Well, this one will be going straight onto that small pile I own, categorised as: “crap”! If you like your films loud and brash – this one is for you. Explosions, hand-to-hand combat, fancy fight moves, guns, violence and chase scenes were all in evidence – a sort of ‘Die Hard with a Deer-Stalker’ (OK, …
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Lunch: Cox’s Yard
I drove over to Stratford-upon-Avon today to meet up with my good friend, Ian McLean. Trying to get into the town centre on a Friday AND park the car, was always going to be a problem, so we walked from Ian’s to Cox’s Yard, and found a watering-hole that overlooked the river. Initially, a good …
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The Palmichael
We had a great time last night at The Palmichael. We can’t believe we’ve been in Kettering this long and haven’t been there before now. Burton Latimer has always had a great selection of eateries, and this one sits ‘right-up-there’ in our book. Fantastic food, good service and although it’s quite pricey – you get …
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DVD: The Iron Lady
David and Val popped round. Together with Lee, and equipped with Val’s Shepherd’s Pie on our laps, followed by Ann’s rice-pudding, we settled down to watch The Iron Lady starring Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent. A host of other well-known faces appeared in the film too including John Sessions, Richard E Grant and Anthony Head …
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Meal at ‘Exotic Dining’
Well, we tried it out back on 10 March, and this time we had the extra incentive of the infamous ‘2for1’/’4for2’ Card! After a slightly chaotic start where they took our orders and then five minutes later, asked if we wanted poppadums (err, twice!), we were rewarded with what was probably the best Indian food …
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Meal with Ian and Mags
Our three-monthly catch-up saw us frequenting The Swan at Lamport (or is it the Lamport Swan?) tonight. We haven’t been there since the last time we three got together back in December 2008 and I think we’d all forgotten how good the food was. I arrived around the same time as Mags and Ian followed …
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Lunch with Karen and Ralph
We drove up to The Queen’s Head in Belton today for lunch with Karen and Ralph. We haven’t been back there since 2010, and it’s a good ‘halfway-house for us all. It was good to catch-up, as we haven’t seen them since the Wedding! The weather was atrocious, going there and coming back (will it …
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Out and A Grout
A rather satisfying day here. As we waited for Noah and his Ark to turn-up :-), we passed the time by refreshing the bathroom – the major part being the re-grouting of the shower cubicle. Knowing my natural ability with DIY, this was a surprisingly good result!
Bobby Charlton (for Cats)/Frank and Helen’s Do
We dropped the cats off at Patsy’s today for their normal six-weekly wash and brush-up. It was much more of a challenge this time as Bon-Bon’s right-hand side had become completely matted over the past week or two – we think it must have been the damp weather. Amazingly, Patsy and her team – …
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The Joy of Framing
I drove over to Northampton today to pick-up our Wedding sketch of Kelmarsh Hall – it’s now been titled and framed by Joy, and looks really good! – Cheers Joy!!!!
“Supplementary, my Dear Watson…”
Fans of the recent BBC series: Sherlock may want to check-out series 1 on DVD. Tucked away on disc 2, is the series pilot, that was never shown on TV. Entitled, A Study in Pink, it shares the same title as the episode that was broadcast, but only runs for an hour (instead of the …
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Test Blog
Hello world! This is a test blog to try out a new facility that posts my blogs to my ‘wall’ on Facebook automatically. The previous script just posted a LINK to the Blog, so if you’re reading this on Facebook, it’s come from my Blog, so that means the technology is working! PS That reminds …
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The Outlook? Chilli with a chance of Alcohol!
Ann and I dropped into Jo and Janet’s tonight for a rather splendid Chill – accompanied by lashings of alcohol, and then followed by cheese. I haven’t had a chilli since before the start of Lent – and it was very welcome! Yummy! Yummy!
Concrete Evidence
Me – I hate concrete kerbs! – The car’s not too keen on them either!!!!
Lincoln for Lunch/The Ritual of ‘The Garage’
We drove up to Denis’ today for lunch. Bev was sorting out the main course whilst Ann took the raw ingredients for dessert. Neither disappointed and a few hours later we felt a lot heavier and very sleepy! A great meal girls – cheers!! As is traditional this time of year, we take on The …
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DVD: Hugo
We invited David round for Dinner tonight as Valerie is away in the USA. After stuffing ourselves with one of Ann’s humungous home-made Chicken pies (followed later by an equally sized Plum Crumble), we settled down to watch Hugo as our movie for the evening. Directed by Martin Scorsese, we weren’t sure what to expect. …
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The End of Lent (Phew!)
For me, Lent has now ended. Those close to me will know I’ve been steering clear of my 19 fave foodstuffs, since the beginning of Lent – 22nd February. How did I do? Well, for whatever reason, it’s been harder this year to remain on-track, and I did briefly succumb a couple of times – …
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Great Grouting, Shiny Knobs and Sky Anytime+!
A very productive and satisfying day here today! First stop was ASDA for a few shopping essentials and then to Wickes the necessary DiY bits. Next, the big task of the day was to tidy up the grouting in the kitchen – a job we’ve been planning for ages, but we just needed a period …
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Pre-Easter Break: Day 5 (Tuesday)
A beautifully bright morning that seemed to contradict the general weather forecast – lucky for us!!! It’s our penultimate day here at the Cottage, so we’re going to cram in as much as we can into our day. To start with, we’re off to Marlborough. Parking was easy as it was literally in the centre …
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Pre-Easter Break: Day 4 (Monday)
A frosty night here, but it looks as though it might warm up later. We’re off to Cirencester today- it’s only a short drive away and hopefully it doesn’t include any mega-complex roundabouts like yesterday! On the way there, we stopped off at the Barn in Great Coxwell – a 13th century, err Barn that’s …
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Pre-Easter Break: Day 3 (Sunday)
Today it’s Cardiff, by train. And what a bargain – £6.50 return each from Swindon! Heading towards Swindon Station was an interesting challenge! First, there was the infamous ‘magic roundabout’ – a mini-roundabout surrounded by five err, mini-roundabouts to navigate around. Good job it was a Sunday, as it took me a few revolutions to …
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Pre-Easter Break: Day 2 (Saturday)
We woke-up to a very misty morning here although the forecast is for a dry but cold day. And cold it was – f-f-f-f-freezing!!! As we boarded the Park and Ride it felt like Winter! After the short trip into Oxford, we got off the bus right opposite the Westgate Centre – perfect! After a …
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Pre-Easter Break: Day 1 (Friday)
Here we are staying at The Old Stable Lodge on the Coleshill Estate, Oxfordshire, courtesy of The National Trust. We arrived just after 11, quickly unpacked, had a quick look round the place and then headed out to Faringdon for lunch and a bit of exploration. We took a short walk around shops there and …
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Sky Anytime+
I see that Sky has made a small but significant change to the way their Sky Anytime+ product works for Sky TV customers. Sky Anytime+ allows customers to access thousands of movies and TV series via an internet connection. Originally, when the product was launched, the service was only available if you also has Sky …
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Birthday Girl
It’s Ann’s birthday today and together with Lee, we’re off to the Fortescue Arms in Billingborough to meet up with Denis, Bev and her bf, Liam for a celebratory lunch. It’s certainly doesn’t seem like a year ago that we were all at Club Diana in Wellingborough celebrating Ann’s ‘significant one’!!! Where has the past …
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Cambridge with Nicki and Lee
Nicki joined us for our day in Cambridge. As it turned out, the weather was just perfect – probably the warmest so far this year – 22 degrees – lovely!!!! We left around 11.30 heading for one of the Park-and-Rides. This was our first use of the service and we didn’t have to wait long …
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Fish and Chips – ‘Shoot that Pigeon!’
Tom, Julie, Paul, Trish, John, Rosi, David and Lee joined us for Fish and Chips tonight (Karen wasn’t able to join us as she’s in Manchester). It was the first proper opportunity we had to catch-up with the gang since the wedding and the conversation flowed freely (with a little help of Rioja and Moet!!!) …
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Lunch: The Granary, Peterborough with Alison
I met with Alison W, today at The Granary, Peterborough. We haven’t seen each other since July, last year and it was good to catch-up with each other’s news. As I’m trying to stick to my Lent List, I navigated successfully around the menu, avoiding the banned substances, and settling for chicken, whilst Alison chose …
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Ziggy Returns
I got the car back today. The paint ‘blister’ that had re-appeared on the rear bumper is no-more, and it all looks shiny-shiny! The body-shop stripped the car down removing the rear bumper and concluded that it was some debris on the cross-member ‘pushing’ into the bumper from the inside. They felt the blister had …
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London calling…
I took the train to London this afternoon to catch up with Antoinette and Philip. The original plan to get the original ‘gang of 5ive’ together faltered slightly as the others had various bits and pieces going on in their lives that prevented them from joining us. I arrived in London around 4.30 and that …
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