MEAL OUT: The Waterfront (Market Harborough)

To celebrate my Mum's 73rd birthday we originally planned to visit the White Lion, but fear of big screen TVs showing the World Cup in the newly pubified, er... pub, meant we changed our plans and headed to the Waterfront instead. The food was nice, the service was a bit lacking (as usual) and all in all it was a pleasant evening. Not so pleasant was the next day which I spent in bed after throwing up several times. Can't be sure it was the burger, but it certainly wasn't the coconut ice cream...

DAY OUT: Chipping Camden / British Motor Museum

Leaving home around 9AM we got to Chipping Camden about 10:35 and spent a pleasant hour walking around the village before heading to the Eight Bells pub for lunch. We had a lovely meal (chicken pie for me, lamb for Rose) and shared a magnificent white chocolate cheesecake with mango coulis - seriously good pud!

From here we headed back towards home, stopping off at the British Motor Musem for a couple of hours.

There were some very cool cars here, including the Rolls Royce Phantom, Mark Webber's Jaguar F1 car and a Lancia Delta (in the CAR S.O.S. TV show exhibition, strangely), but there was also a lot of stuff that we weren't that interested in like some of the very old cars and some of the cars which are to recent to be interesting but are being stored now and will become relevant in twenty years or so. Even so there was enough to make the visit worthwhile.

JAGUAR XJR15

Other highlights included two Jaguar XJ220s, a Jaguar XJR15, Lady Diana's E-Type Jaguar, a polished aluminium Jaguar XJ6, the Queen Mother's Jaguar limousine, and a lot of the recent Jaguar cars found in the 'Jaguar Collection' next door in the newest building. Also several Le Mans style sport cars, TR7s, a McLaren MP4-12, and a very impressive 1985 MGB prototype called the E-XE.

Indeed there was a surprising number of concept cars on show, including a sort of hatchback TR7, which was a bit odd looking.

All in all it was well worth a visit, but I think my overall favourite of the whole exhibition was the fifth car we saw - the utterly ridiculous Rolls Royce Phantom. So big, so heavy and £250,000 to boot... brilliantly bonkers!

DAY OUT: Coton Manor Gardens

We attempted a visit to CMG last year I believe, but arrived too early and didn't want to wait around - so this was our first visit and it was rather nice, certainly a match for pretty much any stately home gardens you could name. They give you a map which at least means you don't miss anything as it would probably be quite easy to do so just by walking the wrong side of a hedge.

We were quite taken with the flamingos in the garden, which are amusingly weird things... and also the pretend deer in the field next to the bluebell wood (which was rather bereft of bluebells when we went unfortunately). Other highlights included the mini cascade and the ducks, which were quite cute and entertaining... all in all it took us just less than an hour to walk around, but how long can you look at flowers for anyway?

DAY OUT / SHOPPING: Chatsworth House / Mansfield Outlet

Seemingly our first visit to Chatsworth since we started our diary blog - which is quite surprising, but there you are. I think this is perhaps the fourth time we've been to Chatsworth and even though it's been at least four years, it seemed a little stale somehow. It's still one of the best Stately Homes in the country, and some of the rooms are magnificent. But this time there was some distracting (and completely out of place) modern art additions which did absolutely nothing for us. These included some brightly coloured 'stones' in one of the bed chambers, some bullshit ceramic pots in the library and a corridor 'decorated' with small pieces of porous stone and mirrors (which looked shit).

The violin 'trompe l'oeil' is still staggering every time we see it, and is worth visiting for alone. It beggars belief that you are looking at a two dimensional object when it looks so real, and that you also realise that the wood panelling must be painted as well makes it even more remarkable.

In the grounds the cascade is still impressive, but the 'Revelation' fountain is long since gone, which is a shame, but at least we have it on video.

The fountain in front of the house is still very impressive as well, although I can't help thinking that Mr Capability Brown's genius is slightly overstated, but I digress... the fountain give a nice cooling mist which was quite welcome as the temperature and particularly humidity was quite high and unpleasant.

We seemed to get around the garden in no time at all really and decided that we would come home via the Mansfield shopping outlet. Last time we visited we found quite a few of the shops were closed as it was Easter Sunday, and this time it re-affirmed it's place as the least impressive of all the outlets.

We were there about an hour, which is about par for the course, and means it's really only somewhere to go on the way to (or from) somewhere else. One recent positive improvement is the arrival of a Lindt shop and we did buy a nice bag of Lindor pick and mix, including the new citrus one (very good) and the new almond one (not good at all).

MEAL OUT: The Grey Goose (Gilmorton)

Our first meal at the Grey Goose this year, and very nice it was too. The burger is now on the full menu (as opposed to being a special) and it's thinner - but that's not a bad thing for me as it means it's properly cooked. It also comes smothered in cheese, and some very smokey bacon, but the slight mayo overkill on the top bun was a bit of a downer (not that I went hungry). Also comes with a ton of fries, which were also very nice.

Rose had beef medallions with fondant potato, which looked pretty but a bit of an empty plate. It came with pepper sauce (which I dipped my fries in) and then we shared a Malteser parfait, which was quite nice too, though I'm not entirely sure it was worth £7 to be honest.