of late.

MEAL OUT: The Crown Hotel (Stamford)

Rather unfortunately, we arrived in Stamford to find the place in the midst of a street fair, with teenagers here there and everywhere. Predictably, parking was a nightmare, but we managed to park in a gypsy camp not far away and walk back over the river. Well Lee and I did anyway, we dropped the wimin off at the hotel.

We were upstairs in a small room next to a large table full of noisy f*ckwits, but still, it was okay. As it was busy service was a little slow, but to be fair the food was very nice. I plumped for the Bourguignon Pie which was very rich and filling, while Rose had the burger. Probably the nicest restaurant chips we've had for quite a long time as well.

Rose and I were going to share a caramel cheesecake, but our lovely waitress Sara advised us that it wasn't really shareable so we thought better of it. We were stuffed to the gunnels anyway, truth be told. Another place worth a return visit, though perhaps on a quieter night!