Long Weekend Away – Day 2: Four go shopping in Chester

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We slept-in (ish!). I was up at 7 and Ann followed shortly afterwards. Time for a shower. The bathroom had been stocked with high quality toiletries, so it was a an opportunity to indulge ourselves fill our suitcases indulge ourselves!

We got down the breakfast around 9 – and the place was already busy. A great selection of cereals, juices, fresh fruit and preserves awaited us. And that was just the beginning, as a comprehensive breakfast menu followed. Most of us ate sensibly, whilst I opted for the gut-busting Chester-Full consisting of the seven deadly sins: egg, bacon, sausage, fried bread, mushrooms, tomatoes and… oh, bugger, that didn’t work. It was yummy!

We decided to walk into town rather than take the bus as the queue of traffic was horrendous. As it happened, the short-cut that we were given, got us there and we soon were walking past the railway station and towards the shops.

The girls started shopping, whilst Ralph and I retreated to the safety of the M and S restaurant.

Suitably refreshed, we hit the shopping trail. The town was packed and because of the Races this afternoon, the shopping area was filled with people dressed in a variety of clothing. It was quite strange to see ‘suits, ‘ties’, ‘heels’ and ‘summer dresses’ in amongst the t-shirts and trainers! Certainly the cobbled streets of Chester were playing havoc with the lady race-goers in their impossibly-high heels and we witnessed a few trips and scuffs along the way.

There were some enjoyable sights and some scary ones too – and for once, I’m not talking about the buildings! Some of the girls had the looks and figures of professional models, whilst others had let their fashion sense have the day-off! Just because heels and ultra short-skirts were a popular choice, some seemed to feel that they HAD to dress like it. Personally, I think if you are 4 foot 6, 20 stone, and built like a battle-ship, the skirt-and-heel option just doesn’t work – I don’t think I’m being ageist, weightist nor shipist, It’s just doesn’t look right!!!! Yeesh!
 
I digress! Back to the main mission. Ann managed to bag a few bargains, including some Christmas presents and I was able to top-up my sock collection courtesy of M and S. I also picked up a nice pair of shoes there too. I also increased my shirt collection by one bagging a bargain £75 quid number reduced to 30! Ralph and Karen were a bit more constrained.
We lunched at Moule a go-go, a restaurant we’ve not tried before. Like everywhere else at this time, the place was heaving. We realised why, when we saw they were doing a special ‘Races Menu’. After about half-an-hour, it quietened down considerably as the race-goers left!

The food was excellent, as was the service. Suitably refreshed, we resumed the shopping expedition. Even without the race-goers, the town was still super-busy, but there was plenty of atmosphere with street buskers every so often, including one very talented one-man-band who was doing a great job of entertaining the crowds and collecting quite a bit of money along the way – a talented guy!

We did a bit more site-seeing and then our energies started to drop. We looked for a taxi, but couldn’t find the rank anywhere, so we headed for the bus-station. We staggered back into the Green Bough hotel around 4.30. Totally shattered we snoozed for a bit, in preparation for our evening meal around 7.30. Tonight, it’s the taster menu – a gargantuan selection of good food.

On being shown to the restaurant, the size of the meal based on the number of items of cutlery being assembled around us! The table almost wasn’t big enough for us AND the shed-load of metal-work – life’s tough ehh!!??

Three hours later, we made it – 14003 courses, 909 pieces of cutlery and more alcohol than usual (or what felt like it!!!), and were more stuffed that Team Stuffalot from the town of Stuffsville!

We fell into the lounge for coffee and had to endure the final challenge – the petit-fours (that actually should have been re-titled petit forty-fours based on the quantity). We didn’t quite manage to finish them all, and by 10.40, we were ready to call it a night –or call it anything provided we could sleep it all off!

If our first night’s night’s food and quality of service was superb, then the only way to describe tonight’s was: superb³!!!

I glanced at my watch as we put the key into the door –10.43, exactly the same time as the previous night. Coincidence? or do all great meals last the same period of time?

It’s our final day tomorrow – time for bed said Zebedee!