How do YOU do it?
Gosh, but it was a nice weekend, wasn't it? I hope you managed to get the most out of it. I capitalised on the sunny blessing in three ways:
(i) bought an outdoor table and chair set. For £50 (bargainlicious). They're green (as in the colour, not the environmental impact - although they are steel rather than illegally logged teak, which might help the old green credentials. But then steel is somewhat high energy to produce. Sigh. I suppose the environmentally sound solution would have been to go and salvage something from a skip. Or sit on the floor.)
(ii) went for a nice 10 mile walk around Elstead and Thursley in Surrey. The walk took in Thursley bog (Site of Special Scientific Interest, because scientists are apparently specially interested in boggyness) and the Pride of the Valley pub, which celebrates some famous Welsh person (can't remember which one at this precise moment, only that it was not Dylan Thomas). It has been rather expensively done up (quite nicely too), but unfortunately the overall ambience was ruined by having the CD on loop for the same two songs the entire time we were there. Even if these had been decent songs, the repetition would have been a tad painful, but sadly they were not (I think they were Atomic Kitten and Darius from pop idol, but this is slightly outside my area of expertise). I remain somewhat scarred by the experience.
(iii) had sunday brunch with a friend I haven't seen for ages at the Bluebird Cafe on the Kings Road. This venue is one of the Conran empire (albeit the cafe part is at the cheaper end of the spectrum). It was a nice surprise to be able to get a table in the sunshine without a wait on such a lovely day. The service was unbelievably inept, so we kept our nice table for close on two hours, despite a queue forming outside.
The slightly bizarre service didn't trouble us - everything arrived very slowly, but we were in no rush, and the antics of the waiting staff (and one very irate couple) provided endless amusement. A nice but slightly perplexed-looking young man wiped down our table about 5 times during the course of our visit, and also attended occasionally to move the salt and pepper pots to a different location on the table. In addition to our own orders, they attempted to serve us a number of items destined for other tables, including portions of chips, entire main courses, extra water, and even two glasses of champagne that were meant as apologies to the irate couple. We could have eaten like kings if we had been more on the ball.
Apart from these fun things, I also had the boss round for dinner and ran round Richmond Park again.
(i) bought an outdoor table and chair set. For £50 (bargainlicious). They're green (as in the colour, not the environmental impact - although they are steel rather than illegally logged teak, which might help the old green credentials. But then steel is somewhat high energy to produce. Sigh. I suppose the environmentally sound solution would have been to go and salvage something from a skip. Or sit on the floor.)
(ii) went for a nice 10 mile walk around Elstead and Thursley in Surrey. The walk took in Thursley bog (Site of Special Scientific Interest, because scientists are apparently specially interested in boggyness) and the Pride of the Valley pub, which celebrates some famous Welsh person (can't remember which one at this precise moment, only that it was not Dylan Thomas). It has been rather expensively done up (quite nicely too), but unfortunately the overall ambience was ruined by having the CD on loop for the same two songs the entire time we were there. Even if these had been decent songs, the repetition would have been a tad painful, but sadly they were not (I think they were Atomic Kitten and Darius from pop idol, but this is slightly outside my area of expertise). I remain somewhat scarred by the experience.
(iii) had sunday brunch with a friend I haven't seen for ages at the Bluebird Cafe on the Kings Road. This venue is one of the Conran empire (albeit the cafe part is at the cheaper end of the spectrum). It was a nice surprise to be able to get a table in the sunshine without a wait on such a lovely day. The service was unbelievably inept, so we kept our nice table for close on two hours, despite a queue forming outside.
The slightly bizarre service didn't trouble us - everything arrived very slowly, but we were in no rush, and the antics of the waiting staff (and one very irate couple) provided endless amusement. A nice but slightly perplexed-looking young man wiped down our table about 5 times during the course of our visit, and also attended occasionally to move the salt and pepper pots to a different location on the table. In addition to our own orders, they attempted to serve us a number of items destined for other tables, including portions of chips, entire main courses, extra water, and even two glasses of champagne that were meant as apologies to the irate couple. We could have eaten like kings if we had been more on the ball.
Apart from these fun things, I also had the boss round for dinner and ran round Richmond Park again.
posted by OboeJane at 7:43 am
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