Is it Saturday...or Sunday?

I was determined to get out of the house today as although yesterday was lovely and very relaxing, I couldn't do it every day!

I asked Sophie to come up with somewhere to go because every suggestion I made was met with disapproval. In the end we decided to go to Beckworth Emporium for lunch, along with what seemed like hundreds of other people! We rarely have to leave the car in the overflow car park, but today we did which gave us a hint as to what the place would be like inside!

We queued for about twenty minutes to get a table in the restaurant and we had a great view of the ice-skating rink, with loads of people moving in perpetual circles, their breath clouding in the bitterly cold air. One young girl was obviously a pro as she glided effortlessly around on the ice, doing little twirls and skating backwards. Both of us secretly wanted her to fall flat on her face as she was showing off a bit in front of some hopelessly bad skaters and I asked Sophie what it was about us Brits that hated show-offs?!

Sophie had a chicken sandwich while I settled for some pate and toast and very good it was, too! After we'd eaten we avoided the Christmas section where the decorations were being offered at 50% off (huh!) and bought some food for the hungry birds.

I contemplated driving somewhere else but I was low on diesel so we went home  and just as I was sitting relaxing, Mikey called to ask me to pick him up from Brixworth where he'd been all day.

In the evening Keith and I decided to return to Brixworth to go to The Coach and Horses pub, somewhere that had almost been our local over twenty years ago when we both lived in Northampton. When we moved to Walgrave, we never went back!

First impressions weren't good as there was an all pervasive smell of dirty bodies and fustiness and the place looked like it hadn't been decorated or changed in any way since we'd last been in (we'd had my 21st Birthday meal here, so you can imagine how long ago that was!). There were a group of youngsters at the bar who obviously had been there for a while and although they weren't rude, one of them was extremely drunk.

The lounge bar was empty apart from us and the party of young 'uns, and a television played to itself in the corner. Behind Keith a fruit machine flashed and dazzled us and I asked Keith if we could just have the one drink and go somewhere else. It had not been a good choice! The pub was tatty and down at heel and I wondered what on earth had happened? This used to be our favourite place to go!

We finished our drinks and went back to The White Horse, but we'd both forgotten that there was a special "12 Nights of Christmas" meal going on and the place was packed to the gunnels. Our neighbours, Sue and Paul, were sitting at the bar and we chatted to them for a while before moving to our seats in the window as I seemed to be in everyone's way!

After just the one drink we headed home, Keith and the children to have turkey curry while I had a prawn one (leftover from our Christmas Day starters!). After dinner we watched the first episode of Top Gear's adventure in Patagonia - the very controversial Christmas special!