The Pontefract Castle
Home
Pictures
The Pontefract Castle, including the pontefract castle in my blog, any mentions of the pontefract castle in my family tree and the pontefract castle in Folkestone.
Blog / forum etc:
Oct15
Pictures
Great as in really good and great as in just enormous, fitted quite a lot in. Clare was out in London Friday night, and had got a hotel so I was planning to meet her later and we'd stay over so as to have a nice Saturday there too. Work is busy as ever and I was not intending to leave early, but the trains worked out that way so I snuck out at half four. Not sure what it is about the trains to and from work, if I miss my regular train in there is a 90 minute gap in service, and if I'd not got this 5pm from Westenhanger to London there would be a similar sort of wait. Planned to meet Camilla (of Popbitch) at 7.30 at The Lord Nelson and then maybe try and find Kosso somewhere, I knew he was at the FOWA conference in the day. Pleasant ride up, the train did get busy, I watched and listened to podcasts and things all the way, catching up on Collings and Herrin and Diggnation. Love the Richard Herring and Andrew Collings one, chaotic and interesting and probably most importantly British so I feel I can relate to it. I don't like the Diggnation one at all, but there is something compelling about it, I can see why it is popular. Anyway as I was watching it, they mentioned the FOWA conference and said they'd be doing a live broadcast from there, come along, free drinks for all etc, it was actually on that Friday at 7.30. Had made plans for that time and did not go, but it made me wish I'd investigated what was going on in town before that point...
Had a great evening, met Camilla in the Lord Nelson in Southwark. Looks like a frightening estate pub, very close to where I used to live on Nicholson Street. I never went in there then, and don't think I would have now if it weren't prearranged, but it's great inside. Real ale, cocktails, food probably, cool, really very nice. Interesting mix of people too. The owners were people I'd met before, we were plied with their cocktails, including an interesting Frangelica and lemon concoction and a home made Fox's Glacier Mint shooter. Plus the beer there was good, which I'd not have guessed from outside, Black Sheep.
Leaving there I stopped in at Gordon's Wine Bar for one to see what it was like now, I remember it being very smokey before. It's a cellar bar near Charing Cross, a proper wine bar too, though they seem to concentrate mostly on sherry and port now. Nice, but I was on my own so didn't hang about. Instead of trying to meet Clare with her friends for last orders I headed back to our hotel, the Radison Hampshire on Leicester Square. Yes, five star luxury, get us! Hard to beat that location for the kind of things we like to do in London. Small room, but fully equipped, and the view was amazing. If only Clare hadn't lost the camera (she says it was me) I'd have some great pictures of the view, not sure the phone pic will come out.
Saturday was a good day too, a reasonably early start with a view to having an early lunch so we could try to do the double - each time we're in London for the day we think we're going to have lunch out and dinner out, but tend to fill up at the first sitting and go home before we've managed two meals out. We shopped a bit and went to The National Gallery, which I really like. So much to see and all for a voluntary contribution. Not sure of the order of the rest of the day, but we also fed squirrels in St James' Park and had lunch in Covent Garden Wagamama. The park was heaving, nice sunny day, the squirrels were friendly, but oddly different on either side of the park. Over the East side where we went in they were mad for the monkey nuts we'd brought but on the West side they were very fussy, makes you wonder if there are different tribes of squirrels or something.
More shopping in the afternoon, thought about buying a new coat, maybe one of these but dawdled about it and now can't find the one I liked online. Spent quite a while in Selfridges which is always interesting, and then stopped for a break in the Pontefract Castle. England vs Kazakhstan was on but we sat down in the cellar bar. I've mentioned it before, it's a nice relaxing spot for being so close to Oxford Street. We regrouped for a while then finally headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags, nice to not have to lug them about all day but also not have to pay a mint to leave them in left luggage. I could have probably managed with mine, I travel fairly light, but I wouldn't fancy carrying Clare's makeup bag around all day (just seeing if she's reading down this far).
We really planned to head to the Punjab but Pizza Express was nearer and we could get home an hour earlier by going there so it won out.
Train back was busy but bearable. Great weekend, like I already said.
Oh at some point we saw Michael Gambon, think it must have been in the morning. I am in trouble with the nephews for not getting his autograph, they are going autograph crazy at the moment, and with him being in the Harry Potter films now it would have been a good one, gah.
Comment / reply
Nov18
Pictures
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 HHA'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 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 Club, 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 www.wagamama.com, 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 camera, 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 month, 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.
2007 :: Comment / reply
Also there's an xml feed of the pontefract castle, a JSON feed, and a KML feed of the pontefract castle , the pontefract castle on Your Folkestone.
Hope you found what you're looking for, if not please leave a message about "the pontefract castle".
Add the pontefract castle as a venue here, help me out, and the next person.
Google the site here
