Birthday Weekend

It was my birthday on Saturday and we had a great day!  We had booked a table for thirteen of my favourite people at our local choice for dim sum and when we were all finally seated a chopstick waving eating frenzy ensued, we had food arriving at the table from the steamer trolleys and the rather more unhealthy fried trolleys almost as fast as we could eat them.  There were some old favourites and a few new dishes as well as some delicious choi sum with garlic from the main menu.  The table looked like a bomb site by the time we had finished!  The only problem with these sorts of meals is that they're over all to swiftly with no pudding and wine to linger with, but then it just means that there's more of the day left to enjoy.

We made it back to ours to enjoy pink fizz with mum's famous chocolate cake in the sunshine on the terrace.  The cake was a surprise and a very nice on too, in fact it was so tasty that I totally forgot to take a picture, which is a shame but I won't forget!  Everyone stayed until we had to chuck them out as we plus two others were to drive to Liverpool to see Laura in her promenade performance of Walking Through Windows at Liverpool Cathedral which we hadn't managed to get to all week and Saturday night was the final night.  We made it in to the very last performance which started at 8pm and lasted for almost two hours after starting late.  It was a really interesting evening, highlighting the good works by the women who are commemorated in some famous stained glass windows at the cathedral.  We saw Kitty Wilkinson in her bath house (where I had to do some scrubbing!), Elizabeth Fry in a convincingly nasty prison cell, there was an encounter in the rather more comfortable surrounds of philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts' parlour as she told her story of massive inheritance and how she spent it! There was a rather lame piece of installation art about Dame Julien of Norwich which didn't really make much sense to me, it also looked a bit sad in such a spectacular location.

The show started and finished late and by just after 10.30 we were happy (if rather coldly) seated outside The Quarter which is rapidly turning into a Liverpool favourite for late night noshing. The menu is mainly pizza and pasta with a few 'proper' dishes on the specials board, but we all had pizzas which were very nice indeed. We were frozen by the time we had finished, so no pudding just a weary drive home. 

Sunday started with a frenzy of photography at the desperately unglamorous, slightly smell, itchy and damp Withington Pumping Station (I shoot at all the nicest places!). After a fun filled couple of hours there, we stumbled across the Beech Road festival in Chorlton where we grabbed some tasty Jerk Chicken from one of the many street cafes and had a good potter around. After a quickly restorative snooze at home, my parents came to collect us for a supper at Wagamama, which was, as usual, delicious. A leisurely Cointreau (of three) in Castlefield sent us to our beds.