Paltry outings in 2020

Well, it’s a new year, and we can all put dreary old 2020 behind us. Oh, wait.

While obviously we recognize there are worse problems to have (yawn), both Ruth and I are becoming increasingly desperate for a night away. Anywhere. Over the last few months I’ve found myself gazing longingly at a new Premier Inn right by the A34 at Botley, as I drive past on my way down to Reading. Who needs a view. Clearly, a substandard Beefeater-style dinner and a different view out of the window (albeit of a trunk road) would be a real tonic. The current Google Street View shows this hotel still being built, but you get the picture in terms of desperation.

Photo courtesy of Google Street View

Additionally, I suggested a weekend in Coventry to Ruth the other day, and she responded quite enthusiastically.

In the meantime, let’s recall the handful of outings I/we had in 2020:

Visits to Wales

With hindsight, very glad I seized the opportunity when the first lockdown was lifted last July to travel to Wales to visit my parents (half-suspecting that there might be another lockdown in the winter and that I’d better take the chance while I had it). On the Saturday Mum and I went for a walk along a new bit (to me) of the Usk water meadows, and Dad cooked a curry in the evening.

Chablis with the curry

On the Sunday Mum, Hannah and I went out for a nice walk, and we took what could have been a lovely picture of the three of us if I hadn’t been caught with an unfortunate facial expression. Here’s the photo with myself snipped out.

This one isn’t much better, but just to prove I was there. Never sure quite what it is I do in photographs.

I went for a second visit, with Ruth this time, for the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Hannah's sheep Stanley in Mum and Dad's sun room

Ruth in the sun room. I seem to have upended Stanley onto his nose

The River Gavenny

Before setting off on the July visit, I'd decided to have a go at making a treacle tart, as I'd never made one and I knew Dad likes it, as do I. I followed the recipe in Delia's 'Complete Cookery Course', which uses wholewheat flour in the pastry and wholewheat breadcrumbs for the topping. To make it healthy. For the filling, Delia advises 5 tablespoons of golden syrup and 1 tablespoon of black treacle. In an attempt to give it a less sweet, ergo more grown-up, flavour, I decided to alter the balance to use half and half. This rendered the flavour somewhat too grown-up. We agreed that future attempts would redress the balance a bit.

Assembled ingredients

The adult-flavoured finished product

Visits to London

Ruth and I managed a couple of days out in London after the first lockdown and before we were confined to quarters again in the autumn. In mid-July we took the train to Richmond to visit Kew Gardens – we’d had to book an entry slot beforehand and had to queue outside the grounds for a bit when we got there, but otherwise it all seemed to go very smoothly. It was the first time either of us had taken a train since the lockdown and we virtuously wore our masks. The trains were pleasingly un-crowded.

Be-masked on the train

We had a lovely lunch outside at the Pavilion Bar and Grill – first meal out in ages – then had a lovely wander around including visiting the now-refurbed Temperate House.

In September, we had a day out in central London for Ruth to go to an Impressionist exhibition at the Royal Academy. I decided against going to the exhibition, as it was quite expensive, but went along for the trip. We had tea and cake in the outdoor courtyard café and I went for a walk around the surrounding streets while Ruth was in the exhibition. Afterwards we made our way up to Tottenham Court Road and went to Heal’s, where we had a lovely late lunch in the Ambrose Café.

I went up to London again in early October to meet Helen for a catch up. Started the day by going for a cup of tea at the branch of Leon on Euston station concourse, and ran into administrative hassles by failing to notice I should have scanned a QR code on the way in, leading to having to hold up the queue behind me while I accessed a web page on my phone and logged my details. Then made my way over to Trafalgar Square and met Helen outside a branch of Prezzo, where I’d booked us a table. It turned out that Helen had installed the NHS COVID-19 app, which did seem to be making things a lot easier, so I ended up installing it too and we managed to log our visit easily enough. Once seated, we were also able to place our orders via our phones, which was quite cool, though the chap serving did also assure us that he could take our order in person if we preferred this (perhaps I looked to be approaching an age where I might struggle with this).

After lunch, we walked across to the National Gallery, where I’d booked us an entry slot for a pootle around the permanent galleries. This was very enjoyable and I bought Ruth a fridge magnet of George Stubbs' 'Whistlejacket'.

'Whistlejacket'