I travelled down to London today to meet up with Peter J. We planned to take a tour of The Shard – 72 floors and 1016 feet of vertical architecture close to London Bridge and Guy’s Hospital. We weren’t quite sure what to expect as we turned the corner from the Tube Station, but nothing …
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Scarify and Convert!
Probably the only disadvantage of the now, lighter evenings, is that it’s a lot easier to see how much work there is to do in the garden! With the sun (almost) shining, and no sign of snow, we spent significant time in the garden today, picking-off the jobs. The big one was to scarify the …
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Lighter in Leicester
Today was a day for losing weight – weight in my wallet! We picked Lee up at 8.15 and sped over to Highcross in Leicester for a shopping spree. We planned to browse, but that didn’t last long. Thirty minutes in and we’d acquired a bed (for the home-office transformation), and the most complex (and …
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Rothwell 2 Turkey 0
I don’t go to Rothwell that often – it’s only normally to eat with friends. Strange then, that somehow I managed to eat there twice in the same day! My first trip was with David at lunchtime. Now that we’re ‘gentlemen of leisure’, we decided to do lunch at The Old Bakehouse. The food and …
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Topless
Val, our neighbour, had her new car today. WOW!! It’s an Audi A3, and unusually, it’s a cabriolet. The clever bit is that the roof doesn’t retract into the boot, it sits above it, so there’s no loss of luggage space. It’s got beautiful light-coloured leather upholstery and looks very sporty from all angles. A …
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Easter Sunday – Mum’s
Together with Lee, we drove down to Mum’s to take her out for Lunch. It was a return to the now familiar Toby Carvery at Bromley Common, where we’d taken her a few months back. Being Easter Sunday, and the fact that they don’t take bookings, meant we had to time it just right if …
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The Last Temptation
Well, that’s my major will-power testing exercise completed for another year and I’m chuffed that I managed to avoid all my self-imposed 23 ‘banned substances’ for the whole period of Lent (13th February – 30th March) without too much trouble at all… and that included the strongest temptation – CHOCOLATE!!! I’m now thinking ahead to …
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Holiday Pics
Phew! All our main holiday snaps are now uploaded on my web-sitehttps://www.stevepalmer.com/pics.html
Holiday in Rotterdam (Wednesday)
It’s our last full day here in the f-f-f-freezing weather until we return to the err, freezing weather of the UK. Although it looked a lot a lot warmer through the hotel bedroom window than previous days, we dressed-up as if we were heading for the North Pole! With our new found confidence mastering the …
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Holiday in Rotterdam (Tuesday)
After the statutory ‘big-breakfast’ in the hotel, we headed out to explore the local area today. Ann noticed that in the local theatre – The New Luxor – The Alan Parsons Project were playing live – a rare occurrence these days, and a real coincidence that we’re in the same country as his greatest hits …
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Holiday in Rotterdam (Monday)
It’s Ann’s birthday today! The weather looks a lot better than yesterday (it’s only -2C), so we’re going to jump on the train and head north towards Haarlem. I tested the conditions during breakfast and it definitely seemed warmer than the day before. Somehow though, I just knew it wasn’t going to last. By now, …
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Holiday in Rotterdam (Sunday)
We all slept well in spite of our bed being wider than it was long! (I think I needed sat-nav to find the pillows!!! 🙂 On peering through the curtains, the weather looked a bit grey outside but at least there was no sign of snow. We took a look at TripAdvisor and decided to …
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Nice Room!
We’re loving our room here at The Hilton, Rotterdam. All you could want plus more tech than I could shake a stick at! 🙂
Snakes on a Plane!
Not quite! How about ‘Nails on a Train’. The woman sitting opposite me is either on her way to a Macbeth party, or plays the guitar a lot!
Chuff-chuffed – I’m on the train!
Ahh, that’s how train travel should be. Warm carriage, plenty of seats and free wi-fi. Hello Dutch Railways! 🙂
Holiday – Rotterdam by Train
18.30. Here we are then, we’ve just arrived at the Hilton Rotterdam. The journey here was interesting- when we arrived at Brussels Station, our connecting train was nonowhere to be seen on the departure boards – a worrying sign!!! A quick visit to the information desk revealed that the train itself didn’t exist anymore!!!! Apparently, …
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Final Piece of the Sky Jigsaw?
Sometime in the past 24 hours, Sky updated its Sky-Box software so that their catchup service, now has ALL the main terrestrial channels represented (‘4OD’ was the final service to be added). For a TV addict like me, this is great news!
Family Meal – The George, Buckden
In spite of the rain, sleet and snow, we picked up Lee and headed for The George at Buckden for a family lunch (minus Bev and Mum!). It was great to get everyone together, and The George is an ideal halfway-house for all of us. It was very busy but food was great and so …
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Hair, Cats and Arms
It was another one of those Saturdays, where there was lots going on (in a good way!). First stop for me was Parkway Hair Salon – and increasingly, the visits, just like my hair are much shorter these days! I got home around 10.15 where Ann took the car and dropped the cats off at …
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A Snowy London
It’s not often that the capital is colder than Kettering – but today was an exception! David was good enough to taxi me down to Kettering Station and I jumped on the 9.27 down to St Pancras International and met up with Sally B for lunch. On arrival, the view from the station was like …
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The Parcel Yard
I took the early train down to London this morning in preparation for the twice-yearly meeting I chair for The Old Croydonians’ Association. We found a really good venue – The Parcel Yard just off the concourse at the recently refurbished Kings Cross station. As the name suggests, it’s the old parcel yard that’s now …
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Double Chef!
Once a month, we normally seek out a local eatery with David and Val, but this time, we did things a little differently. David and I assumed the role of chef for the evening and prepared the meal ourselves. After an initial planning get-together, we toddled off to Tesco to acquire the remaining raw ingredients …
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Roger’s 50th – Tosca
Just occasionally we do ‘posh’ – and tonight was one of those occasions. With DJs and posh frocks on the outside and Sudafed and Strepsils (for Ann and me ) on the inside, we set off for the Royal Opera House to celebrate Roger’s 50th. After our quick change of clothes, we headed for Stevenage …
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Plague!
Those that know me, know that I don’t ‘do’ illness – it’s such a waste of time! Well, I’ve picked up a bug sometime in the past week that has now absolutely crippled me! I’ve got a cough that sounds like I’m on 50 Navy Cut a day; aches and pains all over – arms, …
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Lunch with Alison W
I drove over to Peterborough today to catch-up with Alison W for lunch. We headed for The Granary and I was pretty impressed with myself, navigating around the menu and not compromising my Lent List. We caught up with others’ news and generally put the world-to-right – it was then that I noticed that my …
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Lunch with Roger H
I live such a exciting life, as I spend quite a few evenings impersonating taxi-drivers waiting outside Kettering Station. And now, life now has got much more interesting as I’ve started doing the same at PETERBOROUGH station. So, today, I could hardly contain myself when I drove to MARKET HARBOROIUGH Station!!! – is there …
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Mother’s Day comes Early!
With Mum’s health on a slow decline and with us not being able to see her on the official Mother’s Day, we visited her today. On the way there, we dropped in to Neil and Debbie, caught up with all their news, saw the boys and left Neil with couple of knackered PCs. Then it …
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Roast Lamb – Shaken not Stirred!
“The name’s ‘Lamb’, ‘Roast Lamb’”. Nick and Celina joined us this afternoon, together with David, for a food ‘n’ film evening. Ann prepared Tagliatelle with Prawns and Romano Peppers to start, followed by Roast Lamb infused with garlic & rosemary – we finished with Red Plum Amoretti Pots – a sort of exotic trifle in …
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4 Ate, Bar 4 – The Vines
We joined Janet and Jo and took a walk (yes, I walked!) to the recently opened Vines Restaurant and Bar, down the hill at the Grade II listed Barton Hall. The building itself had been unloved for many years but we’d heard that it had now been converted into a classy Restaurant and Bar with …
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Quattro to Prezzo
As I’m now sans-car, Ian and Mags drove over to ours for our three-monthly catch-up. Our destination was Prezzo in Kettering, the town’s newest restaurant sited (spookily) in the recently developed restaurant quarter. Ann was able to join us after a bat-out-of-hell drive back from Sheffield. In convoy, we headed into town and parked in …
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