Knutsford & Otford – 8th August

Claire and I were up very early to get ready for our busy working day on Thursday 8th August in Knutsford. I ate muesli, half a croissant and a sausage and bacon muffin for breakfast with a couple of cups of tea. We drove to Claire’s work where she signed me in with the meticulous health and safety security man and I got positioned in the delightful kitchen/canteen area. I was so happy when Claire told me to help myself to hot drinks and that the hot chocolate was amazing. For future reference, I found 3 was probably one too many. I also had a couple of herbal teas and worked for a few hours in my new office. Mr Meticulous came in a few times to risk assess me and warn me of the plague of people due to hit the area at noon – that was actually Claire and her colleagues and there were certainly no more than 12 of them. MI5 was definitely missing a trick, not having this employee!
When we finished at noon, Claire had a client meeting and I wanted to attempt to close that bank account at Nationwide. We parked in Knutsford town, where I had been before, and I walked down the main road, Claire went the opposite way but gave me the car keys thinking I wouldn’t be too long. She was correct, as the Knutsford branch of Nationwide was closed today! Instead, I went to the post office to change some US Dollars where I only got £187.50 for $270 and I thought that wasn’t great. I tried to get in touch with Claire to see if she needed anything getting for the journey back but noticed my phone didn’t seem to be working. I topped up my GiffGaff SIM with another £10 for good measure and hoped it would work but there was still no signal. I sat in the car as it had started to rain and Claire arrived shortly after for us to set off back to Kent.

On the way back we stopped for petrol and I bought some healthy food at South Corley services, here’s what I bought with prices in pounds;

Waitrose Supermarket
Strawberries £3.25
Blueberries £3.75
Taiko Yasai Poke bowl £6.50
Total spent £13.50

The salad (poke bowl) had edamame in with all sorts of veg/salad and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Once eaten, I was back to concentrate on our Caraoke!!! Claire and I sang pretty solidly for about 3 and a half hours and had a right laugh. Back home, we were running late but luckily had timed it right with our arrangements for a meet up with another friend.

Clare had come over on the train from London, following her after-work drinks and we were off to the local India restaurant. Our fine dining experience at the Tamarind restaurant was so good and here’s what we had with prices in English;

1 pickle tray £2.10
1 Garlic Naan £2.95
1 pilau rice £3.95
1 Coconut rice £4.10
1 Mushroom Bhaji £4.10
1 Matar paneer £4.10
6 popadoms £4.20
1 pint Magners £4.95
1 pint Kingfisher £5.10
1 bottle of Cobra £5.50
1 Lamb Bhuna £7.95
1 chicken tikka masala £9.95
1 chicken Khorai £9.95
Side dish – free
3 Bailey’s – free
3 Baby Guinness shots – free
Total cost £68.90

I thought the meal, at less than £23 each, was an absolute bargain and tasted so good, we even took some home for me and for Mark for the next day. It was a lovely meal but the restaurant was very warm and we are ladies of a certain age so we didn’t hang about, apart from to partake in the free Baileys and shots of Baby Guinness, obviously. Outside was cold and dark on the way home but it was nice to have some fresh air. Clare doesn’t work Fridays so we had arranged to go in to town while the other Claire was working tomorrow and I was going to also meet up with Holly’s mom, Lynda, who didn’t live far away.