Friday and it was Letad’s birthday, hurray!
The day began with presents in bed and I have to say, I felt I’d done quite well. A gorgeous shirt from his favourite shop in Savile Row and a selection of t-shirts and jumpers from New York, bought in the few minutes I had free between meetings and carried carefully back to London.
It had been a busy week but I managed to leave work a little early and meet Letad at Ottolenghi (www.ottolenghi.co.uk) a restaurant on Upper Street in Islington where we had a reservation.
I arrived early and was waiting when a very smartly dressed Letad walked in just after 6pm. We ordered a glass of organic Prosecco to celebrate the auspicious day. Cheers!
Ottolenghi is a contemporary restaurant serving small plates and charging a lot for a little, to be honest.
We started with seared tuna and a small plate of green beans with garlic, following that we had a tofu dish and what claimed to be mackerel which was almost invisible (where’s the mackerel?) and all for the bargain price of £11 per dish.
The flavours were nice but it wouldn’t be worth a second visit, mainly because it wasn’t value for money and luckily neither of us was starving.
All was not lost though as we had tickets to the theatre!
A birthday surprise.
We crossed the road and headed to the Almeida theatre, an Islington institution, where we were seeing “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James. (www.almeida.co.uk)
The Almeida is a 325 seat theatre and we had seats fairly close to the stage. For both of us, it was the first time we were seeing a scary play.
The play was brilliant; dark, suspenseful and spooky with moments of shock which had the entire theatre gasping, perhaps one person louder than the rest, but to be fair, I was very surprised!
The 1961 film “The Innocents” (Deborah Kerr) was based on “The Turn of the Screw” and “The Others” (with Nicole Kidman was based on “The Innocents.”
I’ll be watching “The Innocents” this weekend if I can find it on Netflix. Scary!
All in all, a very happy birthday!
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