29 of 50 : The Talk of the Town (Paignton)

Out And About

28 of 50 : The Peter Cushing

If at First You Don't Succeed

27 of 50: The Society Rooms (Maidstone)

The last day of the Holidays.

Happy New Year everyone.  The blog is back.  It's been a bit of a long break.  Of course we have visited our local spoons many times (too many, probably), but with the new year it is time to get back to the mission.

delta is staying with us over the Christmas break.  We managed to surprise the wife as he came home by train one day early.  It really has been a great break, and so nice for gamma and delta to spend time together.

beta joined us for new years eve.  Ok, none of this is relevant to the blog.  Tomorrow the wife and I go back to work, so we thought it would be good to grab lunch out with delta one more time.

My brilliant driving brought us to the multi-story car park, which had a long queue getting in.  Being a BMW driver, it was cool to jump in front of the car to my right, only for me to take a wrong turning and go into the reserved area.  By the time I revered out my foe was in front and parking badly.  We found a space, got out of the car, and i think probably managed to do our entire trip before the foe had parked (they were making a real mess of it).

We walked though the town and found the pub.  I had not realised it was even here (we have visited 'star burger' many times in the past, for some reason gamma thinks this is in Canterbury, even though we have proved it has not).  Anyway, go past star burger, keep walking and there is a place that looks like an office block, and bam, that is the spoons.

After a little discussion we chose the Empire State Burger, the wife chose the triple chicken even though we agreed to remind her to not get it as she never manages to eat it all.

The wife went to the bar to order, which is a strange concept to me as i normally use the app.  She came back wearing a little of my shipyard, which of course i mocked.  She did get her own back as my drink tasted like bleach of pipe cleaner.  The wife took it back and got a replacement.

As usual I wanted to take a few photos, mainly to jog my memory.  delta was in a strange mood (stranger than normal), and decided to put a thumbs up in all my photos.  I finally managed to get one without his thumb.

Sadly that is about as exciting as it went.  Nice food (as always).  delta said he was full, but then got excited as we walked pasted Greggs.  Then even more excited as we went past a milk shake shop, which seemed to drag him in.

The Old Unicorn (Leeds, West Yorkshire)

The Old Unicorn (Leeds, West Yorkshire)

We didn’t have breakfast this morning, beta offered to buy it for us, so we left early enough to see her for 10am. The morning traffic was non-existent so we arrived early. The wife used Greta to direct us and soon we were outside her house. Something was strange, I was sure that the door used to be white, and I couldn’t remember it having metal bars over it. The wife said that she was sure there used to be grass not concrete.

The wife banged on the door, but nothing happened. We were expecting beta to come running out, thought she might jump on nellie and hug her. But nothing. Was we at the right house? We rang beta and said we were outside, but she said we were not. Then we knew, were were in the wrong street.

Who ever named the area decided it might be fun to have very similar named “Duckford Crescent”, “Duckford Avenue”, “Duckford Deadend”, and we were parallel with the correct street. We moved quickly and went to the correct address.

At last we were in the right place, after a few hugs and stuff, it was time for breakfast. We took a walk and got to ‘Frankie and Benny’ which could not do any cooking due to an extractor fan failure. By the time we walked to MacDonalds they had stopped doing breakfast. So we walked back to the car and drove to the Unicorn.

Beta paid for us to have a great fried breakfast, I took a few photos, which always makes people stare at you (why would someone want to have a picture of the carpet?)

After breakfast we went back to beta’s and chatted a lot, finally early evening came so we went into town and went to the hell hole that is Primark. A shop that makes a jumble sale look organised. There was so many people (Leeds is bigger than Ashford), the girls bought shoes (not really a shock here)

We eat at an Indian restaurant, which was really good. They cooked a huge family naan, which made us feel so stuffed that we skipped desert. As early evening fell we left. Greta took us down the M1 (rather than A1M) so we didn’t even see the OK dinner on the way back. Halfway and the wife asks me if we should “pop in” and see gamma (he lives in Exeter), I said ‘why not’, but we didn’t. Maybe next time.

The traffic was pretty good (as it was late), and we got home just around midnight.

Lovely day, and Nellie is now with her new owner. Let’s hope Beta can pass the test soon.

The Darrington (West Yorkshire)

Delta and gamma have kindly allowed me to pass ownership of Nellie (the C3 desire) to beta. Beta is still learning to drive, so I hope this will give here the inspiration to get passed.

The plan was simple, the wife would drive up in belle (my lovely BMW), and I would follow up in Nellie. Only 240 miles! First I had to get on the insurance, which actually made it cheaper (got £115 back!).
We left work at 4pm and got on our way. Greta was saying it would have 85 minutes of delays, and we hit the first block at the Dartford Crossing, this took a while, then the clear road.

No issues on the drive, we stopped at the OK diner and I ordered a 10oz burger. The wife noticed that the table next to us got a big burger delivered, but it was not for them, they decided this after a lot of prodding and moaning and they sent it back. We kept watch to see if this burger was reused. After a while the waitress told us our meal was taking so long due to a mistake and a new burger was on its way, to say sorry we got a 20% discount.

Can I say waitress any more? Should it be waiting person? Or generic server?

I wanted to book a spoons of course, but the nearest is 20 miles north of Leeds and frankly the wife if getting a bit bored with them (it’s going to make the rest of this blog hard work). So I booked the darrington which is a hungry horse hotel.

It was actually good and well priced. Maybe my blog is for the wrong chain? Should I have done ‘horse race’ rather than wetherforecast?

The shower was very noisy, and you knew when the neighbours were having a wash. I had a quick pint of beer and then to bed.

Tomorrow we drop of Nellie.

x

The Imperial (Exeter, Devon)

Moving Day (Part 2)

​​We started early, we had a slot to move in all our stuff for 10:30 - 11:00. As we didn't know exactly where the flat was, we wanted to find the location first.  It was all to easy, the drive from the hotel to Exeter was strange, really very few cars.  For a moment I was worried that we had arrived in the wrong place or on the wrong day.

We found the flat and had plenty of time, so the plan was always to visit The Imperial again, we loved it last time we went and also we though we could get brinner, and then get to the flat afterwards.  The original plan involved unloading the car and then me returning to use the pub car park and park for free, which of course all went wrong when we found out you have to pay to park here.  

After the food the wife realised that we had forgotten to pack any pillows, so we drove out of town looking for the Sainsbury that we had passed on the way in.  Due to the strange road system, we found Argos instead and got the pillows from there.

After that we went to the flat (location), The area did not have any people and we didn't really know where we were going or what to do.  delta asked someone who was unpacking where they got their key, and then he was off and returned a few minutes later with the key and a young lady (he works fast this one).

We unloaded the stuff, met 2 of his house guests.  Whilst unloading we realised other essentials we didn't have (tin opener, pots and pans, etc.).  The original plan was for us to do a full shop, but instead we walked into the town (which is mainly up hill), and got the essentials we needed.  Wilco's was totally geared for student essentials.  

gamma seemed a bit tired at this point (it was nearly mid day), and seemed ready for us to leave.  So we went back to the car, done many hugs, cried a lot and then, with a heavy heart, the wife and I left.  Did we do the right thing, is he going to be OK.  Time will tell.

The journey home was terrible, just passed stonehenge and the A303 was shut.  It took ages before we got home to an empty house.

x

26 of 50: The White Hart Hotel (Okehampton)

Moving Day (Part 1)

The day we were dreading has finally arrived.  delta is leaving home (and so are gamma and gamma-p for a second time!).  My study is a mess filled with all of gamma's stuff.  All of delta's stuff is packed and is upstairs.  We start the day by moving all of his stuff into the kitchen.  Whilst the wife and gamma go into town for a last 'mum and son' thing, I am left to load the car.  It just about fits in the wife's car (there is no way it would fit into mine).

Help arrives for gamma-p and they take the first load into their car, and leave.

We leave a little latter leaving just gamma all on his own waiting for grumps to come and help him move another car load of stuff.

We left around 12:30 ish, and followed the sat nav all the way.  The M25 was slow as normal, especially around the M3 and M4 junctions.  The sat nav (let's call her 'evil gretta') did not care about the traffic conditions too much, and by the time we got to the M5 we got stuck in a very slow queue.  It seems that there had been a major crash earlier in the day and the road was shut north bound.  Apart from the queue joining this was not a huge problem, and once we got onto the M5 things went well.

T rang us during this phase to make sure we hadn't got caught up in the accident.

Of course it is a long trip from Ashford to Exeter, so it made sense (to me) to add on 20 ish more miles and book the hotel in Okenhampton.  Of all the things that happened today, this was my better decision.  The hotel is actually rather nice, I booked the 'executive suite' and it is great, a nice large bed, plus 2 single beds, a sofa and a TV.  Tea and Biscuits, and all for under £100.  Really great value.  We were all a bit tired by the time we got to the hotel.  

We went downstairs for a meal.  I tried to talk everyone into going for a curry, but after the long day it didn't seem like that we going to work.  We went downstairs and it was very busy, all the tables were full and people were waiting to find a seat.  We sat near the bar and got the view of a pillar, I ordered drinks via the app.

After much waiting and searching we finally got a table near a hen party (which had the largest blow-up Willie I have ever seen).

When I went to order the food, there was a crowd of young people, one of them knocked over their glass and incredibly it bounced on the hard concrete floor, less incredible was his ability to catch the glass on the way back up, and he missed.  It is once of these events that if you were to see him drop it, bounce, and catch it, it would be awesome, but it was not to be.  A loud smash and one less glass.

We all had the same (Empire State Burger), and another drink.  As each meal comes with a drink i ended up having to have 2 more beers (I told R that one was for him, but as he is in Ashford I would have to drink it for him).

We retired back to the room, put on PJ and got ready for bed.  My table lamp had a flexible cable which allowed me to aim it directly in gamma's face, to which he replied "you cock" and proceeded to aim his two lamps at my face.  

And then to sleep....

x