Expensive barbie

Not so much a small doll with an impossibly thin figure, but a meal with food brought to you on a large skewer.

Saturday following Karens visit was Bev's 'Ladies who dine' evening; for the experience, we ate at the Brazilian restaurant. There were about 16 of us which most notably included 3 (real) girls from the salon Lisa usually frequents - it was their first time out to the Village, and especially a first time out with a group of T-girls.

But what makes a Brazilian restaurant so special? ... well, they bring you different portions of meat - chicken, beef, lamb, ribs, sausage .... each on a large skewer the size of a sword. The routine is you select your own salad etc. and then in succession, they bring each of the offerings to you. But that's all you get.... no starters or desert... don't get me wrong, it was 'OK'... but I did feel it was rather expensive for nothing more than a barbecue... £18.95 + a service charge... and any drinks you might have had on top.... since we were on non-alcoholic drinks, our modest contribution to the bill came to about £60.

The restaurant was also quite busy and the staff made mistakes with the bill - (accounted for more people than were in our group, added drinks we didn't have).... looking on the bright side, now we know what a Brazilian restaurant is like.... but would we go back .... hmmmm! ... never say 'never', but a likely 'NOT'.

From here we went on to Naps ... mostly in the hope it could improve (music and some of the clientele of recent hasn't been that great)... but alas not the case. Gonks prating about on the dance floor with beer cans in their hand; bouncers going after them for entering the staff-only areas (but completely being unable to identify them or deal with the 'drinks on the dance floor')... there was just an atmosphere in the air; one guy even thought he 'knew me', trying it on before I even got my coat off. We left quite early, probably about 12:30 - it was rubbish.!

Addendum to Karens visit
Oh... while I think about it!... I forgot to mention that during Karens visit, as we were walking back to the Village we passed one of my work colleagues in the street; as I expected, he didn't recognise me... but it was strangest feeling to (a) not to be noticed (b) be in the presence of someone I occasionally talk to back at the office as 'Bob'!

A lot to mention

It's been the best part of 2 weeks since Karen came to visit, combination of work and a nasty cold has prevented me from getting around to posting a bit about it all. As usual, the details fade a little into vague but happy memories....

Karen stayed for a few days this time, giving myself and Mrs Kate the opportunity to spend a couple of days with her.

Day 1
Karen had said she wanted to try out the train; living where we do gave her the perfect opportunity for a journey that was not too long and at a time that would avoid the commuter rush..... not something I would contemplate but give her due, she did it!

I collected her from the station and we went to the Trafford Centre to spend the day with Mrs Kate doing a bit of shopping. From my perspective, this was my second time to the centre dressed, but this time I was a lot more confident; it was also fairly quiet in the centre since the kids were in school and possibly others had been put off by the threat of snow that was affecting most of the country except Manchester.

BTW - Mrs Kate traveled separately in her car; we had agreed meet her in the coffee shop in the main entrance.

Needless to say we had a brilliant time, lunch in a cafe, several hours of browsing the shops - but not as many bargains as we had hoped since most of the sales had ended early owing to the pre-Christmas credit wobblies. Late afternoon I took Karen back to the Village and after dropping her off I realised that I would need to get some fuel for the car since it was likely I would need some for the return journey later on. Since I would hardly have the opportunity to do it as 'Bob' I thought I better find a filling station that wasn't so near to home.... but how would I cope?.... all the confidence obtained from being in the Trafford Centre was still giving me a high so I thought 'what the h...' and pulled in the first one I saw before I reaching the motorway out of Manchester.

So I did what I normally did, filled the car with super unleaded and then went to pay along with everyone else; business folk in their 'power suits', builders in their reflective jackets, factory workers... about 6 or 7 different folk in the queue; OK so I got a couple of second glances but no one gave me any hassle - even when I paid with Bobs credit card!

That evening we returned to the Village and the three of us had a lovely meal in Velvet; followed by a drink in the upstairs bar which was just right for a change - not crowded, good music and not too loud. I was feeling quite tired and we left quite early... for us that is... home by just after midnight.

Day 2
On the Wednesday, we did the Manchester Gallery - which wasn't too bad and we even managed to avoid the kids on a school trip!. There were a number of artsy pieces including the new Antony Gormley 'Filter' only installed the week before; the most coincidental/bizarre was an animated exhibit that a little old lady was taking quite an interest in. When we came across her, she asking one of the gallery staff why it wasn't working; the member of staff said they had been having some problems with it but all the same he turned it on, and the exhibit duly came to life. It transpired that the little old lady was the mother of the artist that created the exhibit.

Well, there's only so much culture one can take, and after viewing the various modern sculptures, buttons and pictures, we went for a sandwich and some shopping in the Arndale Centre. It's been quite a while since Mrs Kate and I had been in the centre of Manchester shopping, it's probably been as much as 15 years since our last visit!. So Karen was our guide for a change, and she directed us to an interesting shop that had a few bargains in; particularly some shiny purple leggings in my size!.

A top in Evans .... yes!... Evans!... and I thought that shop was home of the boring styles for the larger ladies... how wrong was I. The top and the purple shiny leggings were just ideal for our evening activities - we met up with a number of girls in Eden (Lisa, Emma, to name just a few). From there it was onto Concorde and Naps (where else!). But again, I was feeling a little tired and we made it as far as 2am this time... turned out that all this feeling tired from the days activities was the precursor for a nasty hold!

But as always, throughout, Karen was brilliant, always the lady that she is - and the thing she enjoyed the most? - it was that short journey by train!.

Normal service is resumed

The internet pixie couldn't fix Mrs Kates blog so she has started a new one at http://mrskatesmusings2.blogspot.com/

The old one still exists, Mrs Kate just can't access it anymore since she asked Blogger to reset her password, sending the change notice to her email account.

Unfortunately Mrs Kate has forgotten her password to that too and in pressing the 'forgotten password?' link too many times got herself permanently locked out.