After a week of being felled by the lurgy I wasn’t much in the mood to go out, but since my two oldest friends and I had had dinner in the diary for months (and it was my friend C’s birthday), I felt I couldn’t cancel, so Saturday saw me and my new shiny boots hitting the town.

First up was cocktails at Motel One, the hotel I stayed in when I first moved, then we went to dinner at Cote Brasserie. Situated in the old Barclays, looking into Central Arcade, this is a nicely executed branch of the chain and gets extra points for having a separate Gluten-free menu (for C) and a separate vegetarian menu, so both C and I had far more choices than we are normally faced with. (Which we took full advantage of – I could barely move at the end of it!)

C stayed at mine afterwards – my first house guest! – and it was very nice to be able to offer someone a spare bed rather than the sofa!