Apart from watching the Six Nations rugby match between France and Wales, I spent much of the day reading William Makepeace Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” which I began earlier in the week.
At sunset we all drove down the coast road to join Becky and Ian at
Britannia Thai in Milford on Sea for a Mothers Day celebration meal.
Jackie, Becky, Flo, and Ellie sat together for a photoshoot, then
spread out a bit.
We thoroughly enjoyed the evening, with lots of fun, a few presents; and the usual excellent food served with friendly efficiency.
Over recent weeks we have all tinkered a little with weeding the Back Drive and its borders. Flo put in a good shift early this morning and
Martin spent much of the day on revealing the brick edging as he thinned out plants both welcome and intrusive.
I read another good chunk of Doctor Zhivago.
This evening our dining party at Britannia Thai In Milford on Sea included Becky, whose birthday it is, Ian, Flo, Dillon, Ellie, Jackie and me.
We shared mixed starters,
some of which Ellie sampled with relish;
Jackie’s Panang curry and noodles is an example of the delicious main courses;
and three of us (excluding me) had room for the wonderfully light and aromatic stem ginger pudding with ice cream. Singha beer, Diet Coke, and J2O were the chosen beverages. Service was as friendly and efficient as always.
Yesterday’s gales prevented us from finishing work on the cannibalised arch destined for the Rose Garden.
This morning Jackie completed her repair work, and Becky helped her set it up enabling me, on my dead heading session, to work round the back of Alan Titchmarsh rose, and giving everyone access to the bench.
I have spent much of the last three afternoons, culminating in today, finishing reading Lawrence Durrell’s Novel “Constance” which I will review tomorrow.
This evening Becky, Ian, Flo, Dillon, Ellie, Jackie, and I dined at the
splendid, yet homely, Britannia Thai restaurant in Milford on Sea. Our great granddaughter was provided with a high chair.
Tasteful paintings and other decorations featured on the clean walls while gentle recorded songs played quietly in the background.
The staff were welcoming, friendly, and efficient, and the food without exception first class.
Starters enjoyed included Tom Yum soup, Thai fish cakes, chicken satay, and vegetable spring rolls;
main courses chosen, and receiving repeated exclamations of delight were tamarind duck on crispy noodles, chicken pad khing, weeping tiger, panang chicken curry, and pad priew wan. Egg fried and coconut rices were shared;
four of us were very pleased we had chosen stem ginger pudding with ice cream dessert, as was Dillon with his chocolate melt and Becky and Ellie with Kwaky containing chocolate ice cream.
Four of us drank Singha beer, J20 and diet coke for the others.
This was generally considered the best Thai restaurant ever experienced.
In my recent post https://derrickjknight.com/2023/05/26/different-hair-colour/ I featured photographs of Jackie and Ellie, and of Jackie and Flo as a baby. Becky has now e-mailed me two photographs of herself with her daughter as a baby, taken by Jackie.
I can now feature these images alongside each other.
Shortly before lunch Jackie drove me to Sears Barbers in Milford on Sea for a haircut. Peter has retired and I was shorn by Tracy.
This afternoon I converted the following post from Classic to Blocks edit:
This evening we all dined at the Britannia Thai restaurant in Milford on Sea. I really enjoyed my prawn Jungle Curry with special fried rice; I am not sure what the others’ meals were called but everyone found them excellent. While Flo drank water the rest of us drank very potable Singha beer.
Last night I read C. Day Lewis’s foreword to the Folio Society selection of Robert Frost’s poems. This was very readable and a good introduction to the poet. Why Paul Muldoon’s dense introduction was deemed necessary seems a mystery to me.
Lilac is now blooming in our garden,
as are vibernum,
and osteospermum.
We had a ‘Mum’s so lucky’ moment this morning, when I tripped over the cord of the electric iron whilst I was pressing shirts, sent the iron flying, spilled its water content, and broke the lid to its reservoir. And wrenched my troublesome knee . Not too badly, I hope.
This afternoon I worked my way through more of the photographic prints Elizabeth has returned. There were just three from 1982/3 that have not already featured in posts. This was during the period in which I was printing in black white, using an enlarger and chemicals.
Matthew was a wonderful big brother to his younger siblings. He enjoyed playing with them, and introducing them to interesting exploratory experiences like this one.
His guiding hand can be seen in the image scanned from a 10″ x 8″ print.
This is my favourite early photograph of Louisa. I made a number of varying sizes. This one happens to be 5″ x 7″.
Wherever you ran a road race in Southern England in the 1980s, you were likely, a day or so afterwards, to receive an envelope containing proofs or contact sheets portraying you in your hours of glory. These would, on the reverse bear this stamp:
You were invited to buy 10″ x 8″ prints. I generally did. So, Mr Manchee, if you read this you will know that my title is tongue in cheek. Actually, I thought it a pretty smart activity, the rewards for the runners exemplified by my being able to lay hands on this photograph taken in 1983, during the Windsor Great Park half marathon. Thank you.
That silly moustache was short-lived.
This evening Jackie drove me to Milford on Sea to collect my repeat prescription from the pharmacy. We then dined at the Britannia Thai restaurant which lived up to the various recommendations we have received for it. The ambience was pleasant, the music gentle, and the food excellent. The efficient service took a while to warm up, but was friendly when it did. My choice was a starter of tiger prawns on a bed of carrot and spring onion juliennes in a spicy chilli sauce; a main course of sea bass in another excellent sauce; followed by banana fritters. Jackie drank Singha beer and I chose Kingfisher.
