We’ve known our friends Anne and Steve for well over thirty years. Tim was at Loughborough University with them in the mid 70's. After this they moved to Kent to take up teaching jobs and have been there ever since. We are Godparents to all of each others children, and until we bought a home in France have shared at least one main holiday together every year.
We decided to meet up at a hotel in Milton Keynes to celebrate my birthday, and Anne's, which is tomorrow. We've met here before as it happens to be about equidistant between our homes; the hotel is quiet, really comfortable with a leisure complex and magnificent breakfasts!
Milton Keynes is famous for it's concrete cows. These are the 'original' ones, but now even fake ones are found grazing in a number of places!
We've had a lovely time catching up on news, wandering around the shops and taking a brisk walk along the canal at Stoke Bruerne. We finished the day with a tasty meal at the Raymond Blanc Brasserie.
I didn't take many photographs, but here is just a snapshot of our day .............
Anne, Steve and Helen ....
Some stalls at a vintage and handmade fair ...
These gifts are called ‘nappy cakes’ and consist of a pack of muslin nappies and other gifts for a new baby all dressed to look like a cake!
Having an audience, Tim was brave enough to suggest that he would buy this vintage sign for me ....
An insurance job or the loss of a someone's pride and joy?
Staring into the abyss .... a 2.8km tunnel through which boats would have been ‘walked’, with the crew lying down and pushing the walls with their feet to move the boat forward.
The Raynond Blanc Brasserie .....
I forgot to take photographs of most of our meal but it was all delicious. This is Tim's beef provencal .....
It's now time for another one of those magnificent breakfasts!!!
Raymond Blanc. Wow, how fancy! Wish I could have been there. But then I have no birthday to celebrate (mine's in April). Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
ReplyDeleteWhat's a muslin nappy and what do you do with them? The only cloth nappies I have ever encountered are towelling. There are great swathes of childrearing that I am completely unfamiliar with and it is amazing how often something I have never heard of comes up in conversation.
ReplyDeleteHi Susan,
ReplyDeleteThe muslin nappies seemed to be the ones you throw over your shoulder when you are winding a baby after a feed. The baby almost always regurgitates some of the milk and the nappy is there to mop it up.
I'm afraid to say that with my children I wasn't very 'green' and used the disposible ones. I'd perhaps make a different choice today!
Martine,
ReplyDeleteI did have a lovely birthday weekend, although we did come home earlier on Sunday than we had originally planned. Tim was suffering from 'man flu'! Actually he wasn't well all weekend but manfully struggled on ......
or even disposable!
ReplyDelete