How many trips to the tip?

Six, actually!

We've had a very busy day and we've finally cleared all the branches and shrubs that Slasher Keith cut down the other week. To be honest, it helped that Paul and Sue took a lot of the greenery to reinforce their garden hedge to stop their two doggies escaping! We'd already had one bin emptied but Keith had filled it again so we taped it closed and put it in the back of my car along with a tub full of branches and twigs.

We took this to the tip, emptied it and returned with two more binfuls! The other three trips were to take old wooden furniture that we'd stacked behind the garage, including a hammock that had gone all mouldy and two deck-chairs that we'd never used! Why we keep so much rubbish I'll never know!

That's a bit better!

By the time we returned the back of my car resembled a field! It was a good job I never got around to hoovering it out the other day! We had lunch and then I gave the inside of my car a really good clean before finally relaxing as by now it had turned really chilly.

In the evening the three of us went into town to visit The Artizan pub as we'd heard it had been refurbished and was selling a good range of beers. Unfortunately, we'd forgotten that England were playing France in a crucial rugby match and the pub was full of drinkers who'd obviously been there quite a while! We stood and had a drink for a short while before moving on to The Princess Alexandra where we'd had an enjoyable evening last Friday with Sue and Paul.

The beer that I'd enjoyed so much was, sadly, not available, so I tried an Icelandic Porter which was OK, but not nearly as nice as the Neopolitan Milk Stout. Maybe it was a good thing as I was driving tonight! Sophie liked the pub and she tried a couple of different beers, including one which was heavily laced with honey. They had so many bottles of beer to choose from and we'll definitely be going back there again soon.

Our last stop of the evening was the Balti again and I had a bit of trouble parking outside, managing to hit a lampost before Keith got out of the car and parked it for me! What made it worse was that it was very dark but every time I tried to get the car into position, another vehicle loomed up behind me and put me off! Luckily I didn't do any damage to my rear bumper but my ears were a bit damaged from Keith getting angry!

The Balti was packed to the rafters but we took a table by the window and chose from the extensive menu. Keith and I went for a milder dish than we'd had last week and Sophie chose a very garlicky chicken dish that she said was delicious. Our beverage accompaniment tonight was just plain water!