Splendid weekend, a bit different this time, starting off with a half day on Friday. I headed to Winchester to meet up with some friends, and really needed the extra time to make the most of the night. Clare stayed home watching Children in Need after a particularly hard week at work organising The HHA1's AGM, luckily it went AOK, AFAIK. Fairly easy train rides there, I didn't bother loitering anywhere in London, as there was a train ready to take me to Winchester as soon as I got to Waterloo, so I was there before anyone else was out of work. Had a walk around, it's a very nice city. I scoped out where we'd be going later, and then ended up in a great pub The Westgate Hotel, that I'd like to return to soon, maybe for a curry, as they have a connected Indian restaurant, unusual. Not sure it's the type of place my friends there would like though, they are after swanking London style bars which apparently there are not many of in Winchester, which surprised me. We went out to the newly opened Pitcher and Piano, which was nice, but as with any new bar a bit too busy so maybe service was a bit slower than it could have been. Then, on to my first curry of the weekend.
I can't remember what last time's curry at Winchester's Gurkha Chef was like, but I do know the name and that we went there, as I looked up the old blog post (Wow from over four years ago) and emails and things and knew that we were going to a different place this time. So, Gurkha Kitchen it was then. I like Winchester Curry Club2, some guys who review, uh, can you guess? They seem to say that Gurkha Kitchen is the best place in town, but I didn't think it was that great. My food was OK, nice and spicy anyway, but I wasn't sure about the carrot chutney we got with our popadoms, and the place generally seemed a bit faded. Still, the company more than compensated, nice to see so many friends at once, even though being on the end of the table rather than the middle, I didn't get to join in all the conversations. Took a few pictures in there, they didn't really turn out so well though, still getting used to this new camera. After the curry we had time for a cheeky night cap in a pub possibly called The Royal Oak, and then back to Rich and Miriams, as they were generously hosting me for the evening. Next morning I had a replacement bus service part of the way, so it took me a good couple of hours to get back to London, where I was meeting Clare for a days fun.
After a coffee, so we could sit down and plan out the days hilarity, time for lunch. For a very rare treet, we went to Wagamama, the one in Soho though, so really it was a completely different Saturday lunch for us, and not exactly the same as we always have. We met Emma, and shared a free bottle of wine, which was the promo of the day from wagamama.com3, very nice. In the afternoon we sort of shopped, we were on a bit of a mission for something specific that we completely failed in, so we did some general ambling about, and went in some pubs. Oh we did manage to buy a case for our new camera4, but that was about it I think.
Best pub of the afternoon was The Pontefract Castle, very nice there, and quite calm and relaxed (in the downstairs bar anyway) considering how close we were to Oxford Street I hardly ever go for a curry these days, but next day we had another, in possibly the best curry house in London, if not the world, The Punjab. I had vegetable kofte and "Grandad's Special Dahl" which I always have I think, delicious, I should have ordered more rice and maybe a bread too.
Last stop of the night was The Intrepid Fox, at it's new (well new to me anyway) location under Center Point. Heavy Metal all the way, we weren't really dressed for it but we had a great time.
Long journey home on the vomit comet, I slept all the way though which passed the journey marvellously. We did try and get another drink for the journey, but by quarter past eleven none of the shops near the station were selling alcohol, I'm sure it never used to be this strict. We didn't really want it anyway, and not having that extra one means we feel fine and dandy today. Cold, man it's freezing here, but good.
Chili for dinner, and a film of some sort, maybe a costume drama or something. We have no crime to watch, Amazon have been rather letting us down recently in terms of how quickly they turn around our DVD rentals. That's how they can afford to do unlimited DVD rentals for 9.50 per month4, you only get one at home at a time for that price.
Back to work tomorrow. We fitted a lot in, which made the weekend go even quicker. I feel sure I've missed out some stuff, but I've been on the computer too long today. I must emphasise again how nice it was to see friends that I don't see very often this weekend, and I am looking forward to the next social. Shame it's such a long way for me to travel, but easier than trying to get them all down here in Folkestone I suppose.
Paul Clarke's blog - I live in Hythe in the deep South. Wed to Clare and dad to two, I am a full-stack web engineer, + I do js / Node, some ruby, python, php etc. I like pubs, running, eating, home automation + other diy jiggery-pokery, history, genealogy, Television, squirrels, pirates, lego, and TIME TRAVEL.