DAY OUT: Herbert Art Gallery and Museum (Coventry)

 

Amazingly, our very first visit to Coventry... and thus our first visit also to the 'Herbert Art Gallery and Museum'. At the time of our visit there were two main exhibitions ongoing; firstly one about '2 Tone' music called '2 Tone Lives & Legacies' and secondly one called 'UnNatural History'.

The '2 Tone' was fairly self explanatory and featured the story of the '2 Tone' bands of the early 80s including Coventry's own 'The Specials' and 'The Selector' alongside bands such as Bad Manners, Madness, etc... it was quite good, but it did seem to get a bit repetitive as if there really wasn't all that much to say and actually the whole thing seemed to only last a couple of years before the bands started to split up.

Most intriguing part of which for me was spotting a photo of late (Grip Inc) vocalist Gus Chambers with his 70s punk band 'Squad', I sort of knew he was an old English punk, but I'd never actually heard his previous music. It was very much of it's time and while I wouldn't have known it was him singing, once you knew you can kind of tell...

UnNatural World was much more 'arty' and featured some weird shit like a dead badger in the corner of a room (and a dead crow as well actually) - lovely. Also there was a bizarre 25min film about wild animals being put in American Motel rooms for no reason, well of course there was a 'reason' but like most art of this nature it was bollocks.

Highlights of this were the beaver in the bathtub washing itself, the spooky owl on a bed and the way the motel fronts were shot like every American film where somebody gets killed in a motel room... we initially saw the end of the film first, with the owl, and it was quite weird - almost David Lynchesque, but when we saw it the second time it didn't seem so weird.

Talking of bollocks there was also some really wanky 'art' worthy of the Tate Modern, like a cabinet which held all the shoes someone wore from the age of 8 until 18; which to me isn't so much art, as pointless shite. Still, overall you can't complain because the whole thing was free anyway, which of course made it excellent value and besides, just cos something is bollocks doesn't mean it isn't entertaining.

Oddly, after a week so hot that we abandoned our plans to visit London, it rained most of the day and the temperature fell as low as 11.5 degrees! Also, on the way back we encountered the new services on the M6 which just goes to show how long it has been since we've been there!

MEAL OUT: The Oat Hill (Market Harborough)

 

Our first visit to the Oat Hill for many a year and our first time sitting in the restaurant (instead of the bar). The restaurant was very nice and decorated with trees on the ceiling and bird cages which was quite cool. We both had the half a chicken (sans sauce) with fries, which was very tasty and the fries in particular were cooked to perfection. Not crazy about having it served on a wooden board, but at least it was large enough and had a lip around it to stop things falling off.

The service was also pretty good, although we were pretty much the only people in the restaurant so it ought to be... the only slight disappointment was the pudding, a chocolate orange fudge cake (sorely lacking in both fudge and the promised 'chocolate orange pieces') but nice enough for a warm chocolate orange sponge. We never thought to try a cocktail, but then it was the middle of the day...

DAY OUT: Rutland Water / Gates' Garden Centre & Farm Shop

 

Continuing the theme of 'best laid plans' for this week off, we planned to visit Rutland Water and to take the 45min boat trip on the 'Rutland Belle'. The ever so helpful website didn't let us book tickets so we weren't entirely sure if we'd be able to get on the boat, but we figured since it was only a 40min drive we'd take the chance.

The 40min drive turned into a 55min drive due to the longest, most ridiculously unnecessary diversion in the history of the universe and we arrived on site one minute past the allotted time of departure for the 2pm excursion.

It seemed there was nothing else to do but to hang around for an hour (in the 24degree heat) and wait for the 3pm trip and so that's exactly what we did. Actually, despite the heat, it was quite nice and it seems that Rutland Water is quite a bit nicer than we gleaned from our previous visit many years ago.

Eventually the boat came back to shore and we had to brave direct sunlight for ten minutes to queue for the trip. We opted to go inside the boat and it seemed like it was only us and one older couple, but then the boat hung about and hung about until finally a party of what seemed like 40 Indians came into view and evidently we were 'waiting' for them - why we had to 'wait' for them I have no idea, but there we are.

Hilariously as they walked down the landing pier someone commented 'here comes the Indian variant'.

They then proceeded to take over the front end of the inside of the boat and we ended up having to move back down the boat, and then proceeded to annoy us by face timing people on their phones and generally being annoying wankers. Thankfully after a while they mostly ended up outside at the front of the boat and piped down a bit.

It was a nice trip which lasted 45mins and gave a reasonable though not exhaustive view of the water, I presumed we would essentially sail around the entire perimeter of the lake but seemingly that would take even longer. 

After we got back to shore we scooted down the road and visited Gates' Garden Centre, ostensibly in search of the Salted Caramel cake we had enjoyed at Lee and Su's house a few weeks ago. Unfortunately that was the only one that was sold out, but they did have a massive one instead, so we bought that - well, I say 'unfortunately'...

We also bought a treacle tart and some bedding plants but couldn't find any solar lights to buy, albeit it could be that we just couldn't find them due to the place being larger than Harrods. We also drew the line at paying £3.75 for a scotch egg, nice as they are!

MEAL OUT: Marco Pierre White Restaurant / The Electric Bar (Lincoln)

 

Our fourth (IIRC) visit to the Electric Cocktail bar in Lincoln and all in all a bit of a disaster this time. Because of the hot weather we decided to leave much later in the day and go straight to the bar (booked for 5:30pm), but on arrival we found the elevator wasn't working so we went into the hotel and were informed that the bar was operating on a limited staff because all the people who made the cocktails had been sent home due to a Covid case.

Terrific, but okay... never mind, it's not the end of the world we can still have a couple of drinks in the bar which would take us up to our 7pm booking in the restaurant. Except, when you take away the cocktails it is the poorest stocked bar in Christndom. Flavoured gins and vodkas are all the rage, and yet they didn't have any. Nor did they stock J20s. So we ended up with a diet Coke and a Sauvignon Blanc that they (eventually) managed to rustle up from somewhere in the building (not sure where and why they didn't have any in the actual bar, but...).

So that kinda sucked, so after one drink we asked if we could move our restaurant reservation forward and thankfully they were happy to oblige. Which was good because the waiter was great and from then on it was all good. We both had the steak and ale pie (which was great) and then we shared a very delicious sticky toffee pudding!

I know the Covid thing was out of their control, but I really don't get how their bar can be so woefully stocked; flavoured gins and vodkas really aren't niche products any more, they are everywhere and surely they must get asked for them regularly?