DAY OUT: Nottingham

The main purpose of our trip to Nottingham this day was to go and see Patricia Hodge and Nigel Havers in Noel Coward's play 'Private Lives'. The play was good, though not a patch on Relative Values, and Nigel and Patricia reminded us why amateur theatre is amateur while professionals are professionals.

There were very few of us in the balcony and the theatre was offering to upgrade us to the stalls, but it seemed more sensible to stay where we were and this proved to be a wise choice. There were only about ten of us up there, which meant we could move seats and I could stick my leg out into the aisle. 

We thought we were going to the Royal Centre, but actually we were going to the Royal Theatre, which is around the back - a proper old theatre, with multiple balconies and a predictably paltry amount of legroom!

During the morning we visited the TAG Heuer boutique in the town, here we talked to Brad and I tried on the Carrera Montreal. We also visited Goldsmiths in the Victoria Centre and Rose tried on the fumé dial Aquaracer.

We had booked a table for lunch at Fothergills and it was very nice, we both had pies, but unfortunately we were too full for a pudding. After lunch we headed to the theatre, and as we stood outside we marvelled at the fact that people were quite happy to stand (or sit) on the pavement, feet away from cars belching fumes, just so long as they have a drink in their hand.

We decided that as we had breached the 7 hour limit on parking and as were now going to have to pay £17 for the pleasure of parking our car that there was no rush to leave. As such we decided to visit the bar at the Crown Plaza (where we had parked) and enjoyed a couple of drinks there before we left.

ESCAPE ROOM: Horton's Emporium (Northampton)

 

We returned to Horton's Emporium just a few days later to tackle the second escape room they had. This time we had a bit more idea what we were doing and found some of the tasks easier. We struggled a little bit with certain parts (like finding the laminate we needed to make sense of the map on the wall and the combination safe), but overall we did pretty well and even managed to master the staircase game and collect the final 'power orb' to complete the challenge in about 46 mins!

MUSEUM: Gladstone Pottery Museum (Stoke-on-Trent)

 

We had pondered the idea of visiting the Pottery Museum for some time, every since we started watching The Great Pottery Throwdown really. It was quite good in parts, but I don't really think it was necessary to inspect five different bottle kilns...  I mean we got the idea after the first two that it was hot, dangerous work. 

The best bit was watching a chap throwing a vase on a wheel and also watching a lady make some pottery flowers. Another woman in the same part of the museum showed us how to cast small parts, but she caused consternation when she claimed the Pottery Throwdown hadn't made a blind bit of difference to their visitor numbers. I refuse to believe that, we probably would never have gone there and I'm sure thousand of others must have been inspired to visit by the show.

Whatever, the tail end of the museum was a little tedious, tiles really aren't that exciting and the latter part was given over to toilets... but really it went a bit beyond that and turned into the National Museum of Shit. Which was a bit much, especially before lunch.

Mildly disappointed that we didn't get to see Keith or Rose, but didn't really expect to. They probably don't even work there normally.

DAY OUT: Oxford

 

Our previous trip to Oxford had been somewhat compromised by a bitterly cold wind that rendered walking around less than completely enjoyable and we also had the sense that we hadn't really seen everything that there was to see. This second point proved to be not all that correct, but all the same we had an enjoyable day in the famous University town.

We booked a boat trip for 10:15am, which on reflection was a little bit stupid as it meant we had to leave home about 7am to ensure we got there on time. However, the park and ride was so efficient that we actually arrived there at 9:30 and so we had to wander about a bit to kill some time before we could go on the boat.

After twenty minutes or so we found ourselves back at the bar/restaurant where the boat leaves from and no sooner had we ordered a Coke than they announced that we would be leaving since all the people who had booked (all four of us) were present so we might as well get on with it.

It was a bit chilly, especially with the wind blowing through the open boat, but it was enjoyable and the captain was very chatty and informative. 

Once back on shore we headed to the Museum of Modern Art, which we visited last time but it was 'between' exhibitions (empty, though the cafe was still open for some bizarre reason). This time the place was packed with spectacularly awkward modern art by Jesse Darling. A magnificently bizarre pile of aimless crap that included paper aeroplanes made of aluminium, various bits of welded steel tube adorned with plastic bags, some wooden 'tombs' which were truly works of utter garbage and some spectacular plagiarism in the form of a work called 'Composition of things that keep things (a)live plus the constellation of Orion in spilled lentils on a dead refrigerator (towards a non-macho sculpture practice), which was clearly more than a little inspired by Salvador Dali.

Of course if Dali had actually done it might have been a lot better...

Still, the exhibition was free (we did donate though) and it made us laugh. Especially the pile of ring binders stacked against a wall which we weren't actually sure were part of the exhibition (they were)...

Of course the artist wished to be referred to as 'they', which was irritating, but there we are. This is the modern world.

After this we headed up the road to check out two pubs for lunch and settled on The Crown, which served a very nice steak and ale pie with mash potatoes and greens. The puddings looked nice too but we were stuffed to bits so we had to forgo the pleasure. Us being us we arrived at 12 on the dot, and a good thing too as the place filled up very quickly.

We wandered around Oxford a bit after that, aimlessly searching for more that we hadn't seen before, only to realise that to be honest we had seen most of it the first time. We made a beeline for the Bodleian Library but when we finally found the ticket office we were told that the last ticket had been sold 1.1/2 hours ago. It transpired that there were only about sixteen tickets available each day, so the chances of getting in there were pretty slim.

We did a bit more wandering, past the Radcliffe Camera and then back on ourselves again to visit a park which wasn't really so much a park as just a green open space or sports pitch. There was also some sort of garden or something but they wanted £7 just to walk through it, and come on, it was barely April it was probably mostly just shoots!

Finally we headed up to the Randolphe Hotel for a drink before catching the bus back to the park and ride car park. Rose had a cocktail called 'Down the Rabbit Hole' (which I hilariously called 'Down the Rabbit Hole II' not realising that the 'II' was actually 11, as in eleven pounds). I don't think she was all that fussed with it to be honest, I had a rhubarb lemonade which was subtle but refreshing.

All in all it was good, if tiring day, but I don't think we'll be rushing back to Oxford any time soon. On the way home we stopped off at Bicester Village and had a look around, we bought some hand soap and a candle from Molton Brown and a purse for Rose's birthday, and picked up a strap from TAG Heuer.

ESCAPE ROOM: Horton's Emporium (Northampton)

 

We really didn't know what we were letting ourselves in for when we booked this, but it turned out to be very enjoyable indeed. I must admit I was a bit wary of all the 'wizardy' bullshit, but I figured that when we got there it would actually come down to solving puzzles and finding things, and so it was. You can call rubber balls 'Power Orbs' if you like, but I'm happy to find rubber balls...

We didn't really get that we would be observed and 'helped' through the game (in this instance by Gina, who was very nice and chatty), she sent us little pointers when she thought we were completely missing the obvious in front of us, but at the end she seemed quite impressed with our performance given that we had never done an escape room before.

MEAL OUT: The Crown (Oakham)

 

Our last visit to The Crown was not one of our better dining experiences, however in the meantime the place had changed hands which meant not only that it was now possible to book a table but also the menu had changed considerably for the better. 

Unfortunately they did not have any New Zealand Sauv which was a bit of a black mark, and several of the dishes on the menu were off too... but we still had a very nice meal and a good time with Lee and Su.

After we finished the meal we went to Orbis for a drink. Rose ordered a Long Island Ice Tea float, which came with cream on top instead of ice cream. Very odd. I had a mocktail, which was basically fruit juices, but okay. The surroundings are very nice though...