One Hundred And One Things

If you were wondering, Holy Trinity Church, Guildford, is indeed my regular church. Guildford Shakespeare Company, however, is worth seeing wherever it performs. (In the summer they do outdoor performances. I'm thinking of taking a picnic.)

So, once I'd finished my first aid training, I wandered back into the centre of Guildford and met countertony for dinner at Pizza Express. Olives, pizza rustichella, and tartufa di cioccolato. (Dull, I know, but it does count.) We then wandered over to the church, and watched Marcellus and Barnardo patrolling the stage until 7.30.

It was a good performance. Hamlet is not my favourite Shakespeare, or even my favourite Shakespeare tragedy (though at least it wasn't Romeo and Juliet again!) but I did enjoy this version. For me, Claudius and Polonius were the most convincing; Hamlet himself didn't quite live up to my expectations, though I don't know exactly what my expectations were! Ophelia was very shouty all the way through and then surprised me by moving me almost to tears in the mad scene.

I think the great success in this production lay in the emphasis on the military side of things: a kingdom constantly under the threat of war (and the stylised 1930s costuming went a long way to help with this) and cracking under the strain. I could have done with less of the Doctor Whoesque incidental music, at least at the volume they were playing it. And I could really have done with a cushion.



Then, yesterday morning, I was wandering around the charity shops of Woking, and came across my little black dress. The photo above is a detail of the beading at the waist. It's a John Rocha design for Debenhams, tags still attached, in my size, for £15.99. Sixteen quid is a lot for a charity shop - but it's cheap for an unworn 'designer' dress.

I wore it to a party last night. The party was in Reigate and, while it's possible to get home from Reigate after nine o'clock, if you don't want to take two hours and go round via Clapham Junction, it's more sensible to throw yourself on the mercy of your friends who happen to live ten minutes' drive away, near Redhill.

Said friends put me up for the night, and I spent this morning raiding their back-up drive for photos. I've now got copies of all the pictures I could possibly need for my scrapbook of other people's weddings. As for the scrapbook of my own wedding, it's almost finished. I just need to get prints of a couple of photos from my hen night.

That apostrophe implies possession rather than contraction. This is Jamie [Oliver]'s Italian restaurant, one of many, in what used to be the Fopp building in Guildford. (And kudos for saving that; it was very sad to see it all shut up, because it's a very endearing little roundhouse.) We all got booked in there for the works Christmas do, and the set menu was as follows:

- glass prosecco: very drinkable

- antipasto 'planks' - propped up on cans of tomato purée in a terribly twee-rustic fashion. No complaints about the content, mind - and, given most of the people at my table were off pork for one reason or another, I got more than my fair share of rather fantastic ham.

- main: well, there was pork, bream, chicken or gnocchi. I had the pork, which was slow-cooked, very tender, with very nice stuffing. With polenta chips (dull), spinach (jolly good, I thought, though one colleague thought it a bit over-garlicked), butterbean/carrot/tomatoey broth. Not bad at all.

- pudding: again, a choice. Mine was 'tutti-frutti tiramisù', which definitely contained many fruits, but, not containing any coffee, wasn't really what I'd expect of a tiramisù. It was effectively a trifle. That said, I think I had the best of the three. (I like trifle, after all.) The other choices were chocolate cake with red wine sorbet (I tasted the sorbet, which was a bit odd and not really as effective as it was trying to be, but not the cake), and lemon curd (I would have been very disappointed with this; it wasn't lemony at all.)

- mince pies - made with filo pastry, but otherwise inoffensive. A bit rich after all the above, though.

In short: a pleasant meal, but not so overwhelmingly great that I'd be falling over my feet to go there again. I'm rather pleased that work paid half. It was pretty good for fifteen quid, but I'm not sure that I'd say the same for thirty. And colleagues are saying, what about having Thai next year?

Why do I want to do this?

I like food. I much prefer eating decent food to eating boring food when I have the chance, and not having to a) think about it; and b) cook it; is something I very much enjoy.


How will I know I've done this?

I'll have eaten six meals (of at least two courses each) at restaurants. Two of these meals will have been eaten at restaurants I've not visited before.


I'll record this in posts in this journal.

[One - Charlie Choy's (new to me)] [Two - Jamie's Italian - new to me] [Three - Rumwong - new to me] [Four - Pizza Express] [Five - Da Mario's - new to me] [Six - Shabab Pavilion - new to me] [bonus Seven - Safran - new to me]