Hobnobbing with the aristos...

My shorter shift passed rapidly today, as I was busy with emails and orders, and I helped Angela and Shirley who were working. It was great to leave at 2pm and not have to go anywhere or do anything!

The mystery of all the subterfuge over the last couple of days was revealed today: we received a letter about our pay rise and notification that from now on, we'll get our birthdays off as part of our annual leave allowance, which I thought was a nice touch! Not a horrible letter, then, as we were fearing!

In the evening Sophie and I went out for a meal with our friend, Sue, to The Pig and Waffle in the village of Grafton Underwood, just outside Kettering. I had asked Keith to drive us as I fancied a couple of glasses of wine, and we picked up Sue first, driving to the pub through Kettering using our SatNav, Trish.

Keith didn't fancy going this way back to pick us up later, so he said he would follow Trish who had initially wanted us to go along the A14 and A43. He dropped us off, and we took a seat at a table away from the main dining room, but it was good because we could gossip and cackle to our hearts' content!

I ordered a bottle of Spanish Tempranillo and we perused the menu which was tapas dishes. There was an offer available - buy five dishes and get one free, so we ordered twelve in total (looking back this was more than enough!).

We ordered a wonderful selection, including Padron peppers, Spanish omelette, garlic mushrooms, bread and olives, chicken smothered in cheese and chicken cooked in a honey and mustard dressing, patatas bravas, meatballs and chicken croquettes. Phew! The food was very, very good indeed. One of the chefs is Spanish, the other is Mexican, and they certainly know what they're doing! The tapas dishes were better than I've eaten in Spain.

We were so busy eating, drinking the delicious wine (we had two bottles) and gossiping that I forgot to take photos! After the tapas we managed to find room for dessert - I enjoyed an Apricot and Pistachio Frangipane, Sophie had a Black Forest Waffle and Sue chose the sticky toffee pudding. We were certainly stuffed by the time we finished!

Sue very kindly had organised a little treat for Sophie's upcoming birthday, a profiterole with a candle surrounded by mini smarties sweets. What a lovely touch!

I'd phoned Keith when our desserts arrived to ask him to pick us up, and I went to the window once or twice to see if he'd arrived. We paid the bill and he still hadn't appeared but I knew it was about half an hour from home to the village.

He arrived after about forty minutes, and when we got into the car he was in a bit of a state. He'd slavishly followed Trish who had indeed taken him onto the A14 and then the A43 towards Geddington. Just before Geddington, she told him to turn right but in the dark, he couldn't see that this was, in fact, a private road going to the Boughton House estate. He had followed a car up the lane and didn't see the gate, but when he reached the next one it was closed. He got out of the car and read the sign which said it was private land and to call a number. He hadn't got his glasses with him so could barely read the sign or the numbers on his phone, but he managed to get through to someone, who demanded to know why he was on private property! The man he spoke to sounded a bit posh... was it the owner, the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry? 

Poor Keith turned around and headed back the way he'd come, armed with the code he'd been given to open the first gate, but it wouldn't work so he had to phone the man again! He said he was so relieved when he finally got out of the place and found his way to Grafton Underwood to collect us! We had no network on our phones at all at the pub and I'd had to borrow the landline phone to call Keith, so I have no idea what we'd have done if he hadn't turned up!