It had been 2 whole months since the last Intellectual Diner Club Meeting and I was looking forward to seeing my friends, but just as I was starting to get ready, I received a call from 2 friends, who had been in a car accident. They were thankfully Ok, but their car sadly wasn’t and I needed to collect them from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I called Amanda, who with the other witches, arranged for the meal to be put back for an hour. Having picked up Kate and Andy, I got ready in world record time, knocked round for Amanda and set off for Balooshai in Honley.
It was lovely to see my fellow witches; Dani couldn’t make the meal as she was enjoying a spa weekend. We have all been thinking of Cathy and it was good to see her out. She had just returned from a holiday in Llandudno with her mum and sister and had enjoyed it. Catherine and her mum were the youngest people on the coach trip and due to all the walking had decided to purchase some comfy shoes, (nothing wrong with that I say!). She had also become a female Dr Doolittle befriending a seagull!
I was ravenous and nearly kissed the waiter when he offered us poppadoms. I love a good poppadom and these came with the pickle tray, which had some lovely sauces and pickled vegetables, including some pickled apple which was yummy. Our drinks had arrived. Amanda and I had gone for a G&T which unfortunately was diluted with flat tonic. We asked for them to be refreshed and the waiter was very apologetic and brought us fresh G&T’s with fizzy tonic.
The previous night had seen the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games. I had stayed up to watch the whole ceremony and was buzzing with the spectacle of it all and so were my fellow witches! The ceremony was very quirky, (Hello – the Queen skydiving with James Bond), at times moving and very, very British! Catherine had invented a fantastic drinking game, involving taking a swig of drink for every country as they came into the stadium. (Needless to say she doesn’t remember too much of the end of the ceremony!).
I didn’t think I would be watching the Olympics, but I am writing this a week in to the Games and have watched more sport than I ever have watched in my life. I am feeling inspired by Team GB, it’s many accomplishments and all the many little stories of the Games such as the rower, Issaka the Otter from Niger a landlocked arid nation, who took up rowing 3 months ago and finished 2 minutes behind the winners, but who just wanted to represent his country.
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| 2 Members of Team IDC |
The Intellectual Dinner Club ladies, were inspired that we decided to represent the ‘Republic of IDC’. Our opening ceremony outfits, would of course be designed by Queen of Chic, Amanda and our flag in order to represent the IDC would consist of a knife and fork and er.. a brain. We chatted about what our sports would be, cake-eating for me obviously, speed cake-making for Phoebe, cake icing for Phoebe and Amanda? – a mix of lip-pursing and drinking liqueur coffees out of the ‘proper receptacles’.
The restaurant was heaving. Every now and then the waiters would produce a sizzling dish, that when it came past us would cause everyone to start coughing, due to the amount of chilli in it! Our lovely waiter informed us it was the ‘Balooshai special’.
The food was lovely, I had the cheese and onion fritters which were spicy to say the least! (I am a total wuss when it comes to spicy food) and I really enjoyed the Chicken Korma with pistachio nuts. I had been recommended this by a friend and it did not disappoint. I shared rice and a Naan with Phoebe. Because the restaurant was so busy, there was at times a small wait for the food. We could see the waiters running around like anything. Our waiter was lovely and friendly and at the end apologised for any wait we had. I could also see the staff ringing for taxis for other customers, so there were a lot of lovely personal touches. We are very lucky in the area we live, in that we have Balooshai in Honley and the Laxmi in Berry Brow. I think both restaurants are lovely and would happily take my other half to both, so it is a big thumbs up from me to the Balooshai.
We decided to go back to my house and do our themes. We sat on my bed and went through them. I kicked off with my weight loss program. I had then become a megalomanic and decided to go into business with Arnold Scwarzenegger, setting up a spa outside of Paris, complete with courses run by my fellow witches. Catherine did an amazing business plan, with the Kiss me Cake bakery. Phoebe, her business partner had also done her theme on the Kiss Me Cake Bakery. Having sampled cakes from this bakery, it is a winner to me! And Amanda had decided to develop last month’s previous idea by dong her business plan about the ‘Boothroyd’ gallery.
And so it was time to go. My lovely other witches will be posting about their themes in more detail.
