Pither.com: Tag review

Lovely meal

Simon — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:08:00 +0000

Last Saturday Liz, Edward and I went out for a meal to celebrate a friend's birthday. This isn't the first time we've taken Edward out for an evening meal and his reactions so far have generally been good, although he can decide that there are just too many new things to look at for any sleep to be taking place. So it can take a while, often with at least some moaning to get him to sleep but that isn't really the point of this story.

Saturday's outing was to The Priory Grill and Bar in Haywards Heath. The entrance is a little hidden from the main road, but is sign posted and is certainly easy to find if you look at the directions on their website.

On arrival we were slightly concerned by the shouts of excitement (it was an England rugby night) however the arrow for the restaurant pointed in the opposite direction to that for the bar, so there was hope. We passed a room with a very, very large TV screen in and continued down the corridor to a room at the bottom of a large stairway. There was an open door to a store room but no sign of where to find the restaurant!

Paul was sent on a scouting mission up the stairs and thankfully confirmed that was the way. As a reward we let him carry the pushchair up the stairs on his second ascent. I got the job of carrying Edward.

The restaurant is a very grand and impressive looking dining room. It takes up what is now the top floor in the converted church, complete with the tops of stain glassed windows, religious paintings and a fantastic high ceiling.

Despite Edward objecting slightly to having been taken out of the car, and me being rather concerned about carrying a rather unhappy baby into a quite quiet (the shouts from the bar could not be heard at all) and well presented dining room, the staff were very welcoming. They were happy to help fit Edward's pushchair in and even offered us a high chair.

Edward was generally very well behaved once we got settled. He enjoyed a few pieces of bread as a treat and did eventually decide that sleeping would be better than looking around at all the new things.

As for us adults, we got to enjoy a very pleasant meal. All of the food was excellent and while the menu was a little limited we all managed to find a couple of dishes to make a tough decision between. We ended up with duck, beef and rosti mains though and they were all very good.

Again the desert menu was rather limited, personally I would have liked a chocolate option that didn't also contain nuts. However I went for a creme brulee which was still very pleasant.

Overall the service was excellent and the food tasty and enjoyable. We all had starter, main, desert and coffee with a bottle of wine between four; for just over £30 per person.

We all had a lovely evening and I would highly recommend the restaurant, I look forward to eating there again.

Re-inventing the ... bin

Simon — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 12:16:00 +0000

Liz's kitchen is small. Not the smallest I've ever seen, but small enough that it can't really hold more than two people at once. It is also quite feature packed - washing machine, dish washer, fridge, freezer, cooker all built in. One thing that is not built in is a rubbish bin, or indeed any space for one!

For the last year of living here we have tried various combinations of hanging carrier bags from the kitchen door handle and sitting a black sack on the floor. Both of these are far from ideal. The only floor space available for the black sack is directly in front of the freezer, which means accessing the freezer requires moving the rubbish. Hanging bags from door handles comes with fairly obvious problems, notably closing or even just moving the door. As there isn't much clearance between the door and the worktop it would often cause the bags to be knocked off.

For some months I have been convinced that the only place available for a bin is attached to the back of the kitchen door, high enough to be above worktop height (so as not to interfere with access to the dish washer). The trouble is most bins aren't designed for mounting onto a door. A few are designed for mounting inside cupboards, but seem to either expect an actual cupboard (eg are rail mounted) or are really small.

To further complicate our requirements, we didn't just need one bin. As is the trend these days, we're trying to recycle what we can (curiously Reigate and Banstead Council really don't collect much, basically just paper and tins!) and picking recyclable items out of the rubbish after the fact is not very pleasant. So we could really do with two bins.

Given this information, for the last few months I have been gradually formulating a plan. I finally concluded with a basic frame, attached to the door with mounting hooks for a couple of carrier bags (plentiful supply and easy to tie up afterwards). Now I just needed something to build it out of.

Then I looked on the Internet... D'oh!

After attaching them to the (surprisingly tough) door, our kitchen has been transformed into a far more comfortable living environment (although I confess not very "smart" - now just to find trendy carrier bags!)...

If only we'd installed them last year. If only I'd designed them before someone else did!

CustomerService++

Simon — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:01:00 +0000

Last week I placed an order with Lakeland for two identical items. Later that week a package arrived from Lakeland as expected. However opening it revealed two items that I had not ordered.

I phoned Lakeland on Monday this week (while heading into town with the incorrect items, ready to post them back). Not only did they answer the phone quickly and without an incomprehensible Indian accent, but they then proceeded to look up my order, take a note of what I'd been sent and promptly told me to keep the incorrect items and to expect what I had actually ordered to be delivered shortly.

I was shocked! I would like to officially congratulate Lakeland for their excellent service.

The next box from them has now arrived and even contains the correct things! :-)