Ann went round to Lee’s to help her pack-up her stuff before she’s evicted in just over a week’s time! I was planning to help, but I seem to have come back to the UK with truckloads of paperwork to sort out. I started on it at 5.30am and was still buried in the stuff …
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Category:Pub
Another trip to ‘Ireland’
What a spooky coincidence! I’d already to planned to catch-up with Denise for lunch in London, but due to a change in both our schedules, we realised we didn’t need to travel that far! Instead, we went to the village of Ireland, in Shefford, and The Black Horse, a lovely Pub/Restaurant – the coincidence being …
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‘The George’ – Buckden
We met up with Roger, Jane and Oliver at The George in Buckden today for lunch. It was our first visit and the fact that Buckden is about half-way between us, made the journey a lot easier. The food and service was fantastic, and we had a good time – we’ll certainly be going back …
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Ralph and Karen here for the Weekend
FRIDAYRalph and Karen joined us tonight – they’re here until just after breakfast on Sunday. The plan is that Ann and Karen will take the train to London on Saturday for shopping (now there’s a surprise) whilst Ralph and I waited news of my new car. SATURDAYGood news to start our day then! At around …
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Return to The Shuckburgh Arms
Image by Steve Palmer (UK) via Flickr As part of our monthly meal-out with David and Val, we decided to take a second look at The Shuckburgh Arms. At our first visit back in October, we were amazed at the high quality of the food and the low …
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Lunch with Eric M
I drove up to my favourite town – Stamford – and The George, to catch-up with my old pal from my Sainsbury days, Eric Mival. He’s a film producer and we had a good time nattering about the state of the industry and the parallels with my profession. We haven’t seen each other since last …
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Cats in/Phone down/Humans out!
CATS IN – Time for the cats, Biscuit and Bon-Bon, to have their six-weekly ‘service’, courtesy of Patsy, What made it different on this occasion, was that Ann had to wrestle the two fluff-bundles into the cat carriers on her own, as I was already out. Cue lots of scratching, fighting and aggressive behaviour? Well, …
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Lunch with Steve S
It’s that time again, and it was my turn to drive over to Steve’s to catch-up with bits and pieces in his life. We last saw each other not-so-long-ago in August, and with both of us being so busy, we’ve done well to squeeze another get-together in before Christmas! We took the short walk from …
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The Shuckburgh Arms, Stoke Doyle – yum yum!
We’d all had very busy weeks, so it was great to be able to meet-up with D and V for a meal. This time, we chose The Shuckburgh Arms in Stoke Doyle near Oundle. David had had it recommended to him, so we thought we’d give it a try. On arrival, we noticed it was …
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Lunch with Steve S
Image by Steve Palmer (UK) via Flickr Steve popped over for our normal three-monthly get-together and we went for lunch at our standard haunt: Hobson’s Choice. Actually, it’s been slightly longer than three months, as I noticed we last saw each other back in March. Steve brought a selection of wedding pictures with him showing-off …
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Posh Houses and Foxton Locks
I took the train down to London today – Gloucester Road area to be more precise – to help out Val H with her computer. Wow! it’s posh round there! I counted THREE Bentleys and TWO Maseratis parked in the street between the Tube station and my five minute walk to Val’s flat – hmmmm …
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“Ooh Arr, avast there, me hearties!”
With eye-patch and peg-leg firmly in place we joined David and Val on their new boat Osprey One today. It was a perfect day for it, plenty of sun and a pub-lunch destination in mind! Lee was able to join us too as her final piece of furniture arrived slightly earlier than expected and we …
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Saturday with Ian and Sharon
We drove down to Worthing to spend the day with Ian and Sharon. On the way there, we took a slight detour via Brighton to locate the premises of a new client, where I’m doing some work in a few weeks’ time. We got to theirs just after 10 and after a quick coffee or …
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Long Weekend in Harrogate – Sunday
Fuelled by the ‘Full-English’ breakfast, we set off in the direction of York. On the way there, we dropped into RHS’s property, Harlow Carr. This was disappointing, but perhaps that was down to the time of year and Spring being a bit late this year. Still, it gave us the perfect excuse to pop into …
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Meal with Paul and Sue
We caught up with Paul and Sue at The Swan in Lamport tonight. I haven’t been there for a few years (when I met up with Ian and Mags for our Christmas do in December 2008) and Ann hasn’t for about 20 years when she and I last went there together! We left around 7.20 …
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Katrina and Sally for Lunch
Well, not literally 🙂 I drove over the Cambridge today to meet up with Katrina and Sally. I haven’t seen Katrina for, I think, around 5 years, and it was great to catch-up. It’s fair to say that K has a lot going on in her life at the moment (I’m not going to spell-out …
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Catch up with Karen and Ralph
We’d forgotten that it was Mothering Sunday coming up (well, we hadn’t actually, we did send flowers to the Mums!), but we couldn’t get a seat in a pub or restaurant anywhere half-way between R+K’s in Matlock and us for Sunday. So, we decided to simply bring the date forward and meet-up tonight. Ralph found …
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Meal with David and Val
It’s that time again and we’re off for a meal with David and Val. This time, we’re going to try out the Collyweston Slater in err, Collyweston. The table was booked for 8pm, so we left around 7.30 to give us a none-too-hurried journey there. On arrival, the bar area was already very busy and …
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Lunch with Steve S
I popped over to Oundle to meet up with Steve. We’d previously met just before Christmas, when, amongst other things, Steve was making plans for being father-of-the-bride for his daughter, Kelly, on Easter Saturday. I’ve lent him some books on speeches! We walked to The Ship, as normal, and as part of my giving-it-up-for-Lent thingy, …
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Meal with David and Val
If it’s the weekend, it must be The Wheatsheaf at Titchmarsh! 🙂 …well, it feels like it, as we were there last Saturday too! This time, it’s our regular monthly meal out with David and Val and I reckon if they don’t change the menu soon, we’re in danger of having tried everything on it …
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Meal with Jane and Mick
We drove to our favourite pub/restaurant – The Wheatsheaf at Titchmarsh – to meet up with Jane and Mick. It was our usual annual get-together – in fact we saw them on the 16th last year too! The meal I thought was great, as always – I had the ‘blade of beef’ whilst Ann had …
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The Power of a Pizza – 25 today…
Yes, today’s the day. Who would have thought that after a simple pizza in romantic Romford (December 14 1984), we’d be here, now, celebrating 25 years together? We’re off to The Wheatsheaf in Titchmarsh tonight to celebrate! The place was quite quiet when we arrived and we started off with a drink from the Bar. …
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Family Weekend
Saturday We started the weekend heading off to Roger, Jane and Oliver‘s. – and popped into see Anthony, one of Ann’s ex-JS colleagues on the way – he lives in Letchworth with his wife, Sue. We got to theirs about 2.45 after a couple of trips up-and-down their road trying to find the house. What …
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Lunch with Steve S
Steve popped round for our final get together this year – We last saw each other back in July. We ended up at Hobson’s Choice in Kettering, where we always go! – the food’s good and the staff are pretty attentive. It was empty when we first arrived but soon filled up. There were a …
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The Party Season Begins…
We drove over the Leicester to pick-up Ann’s 25th Anniversary present – jewellery!! However on impulse, we decided not to go back to Goldsmith’s where we’d seen some nice stuff last week – instead we dropped into George Tarratt just down the road from Ann’s office as they had a much better range (with some …
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‘The Wheatsheaf’ with David and Val
We took a drive over to The Wheatsheaf at Titchmarsh, near Oundle, for our monthly dining-out experience. It was only our second visit (we’d tried it out back in July on recommendation, and the food and service then was excellent). David and Val had also visited there for lunch once before. The small bar area …
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Return to ‘The Pheasant’, Keyston
We took a return trip to our favourite restaurant, The Pheasant at Keyston to celebrate Ann’s last day of unemployment before she starts her new job on Monday. At the start of her ‘rest period’ we’d also eaten there. It was already busy when we arrived at 7.20…and it got busier! . After a glass …
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Short break: Portsmouth (Day 4)
I got up at 7 so I’d have time for a shower before heading up the road to get a ticket for the car that we couldn’t park near the hotel last night. Ooooo…I’ve noticed I’m a bit pink this morning after all that exposure to the good weather yesterday – they’ll be no chance …
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Short break: Portsmouth (Day 3)
I didn’t get up until 8am!! Looking out the window, the weather looks good at the moment although the forecast is cloudy. We plan to primarily use today to take photographs and try out our new camcorder. 9.00am. We got down to breakfast and found it a lot quieter than yesterday. The service was still …
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Short break: Portsmouth (Day 1)
We’re off to Portsmouth for a few days. We left around 8.30 and popped into Central Garage on the way out to have a look at their used and new car stock as part of getting a car for Ann. After much discussion with Paul, we narrowed the selection down to possibly a new Fiesta…but …
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