Wednesday 8 April 2009

Wedding; sanitised pubs; Slumdog Millionaire

It was lovely weather on Saturday for Kate’s wedding at the Newbury Manor Hotel. The experience with the Newbury Manor was completely the opposite of my recent experience with the Princess on Portland in Manchester (see 4 March entry), in that this time the hotel was much nicer than (for some reason) I had been expecting. The hotel used to be called Millwaters (I always wanted to call it Milliways, but that was the Restaurant at the End of the Universe) – I’m not sure when it was renamed. It’s a lovely venue for a wedding, certainly. Our room looked out onto a little courtyard garden with stone nymphs and bamboo - all quite charming.

Ruth and I enjoyed breakfast on Sunday at the River Bar Restaurant in the former watermill on the site - lovely setting although as it’s literally on the river I’d be a bit worried if the river was high after a downpour. I compensated for unexpectedly missing out on my smoked salmon starter at the wedding breakfast by having smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Very nice too.

On our way back on Sunday we stopped off at the Rowbarge in Woolhampton for a lunchtime drink, only to make the somewhat depressing discovery that it’s been taken over by the Blubecker’s chain and is now consequently remodelled, sanitised and family-friendly. They took over the previously-lovely Pack Horse at Chazey Heath a year or so ago, too. Bl**dy hell. I suppose it’s marginally better than the pubs having to close.

Went last night for a nice pre-film dinner at Prezzo with Claire, Helen and Ali, and then to see Slumdog Millionaire at the Town Hall. I made the mistake of trying on two pairs of jeans in Oasis beforehand and promptly felt depressed and fat, which I compensated for by ordering a rather too rich dinner of crab cakes in saffron cream accompanied by house fries. The Victoria Hall is an atmospheric venue for watching a film although the school assembly-type seating is a bit too crammed together for comfort. Hard to criticise the film itself I suppose given that it’s won so many awards, but I found it a bit unsatisfying, possibly because I’d managed to get the impression that it’s a feel-good movie, which it isn’t. Certainly it’s a happy ending in that he wins and gets the girl, but I didn’t feel that compensated for the preceding hour and a half of relentless misery – and also, the fact that Jamal gets Latika at the end is obviously meant to be the main point, but I wanted more conclusive evidence that Jamal had actually been able to bank his winnings and buy himself a nice house ….

My resolve to become more green-fingered has got off to a cautious start by sprinkling some slug pellets on the hostas, which have started to come through. I was gratified yesterday to find two dead slugs and a dead snail in the pots. Long may the slaughter continue. Cheeky gits.