A lovely family Easter. Teenage daughter and grown up son at home, winding each other up at scrabble. They cooked too, son made stock and daughter desserts. I overdid the gardening and only wanted a hot sauna and a cold beer followed by the Masters on TV.
After a lunch of chicken, salad and couscous and a couple of glasses of wine on Monday I was talked into driving son back to Oxford the next day.
Oxford was sunny and warm and after looking around a few colleges we had lunch at Jamie’s Italian, which I’m sorry to say wasn’t so good. The staff seemed to be working for UNESCO. Tables were left empty while people waited in the bar. I expected a riot as all those queuing up could see the vacant places. At half past twelve they’d run out of several items on the menu. Our salad had to be requested twice. The loos downstairs smelt of drains. Daughter said perhaps they’d imported the smell from Italy for authenticity. Our waitress got sniffy when we queried the sense in so called local sourcing of water from Wales, rather than Italian water. The food was OK. My truffle pasta had no visible shavings of the scarce fungi in it, but the taste was there. Other meals were good I was told, but then I sensed a reluctance to complain after the water debacle with the by now determinedly chilly waitress. I’ve had excellent meals at Jamie’s in Bath, so this was disappointing.
What did I expect, said son who calls Jamie ‘That twat from telly’.
What did you expect?