Catch up

Well this is going to be a relatively short blog (hopefully uploaded first time of writing)  following up on two recent postings. The first concerned a hopeless Xmas lunch we had at a local pub/restaurant where the management had invited us to a complementary second meal to showcase their real capabilities. Ooh would it prove to be A1 or just OK or NFG again? The second was all about my continuing hopeless relationship with technology  and yet another visit to the Genius bar at my local Apple store in Kingston. Would they be able, a la Chris Martin, to ‘fix me’ and my lovely but sick iMac desktop? Or would I find myself contemplating jumping off the top floor of the Bentalls store car park in desperation at losing all my personal and business data, unbacked-up for the last 5 years? Well I guess you can tell I didn’t jump but was it a happy ending?

Advertisement

daughters eh

Yesterday was our second daughter E’s 30th birthday. 30! I know it’s a cliche but it doesn’t seem 5 minutes since she was starting school. Another cliche is how old does that make us feel too…When R was 30 we threw a big party for her at home – she’d been looking forward to it from the day after she was 21 and it was a major event in her life. E’s situation is very different of course; she’s married with children of her own and E wasn’t expecting a major fuss from us. But we’d been planning a bit of a surprise with her husband S for a couple of weeks. Yesterday afternoon we flew in to the UK  got a car and bombed down to Brighton. The boys are away for the weekend and S was taking E to this great restaurant called ‘Bill’s Produce’. When they arrived we were already there along with our other daughter S and husband I. I’m sure E must have realised some surprise was cooking when earlier in the afternoon she called C on her mobile as she couldn’t reach us on our home phone in Italy. We were just checking in to the hotel in Brighton and this flock of seagulls were squawking overhead and clearly audible to E. We don’t get many seagulls in the montains in le Marche. Anyway we had a fantastic evening. If you get the chance give Bill’s a try; great food and wine, service and atmosphere.

pp   

gk and m, l and s

Well we spent Saturday night at our good friends G and M’s. They threw a Xmas dinner party and old friends J & D, and J & G were there too. As ever G and M were excellent hosts – great food (the scallops on pureed pea starters were wacky and brilliant M), loads of wine (too much for me as usual) and great chat with good company.