Today Keith and I celebrated 31 years together and the plan had been to go to Whitby with the children to have fish and chips. However, we awoke to a grey, drizzly day and when I checked Google maps it told me it would take three and a half hours to get to the seaside town! I really didn't feel like sitting in the car for seven hours just for fish and chips!
We then looked at Aldeburgh but the time to get there was three hours so after a lot of deliberation, we opted to go to Milton Keynes instead! I needed to take my recycling to a place there anyway, so we could kill two birds with one stone, and we looked at cinema listings to see what was showing. I was delighted to see that Cold Pursuit starring Liam Neeson was on at Cineworld at about 2pm!
We all got ready and left the house at about 10.30am. I had downloaded the directions to Charity Recycling MK and found the house very easily. I left bags of Tassimo pods, crisp packets, pet food pouches and wet wipe wrappers/toothbrushes/toothpaste tubes, all to be recycled by Terra Cycle!
We parked in the multi-storey as it was easier to pay at the end of our day and had a coffee and snack in Costa before mooching around the shops. Sophie bought some jewellery in Accessorize. Before heading over to the cinema we had a look in John Lewis and I was amazed at how many Gins were for sale in there!
The walk across to Xscape was horrible as it was raining and windy. Where has all the beautiful weather gone? We bought the tickets and as we had half an hour to kill we had some drinks at a nearby Mexican restaurant. Sophie and I had a Margarita while the boys enjoyed beers, but I'm not sure if our cocktails had any alcohol in them!
I absolutely loved the film and really enjoyed the black humour running through it. Liam Neeson was great as the father out for revenge and the scenery was stunning. It's a movie I could easily watch again!
We emerged into the late afternoon sunlight and had a quick look around the shops before returning to the car. Sophie managed to sit in two Teslas and had a dreamy look on her face! One day! Which reminds me, there was a display of Aston Martins outside John Lewis and the prices were astronomical!
We drove in heavy traffic to Grafton Regis where we had decided to eat dinner. We've been past The White Hart many times but never been in. We arrived at two minutes to six but they weren't open so we waited in the car and finally went in with a couple who had arrived at the same time as us. We later found out were on their first date...just like Keith and I 31 years ago!
The pub was cosy with low ceilings and old-fashioned decor but the lady behind the bar was very friendly. The only problem for me was the smell when we entered...we later discovered it was dog as a large boxer dog appeared behind the bar!
Mike and Keith had Abbot Ale while Sophie and I ordered a bottle of Chenin Blanc so we could share (and take any we didn't drink home with us). The menu looked interesting and they had vegan and vegetarian options, which pleased Sophie!
As we perused the specials we couldn't help overhearing the other couple near us who were obviously getting to know one another! I think I would have preferred to have sat somewhere more private as we could hear every word they said, and of course, all four of us were interested!
We chose our meals - Keith and Sophie had garlic bread to start while Mike chose battered King Prawns and I went for breadcrumbed mushrooms, which turned out to be huge and battered! Keith opted for fish and chips for his main course, Mike went for steak pie while Sophie and I both chose the mushroom curry and rice served with a poppadom and mango chutney.
The food was good and very plentiful so we didn't have any room for dessert. We took the wine home with us as there was a good glassful left and I enjoyed it while relaxing on the sofa. We'd had a brilliant day and the good thing was that I still had an almost full tank of diesel!
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