Raspberry Risotto

... with ice cream, strawberries, micro-meringues, and strawberry mousse!

My friend Dave and I met for lunch and shopping for toys for the grandchild (Dave's) and second hand books for the reading habit (mine). It rained all day in Cheltenham, but we were undeterred, nay, indefatigable. We had our amazing 3-course lunch at L'Artisan, a newish French restaurant with a light, hand made touch. It was a late birthday celebration for me, as Dave did not feel we had had enough high quality food back in February!

Afterwards, we went to Tesco's and Dave bought a tenner's worth of tinned groceries and took it down to CPP, a food bank charity. The contrast between our having had an expensive lunch, and then going and buying a few items of non-perishable food was striking. I'm not saying either was wrong, it was a big difference, though.

Eventually I left Cheltenham and Dave, and went on a very circuitous bus route to Gloucester. I arrived at the Guildhall, the council-run arts centre, about two hours early for the film I was seeing, but there was somewhere to hang out, and eventually the bar opened, and there was wifi too!

The film I saw with my friends from Stroud, who later joined me, was The Lunchbox, a film in English/Hindi, which went down well at Sundance. I don't want to say too much about it, but there's a trailer here, and it comes highly recommended by me. We left the Guildhall about 10 3, and it was still raining....