Brunch, a Quilt, a Touque, a Horse and Thai!

17Oct Wednesday

Alex & Birdie came for brunch this morning, broccoli & cheese frittata, beet salad, toasted ciabatta with a choice of strawberry, apricot or apple-pear-ginger preserves and lots of fresh hot coffee...mmm. After brunch we presented Carman with a beautiful lap-quilt that Birdie had made for him. This one is an “eye-spy” quilt, with a myriad of different sports represented, along with some of his favourite things in life...jelly beans and licorice! Birdie even acquired a couple of swatches of fabric that have the cities of Dartmouth (for Jess), Toronto (where we are now), Fredericton (where my family are) and Ottawa (where Dj, Teddy & Matt live) spelled out on them. She had fun putting it together for him and it will keep him warm in the months to come. Not to be outdone, Alex (went against his better judgement and) got Carman a Bruins toque, which will go nicely with what my sister calls “his awful jersey”. It’s a tough row to hoe, being a Boston fan in this family! A big Thank You shout out to you both!

Alex stayed with Carman (ostensibly to keep him out of trouble and make sure he went for a walk without running out of oxygen - kind of like leaving the cat to supervise the mouse). A bad bonus for Alex was that he got to bonk his head getting into the Tiguan (his Sante Fe is higher off the ground). Carman says it didn’t knock any sense out of him and we’ll have to wait to see if it knocked any in. The good bonus was Alex got to meet Omar (the reason for moving the vehicle) when he came to fill tanks for us, and also met Sam, our parking attendant who is always so helpful and takes great care of me. 

Birdie treated me to the matinee showing of War Horse!  It was so well done, within minutes you were so engrossed with the horse’s behaviour, you forgot that it was a life size animatronic horse, operated by three actors. There were many tense moments (war) and without realizing we were tensing up - we both came out of the show in need of a shoulder massage! I didn’t see the movie - I have this thing about horses being hurt (I even watch the running of the Kentucky Derby in replay - so I won’t see any horses harmed). I’d highly recommend the musical though - although lots of war tension there are many lighter moments of laughter and the animals (there are more than just the starring War Horse) are fantastic.   Thanks so much Birdie - it was a lovely gift and it was great to spend the afternoon with you!

The 4 of us had planned to have dinner after the play, so Birdie and I headed home to grab the boys and decide on a suitable location (which involves a round robin of “it doesn’t matter to me, whatever you like...”). We settled on Thai and were excited to find out that Mark could join us as well, so waited for his arrival, then headed out to the selected restaurant - The Bangkok Garden on Elm St. The restaurant is beautifully decorated, the menu had a great selection (everything from 0 peppers to 4 or more to indicate the heat level); the portions were more than satisfying (some of us had lunch the next day too) and everyone claimed it was the best they’d ever tasted.

Bangkok Garden staff were very helpful, escorting Carman on a behind the scenes tour via the service elevator (the entrance includes a long set of stairs from street level), finding us a table with extra room for the rollator and our server was perfectly attentive - he even laughed at our jokes!

We’ll definitely go back again - I understand they have a great lunch buffet (thanks for the tip Paul & PeggyAnn!)

Our timing for dinner couldn’t have worked better, when I found a nearby lot, the attendant told me I had arrived just in time to get the $7 flat rate. He assured me that had I been a moment later, he’d have had to charge me the $7000 rate! Phew, glad I got there when I did...he took very good care of our vehicle - and the lot was easy to get in and out of, to go and pick up my passengers, thanks!