Valentine's Day

Today was Valentine's Day.  We don't normally do anything very much but we had seen that the Garden Centre was advertising a special Valentine's Day brunch and, as the Bobster keeps saying we should get together, I wondered if they fancied going with us?  I think we may have just spoiled Di and Rob's romantic morning because they had already booked to go and so we gatecrashed their table!  Not only that but Nicky and Mark were also booked in but a bit earlier than us so if Di and Rob had wanted to have a little bit of peace together over a full English, today was not going to be the day!

Rob kindly drove and we made our way out of the grey clouds hovering over Droushia down to the warmer and sunnier climes down by the coast.  It was very pleasant sat in the cafe area of the Garden Centre and Marianna and Emily did a cracking job of entertaining the troops by dishing up some lovely food and Emily tinkling the ivories and singing - she was amazing.

We weren't sure exactly what we were having for our special brunch but it turned out to be a three course meal with unlimited cups of coffee!!!  Our first course was some home-made scones (sweet or savoury) served with jam and cream, followed by a full English with the addition of halloumi and finally a massive slice of cake!!!

The scones were lovely and as light as a feather.  Not having had much dairy recently I didn't go for the cream but had the jam instead.  Di and Rob plumped for the cheese scones.

Marianna and Emily were working overtime.  We weren't in a rush as the sun had come out and it was really rather warm and relaxing indoors so it didn't bother us and actually it was good to have time to digest our food as there was so much of it!!!

Di and I had to wave a white flag when it came to the cake afterwards so Marianna packed it up for us to take home.

We all went into the garden centre afterwards and bought a few plants - I had a small cyclamen in a pot, one to go into the garden and a white geranium for under a tenner!  They were offering 20% discount on the plants and pots today.

All in all a lovely morning and a very different way of celebrating Valentine's but gold stars to Marinos, Marianna and Emily for doing so well for their first attempt.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to unravel the mystery of what is happening to Mum's pension payments as Dad's GKN pension is now administered by Aviva.  I have a sneaky suspicion that the bank here may have refused the new payment because it has come from a different source.  

I managed to speak to Aviva and got a really helpful girl.  I am still waiting for a call back from HMRC.  Mum is understandably concerned and, to be fair, this is probably not something she can unravel herself - phonecalls can be difficult at the best of time as she doesn't hear that well and certainly doesn't understand anyone with the slightest accent. 

This evening neither John nor I were particularly hungry so we ditched our original romantic supper plans in favour of eating up a meal I got in Paps last week.

John watched some TV - mainly Olympics and I did some art entries for this week's challenge which is "Anything to do with Wine!"