A journey into the unknown...

Oct26

Went to Ashford yesterday, for a day out, as Clare had the day off and we wanted to go bowling. Man alive, it's rubbish there... I'm kind of glad we hit the very worst high street type parts of the town first, as it meant that Ashford grew on us as the day progressed, but first impressions are not good. The bowling alley is nice and handy for the station at least, and it's like all bowling alleys are, a terrible, terrible, terrible place. Going anywhere in half term can be a bit dodgy, but this wasn't any worse than it would be at any other time I suppose. Bowling alleys are horrible soulless places, crammed with children and arcade machines, but we knew that before we went. If you want to bowl, you have to put up with this, we don't have anything like All Star Lanes down this way. So, on hitting the bowling alley first, we booked a lane for later, and then had three hours to kill...

The town centre is a mess of rubbish mini malls, each one full of rubbish shops. The highlights were a Waterstones and an HMV, but we could have been in any rubbish shopping centre in any town. AND, I say HMV was a highlight, but that's pretty poor really, all overpriced faux-bargain DVD box sets. Food was limited to greasy spoon cafes, and even the Wetherspoon was closed for a few days. We were really about to give up, until we turned into North Street and found a Pizza Express! This is the only feature of Ashford that was an improvement on Folkestone. We sat there for a couple of hours (service was a bit slow and they messed up one pizza), and had a really nice lunch, the Trifolata pizza is QUITE GOOD

Trifolata NEW
A feast of five mushrooms: porcini, portobello, shitake, oyster and closed cup, with smoked mozzarella, fresh rosemary and garlic with a drizzle of luxurious white truffle oil

Mostly teh closed cup and portobello mushrooms obviously, lesser amounts of the more unusual numbers, and I'm not sure I could really taste the truffle oil over the tomatoes. Also the big sprigs of rosemary are a bit wasted, would be better to sprinkle just the little tender leaves on it. It was nice though, and I will order it again. Yes, that's the pizza they messed up first time round, just for future refernce "no cheese" means "no cheese, not even the mozzarella", thanks.
After this we were in a happy enough mood to put up with anything Ashford could throw at us. We tried a couple of pubs, but they looked a bit ropey, so ended up at the Smith and Jones, which I think is new, and that was good too. Like a nicer Wetherspoons, probably a horrible cattle market in the evenings, but nice and comfortable on an afternoon when everyone else was at work.
Bowling was good, one game each, we need more practice before we head off for our commuters Christmas bowling day though.
Yesterday also, House had arrived, so we watched a couple of episodes when we got home. Bit grim and upsetting actually, but a great series.
I'm nearly ready to give up on Lost, series three episode three was a bit rubbish. I can't believe they're sticking to their original plot at all, it still feels like they're making it up as they go along.

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