MEAL OUT: Mill Street (Oakham)

Our second visit to Mill Street, and a largely agreeable meal. The chairs were slightly more cushioned this time although the ones we had had stupid backs that got in the way of your arms a bit. Rose and I both had the steak pie, which was nice albeit some of my meat was like rubber - I should have complained really, but what I ate was enough anyway. We both had ice cream for pudding, Rose had two scoops of Mint Choc Chip and one scoop of Caramelised White Chocolate, whereas I replaced one of the mint scoops with Raspberry and Champagne sorbet. The pudding was pretty awesome actually, though I kept giving Lee and Su spoons of mine because I couldn't eat it all.

SHOPPING: MK Centre (Milton Keynes)

Contrary to expectations, we stayed at the MK Centre for five hours... which has to be the longest we've ever spent there. We found a very cool Ted Baker shirt for me for my birthday and also some jewellery for Rose in Woolfe Jewellers. I also tried on a couple of Bell and Ross watches in Leslie Davis and had a good chatter with my mate Ian in Goldsmiths again (where I tried on the Tudor North Flag - though mostly just to get a catalogue, and the Grand Carrera pre-owned they still have).

It was a really good day and after spraying myself with Spicebomb Extreme we poddled off to Ikea to buy a shoe cupboard. It took a while, being it was Saturday afternoon...

DAY OUT: London

A very busy day in London today, which started at the Royal Exchange and more specifically at Watchfinder & Co. A decent selection of TAGs to look at (and some cool Hublots and Audemars Piguets as well) left me trying on a 9 year old SLR (£1750) while Rose tried on a (small) mans 4000 Series with a slightly odd cream face. After that we had a look in the Omega boutique where I spied a nice looking GMT with incredibly white hands that I daren't ask the price of because I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it.

After that we had a look in Lulu Guinness, the guy in there was quite pleased to see us as we were his first visitors of the day. Rose spied a bag she rather liked and the guy told us we should buy 'Women and Home' magazine on the 29th of September as it would have a 20% voucher in it for LG (for everything except stationery - yeah like... bothered?).

We mooched about a bit trying to kill time before going in to the Pitcher and Piano for lunch, and found a window full of pre-owned watches to gawp at for a few minutes. Mostly Rolexes, but also some Panerais and Royal Oaks, and then we headed in to the P&P.

We both had the Cheeseburger (sans tomato and gherkin) and Rose also made the wise decision to ask for the burger without the mayo, wise because that mayo was disgusting and tasted to me like salad cream. But the burger was nice and the fries were good too. We then changed our plans...

Originally the plan was to go to the Royal Exchange, then Canary Wharf, then North Greenwich, then the Tate Modern, then Green Park and then Covent Garden. But instead we decided to go straight from the City to the Tate Modern where we spent a good couple of hours perusing the free exhibits including a couple of Dalis, and also the 'lobster telephone' alongside Bridget Riley's 'To a Summers Day 2' (which looked a lot better on the wall than this suggests - it was pretty large!).

But our favourite exhibit of the day had to go to the fantastic and utterly mental 'Babel 2001' which was created by Cildo Meireles and is built from 800 radios all turned on and tuned to a different channel.

From the Tate we caught the boat from just outside to the North Greenwich Pier, this stopped at several places along the way including the Tower of London and indeed Canary Wharf (more on that later!)

The reason for the visit to North Greenwich was to try out the 'Emirates Air Line' cable cars which take you from just near the O2, over the river to the North Greenwich Docks. It was pretty good, quite high up and gave good views of the docks, though I can't help thinking the views the other way would probably have been better given that then you would have been looking over the city...

Still, it was good anyway. From here we caught the DLR, but quickly got off again when the opportunity to take the proper underground arose (and also because we hadn't realised that there's more than one DLR line and the route from North Greenwich to Canary Wharf is not direct!).

It took an age, but we eventually managed to locate the Watchfinder store in this huge shopping centre and found it very small and less than thrilling. They did have the Cartier Diver in there, which doesn't look as good in the flesh as I'd hoped... and they did have a couple of Grand Carreras and some very nice Royal Oaks, but overall it just wasn't worth the hassle of finding it. There was also a Charbonel and Walker, but we didn't go in.... :(

From Canary Wharf we took the Jubilee Line to Green Park and from there we walked up Piccadilly to the newly refurbished 'Richoux'. Thankfully the renovations have been carried out sympathetically and rather than being 'modernised' it looks largely the same as before but better (and with new toilets as well). Sadly the menu has changed and the garlic bread has disappeared... still, the cakes are lovely. I had Carrot (as usual...) and Rose had Strawberry Cheesecake and after a 45m rest we felt slightly refreshed and able to walk up the road to Regent Street.

Kate Spade provided us with some distraction, although the staff seemed a bit pushier than usual, with one telling us we could have 20% off the prices if we were looking to buy. There wasn't anything particularly outstanding this time - though of course there were plenty of nice things and we pushed on, back down Regent Street, back to the tube and off to Covent Garden.

Arriving at the Covent Garden tube, we decided to forego the queue for the lift and hike up the 193 stairs (for use in emergency only!), that was a thoroughly awful experience and we compounded our error by heading off in the wrong direction and wasting a few minutes before realising.

In the end we only looked in Oakley, which was a bit of a dead-loss because everything we wanted to look at was last season and so not in the store. They tried to fob us off with some shitty looking shiny hoodies, but we weren't having any of that and bid them good day.

By this time we were thoroughly knackered and we walked back to Leicester Square tube and back up the Northern Line to Euston, where I stopped in at WHSmiths and picked up the new QP. Result!

HOLIDAY: Lincoln

Our second (and final) visit to the Doubletree Hilton in Lincoln. On arrival a large tank outside the Holiday Inn next door was being filled(?) which was making an awful racket which we could hear from our first room. We were moved to the other side of the corridor and a floor up, which was much better, but when it came time to go to sleep we realised how noisy the air duct fan into the room was.

I don't see why it was any different to last time, but I certainly don't remember that noise last time... unfortunately it's one of those things where it's not that noticeable until it comes time to go to sleep and you turn the TV off etc and then it seems very disturbing.

Still, Lincoln itself is nice enough and it does have a couple of great things going for it. One is the Electric Bar which adjoins the hotel and offers 'stunning views of the city', but more to the point makes some fantastic cocktails, and the 'Strawberry-Passion' is probably the best non-alcoholic cocktail I've ever had.

The mixologists are hilariously extravagant with their pouring and shakering... but at least they know what they're doing. Which is more than can be said for the staff in the Electric Restaurant. Actually the food in there was very nice, but our drinks didn't turn up for ages and then when we asked about them they brought Rose's wine but not my Coke (but then they didn't charge us for it either). Also we asked for no tomatoes but one of the meals still came with the tomatoes on.

Warm sourdough with butter and sea salt was a great starter, although that on top of a HUGE chicken kiev and fries meant that we couldn't even entertain the idea of a pudding.

Lincoln's other main attraction is undoubtedly Bunty's tearoom, which once again served up a thoroughly delicious bacon sandwich with coleslaw and ready salted crisps. I did make an error of judgement choosing the cookie dough cake which was rather too sickly, I really wish I'd gone for the Battenberg instead. Rose had a 'triple orange' cake which was much lighter and more palatable in quantity (and Bunty's do not skimp on the portion sizes!). 

The castle was somewhat less impressive, and rather reminded me of that dismal Castle in Cardiff. A wall walk doth not a castle maketh, and the desperately dull prison cells did nothing to lift the experience. There was a 'Magna Carta' crypt, which was basically a very dark room with three pieces of paper in glass cabinets. Thrilling stuff, I'm sure you'd agree.

After that and Bunty's, we stopped off at the St Barnabas charity shop, which is the poshest charity shop I've ever been in. Rose found a back up for her favourite polka dot dress (in her size, what were the chances) from Top Shop in there, which seemed too good to pass up for a measly £6.

With some time to kill before check-in we made a pit stop at Prezzo's on the wharf front for a drink. I marvelled at the accuracy of the bottle shelving behind the bar and then we sat in the window watching the drunks fall over (at 3 in the afternoon).

We left the hotel at about 1am, and drove past a solitary drunk woman laughing at herself with no shoes on by the wharf.. and arrived home just before 3am. 

The next day we secured a refund when it emerged that the air duct fan was faulty in our room and it should have shut off when we turned the lights out. 

MEAL OUT: Grey Goose (Gilmorton)

It's been a little while since we've visited the Goose and it's nice to see that it's still pretty much perfect. I had a nice broccoli and cheese soup to start while Rose had the pigeon. Rose had medallions of beef for main and I had my usual fillet, both of which were absolutely spot on. For desert I had Millionaires Tart which was pastry filled with salted caramel and a chocolate topping, while Rose had a raspberry frangipane. The puddings were both incredibly nice and we left full but VERY happy.

Also this was the first outing for Rose's new Kate Spade bag, unfortunately we were on a two seater table which meant there wasn't a spare chair for her to put it on, but it survived the evening without incident - phew!

BIRTHDAY: Steve's 50th Birthday (Arthingworth)

All a bit last minute, but turned out rather well. Kirsty organized this party in their local and laid on sausages and chips for us (which were very nice), lots of Steve's friends attended along with us, Sally, Sandra and Paul and Kirsty's mum and John.