It was such a miserable, wet day today that we decided to go somewhere where the weather wouldn't matter. The Trafford Centre it was then.  I remembered that The Chill Factor had opened right next to the Trafford Centre - and I just fancied sipping hot chocolate on an Alpine slope. The Chill Factor is the biggest indoor ski slope in the country -and you can either ski or snowboard - or just pay to throw snowballs. If you do what we did it's free. But once you've seen someone ski from the top of the slope to the bottom, that's about it. Maybe I've just got a low boredom threshold.

Oh dear, we left at the interval. The last time I saw a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta it was by the D'oyly Carte at the Savoy Theatre and I suppose you can't get much better than that. But you can get a lot worse. G&S must have been turning in their graves as The Opera della Luna company performed the Mikado in the Quays Theatre at The Lowry, Salford.
To start with, the acoustics in The Quays are very poor and any singing was always going to be sucked into the stage flooring, add to that a very poor and thin orchestra and a stage setting that seemed to based on old black boxes and you'll get a taste of this insulting production. Throw in the odd "sh**" word and a mobile phone conversation and you'll get the drift. Before the show started someone came from behind the curtain to announce that Yum Yum had not only fractured her arm in three places but had lost her voice. To get round this problem, Yum Yum would do the dancing but her vocal part would be sung and spoken by someone in the wings. This left Yum Yum miming the words to a voice off stage - if it wasn't so terrible it would have been hillarious. So my letter asking for a refund is in the post. I'll let you know the outcome.
Just btw (as they say on other blogs and forums) The Opera della Luna has a group of supporters officially known as "The Lunatics" - I know why.

The Innocent son's tartan trousers are up for sale on eBay. Not only have they featured on Innocent's website

but they've also been used as an illustration on the one litre cartons of smoothies.

All the money is going towards a save the orangutan charity and our son hopes to take the cheque when he visits the sanctuary in Borneo later this year.

The London son gave his dad a good pub guide for Christmas and today we made good use of it and the Tom Tom when we went to The Pheasant pub on the outskirts of Chester. In fact it's on a hill top (the Peckforton hills) and overlooks some beautiful Cheshire countryside. It's 300 years old and the best bit - it has at least three roaring log fires. We enjoyed a tasty pub lunch - shrimps with walnut bread; Cheshire ham and mustard on fresh white bloomer bread. A candle factory was over the road and I'd love to have called but it was pouring down and it would have meant quite a treck from the car park. If you fancy a trip out it's south east of Tattenhall. How does the Tom Tom know where we are when we switch it on? The whole thing reminds me of "Spooks".

I think I'm going to write a book based on people's experiences with courier companies. I've written in this blog about umpteen delivery disasters - all of which were guaranteed to raise the blood pressure. Vans catching fire (allegedly); drivers saying our address didn't exist; drivers saying they'd picked things up when they hadn't - I get cross just thinking about it. The artist son ordered a TV and stand on the internet and paid extra to have it delivered between 6am and 7.30 am. Needless to say it didn't arrive. After numerous angry phone calls he was put through to the driver who told him to meet him in Tesco car park "and I'll hand the package over to you." No doubt before he went in for a fry-up. My son pointed out that the package was a 37ins TV and a stand and he didn't have a car. Ok, the driver said, I'll definitely deliver it after 4.30. At 4pm the driver called again to say sorry but it would be there in the morning. Lo and behold it arrived and our son set it all up and switched on. The screen had been smashed in transit!

I've already broken the sort-of-resolution I made yesterday about buying nothing new for the rest of the year. It was my husband's fault - the weather and a stiff back prevented him from playing golf and he suggested a trip to Boundary Mill, the outlet place near Colne. Everything was reduced - by a lot, and it would have been foolhardy not to have bought the long skirt, short trousers and matching top in preparation for the cruise; then there was the Viyella polo shirt that was a snip, oh and the brown jumper, which I did actually need. And the six china mugs were a necessity, although I'm not sure where I'm going to put them.  I think I'll have to have another credit card cutting up session.

We went to see an excellent production of Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband" at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. It was the ideal antidote to a dark and rainy Manchester night - very funny and with plenty of recognisable Wilde quips. My husband said he couldn't understand why I'd bought tickets to see an ideal husband when I could have watched him for nothing - oh, hahaha.
We had a look round the sales - I found Valentino face products reduced from £125 to £15 and a Hobbs jacket at £39 from £150 but amazingly came away empty-handed. I'd read in the paper about two women who, at the start of 2007, had decided to buy nothing new for 12 months (exluding food obviously). After the excesses of Christmas this seemed like a good idea to me - I'm not sure how long it will last but I was quite proud of myself yesterday - until I bought three t shirts in M&S (they don't count though because they were really cheap).

We ate in Wagamama's -  we're probably a bit outside the normal age range for a noodle bar but the food is tasty and the service is efficient so we just ignored all the 20-somethings and tucked into steaming bowls of ebi katsu and kaisen gohan.