Hubby received a Red Letter Day gift and, as is usually the case, it ended up costing us a small fortune!An Indian Cookery demonstration awaited us at the Zaika restaurant in London’s Kensington High Street and naturally, we didn’t want to travel up during the rush hour for the 10am start time. A bit of searching on-line found us a great deal at the Ashburn Hotel though, which was lovely and also well located, so we could leisurely make our way up town the night before. Knowing we’d be eating a four course Indian the next day, we settled for a light bite *coughs* at the Garfunkels along the road (there’s a blast from the past!) That's just the starter ...
... oh, well, we did enjoy it! We walked a bit of it off on our way to Zaika the next morning, including a short stroll through Kensington Palace Gardens – an unexpected pleasure, right opposite the restaurant.
Chef Sanjay Dwivedi is so passionate about food – I had the grace to avert my eyes when he ranted about Microwaveable packets of rice – and every morsel he dished up to us was perfect! I’m just waiting to print off the recipe cards now, so hubby can crack on with dinner ...
I'm cruising along quite happily, bang up straight on everything and then, wham! Piles of paperwork and ironing to sort through today!That's because I finally saw Les Miserables on Monday - which I've wanted to see since I first heard Susan Boyle sing I Dreamed A Dream on Britain's Got Talent (I wonder how many other viewers were inspired to check it out?) I did see the Through The Barricade show in a local theatre a little while after, but Cameron Mackintosh's production at The Queens Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue took my breath away. Jean Valjean and Javert were incredible, whilst Lucie Jones (remember her from X-Factor?) and Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers acquitted themselves very well. It's so moving and powerful and while you may think the subject matter a little depressing, the comic relief in the shape of the Innkeepers is brilliant - honestly, the wife could easily be Kathy Burke in character as Waynetta Slob, she was hysterical. GO SEE IT!Not just nights out either, on Tuesday morning I was attending the How To Do Your Self Assessment On-Line course (I never said it was all exciting stuff) before enjoying a very nice Nibble.101 at a local Chinese buffet - and collaring the teenager to take me there and back (which obviously cost me petrol. But it was nice to have some Tia Maria, I've missed it so ...) The MumUltrapreneur radio show I was interviewed for was aired on Thursday afternoon and then it was onto the girls-night-in-although-we're-actually-out fun night of the Mums in Biz meeting in the evening. A couple of exciting opportunities arose there, which I'll be exploring further!Finally, last night was the preview of an exhibition in our local art gallery - local artists creating pictures of each other, which took so many forms it was completely inspiring! Plasticine, film, paint, spam ... yes, spam! I feel like I'm beginning to catch up - two blogs down, website and one blog to go!
The office 'Summer Ball' incorporating a talent contest took place over the weekend - when I say 'the office' of course, I mean the whole building, plus another site so probably about 500 of us in total. The location was great - I shan't name them though, as it may well be that it was outside caterers that were responsible for the shocking, and I mean worse than anything I've ever served up, slop that was "presented" as dinner. Orange dishwater soup, limp rocket salad, old boot lamb, cold and grey vegetables. Yeeeuggghhh. The ice cream wasn't too bad but didn't get a sniff at any coffee and mints. Amateurs.
The lookalikes the company brought in were great though, Marilyn Monroe was so into character and the lovely young Elvis sounded the part too, he mingled with his guitar and my little group were serenaded with 'Teddy Bear', 'Love Me Tender' and 'Wooden Heart' (with us on backing vocals!) The Brad Pitt was friendly and chatty, which was more than enough for us all, since he really was the spitting image!
One of my fellow Sports and Social Club reps won the competition, singing Duffy's 'Warwick Avenue' - she's tiny; it was a surprise what a big voice she had. To round off, some of the managers had roped in a gang of staff and raided a local theatre's props box, to produce a fantastic tribute to 'Thriller'. The make up was quite incredible and they'd been rehearsing like mad. Funny, I never noticed they'd been missing all week. (Oops, bit controversial that! Oh, well. *shrugs*)
