Today Dawn tiptoed a little closer to another age milestone as she celebrated another birthday. Best of all, it gave us a good excuse to take a day off work and go out to eat. On the card front, Dawn received a total of 10 cards from family and friends and, even better, a collection of cash and gift vouchers that she can use tomorrow on part 2 of her birthday - shopping for herself. Dawn also received a DVD of the film Sideways that she loves.
To celebrate Dawn's birthday, we booked a table for lunch at The Cricketers in Clavering, which is owned by Jamie Oliver's parents and where he grew up and started on the road to becoming a world famous chef. This 400 year old pub in the rural Essex countryside just outside Saffron Walden was the perfect place for a special meal, and the food was a perfect match too.
We shared all the food as usual, and for once even had three courses too. For starters, we had a prawn cocktail and a quail dish. The main course was fish and chips, and chicken stuffed with feta and wrapped with pancetta and served with vegetables. We then shared a fruit crumble with clotted cream and a chocolate brownie with Baileys ice cream. All finished off with a nice cup of coffee. Dawn of course had a glass of red wine with the meal, and I even had a nice cold glass of lager for a change. To wrap up the bill, we added a signed copy of Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food, which gave us a nice memento to remind us of Dawn's special day.
On the way home we stopped off at the local castle in Clavering. It was originally built at the time of William the Conqueror over 900 years ago, but has been added to and changed over the centuries and looks like a church now.
We brought the day to a close with a phone call from Brady to wish her daughter many happy returns before watching the film Sex in the City.
No comments:
Post a Comment