Pastures new!

Sophie and I drove to Chichester today to see the play, The Unfriend, starring Amanda Abbington, Frances Barber and Reece Shearsmith. We'd seen Amanda Abbington on Saturday Morning Kitchen when she was promoting the play, and it sounded great!

The third rail strike was on today, and Keith kept warning us that the roads may be busier than usual, and every time I looked at Google maps, the duration of the journey was longer... we left at 9.15 am and took the A43, the M40 and then the A34 down to Southampton, the same route as we take to see Mike and Abbie.

The A34 was quiet but the traffic did get a lot busier when we went onto the M3. We were astounded at some of the fuel prices on the way down - a couple of garages were charging £2.04 a litre for diesel! That is the highest I have ever seen!

Once at Southampton, we turned left and drove towards Portsmouth along the coast. It was great to get a glimpse of the sea! Luckily, we made good time and arrived at a huge car park by the theatre at 12pm. We had booked a table for lunch at The Giggling Squid and had already made it for slightly later, but we had plenty of time. 

A very helpful man showed us how to work the car-park machine (!) and we walked for about fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant, which was situated on the busy main street. Chichester is a city but looks like a cosy village with some beautiful old houses lining the roads, and an ancient city wall.

We had a delicious lunch at The Giggling Squid and enjoyed prawn crackers with a spicy dip, spring rolls, dumplings and a Thai red curry. Our dish was called the Starving Squid, and we were!

The restaurant gradually filled up and there was a lovely, lunchtime atmosphere. We had plenty of time so we found room for pud and a coffee for me.

Warm mango cake served with ice cream... delicious!

We took a different route back to the theatre, passing along some gorgeously pretty streets lined with beautiful cottages and quirky, individual houses. The streets were very narrow and I'm glad we'd found a place to park so easily.

A lot of people were heading towards the Minerva Theatre and the place was already packed. We took our seats and we were delighted to discover how intimate the theatre was. The stage was part of the auditorium so people in the front row would have had a great experience!

The first scene took place on a cruise ship where our married couple meets Elsa. The scene then moves to their house in London, where she turns up unexpectedly early! It was a very funny play and dealt with how we Brits can be too polite for our own good!

It was great to see three famous actors, but the rest of the cast was brilliant as well, especially the actors playing the teenage son and daughter. We emerged into the early evening sunlight at about 5pm and headed home back the way we'd driven this morning. At one point we all came to a standstill on the M27 due to a heavy downpour of rain. The road looked like a river!

We had a lovely journey home (I do like the rolling countryside on the A34) and stopped just once to buy some water. We arrived home at about 7.30pm and sat talking to Keith with a drink while watching Glastonbury. 

Our lovely day was rounded off with cheese and biscuits, which I ate half-heartedly!