There was something happening yesterday morning at a local sports club of mine, CIYMS, or "CI" as we call it.
There were cars lining the road, some with Irish registration numbers.
The time was about ten twenty-five.
I was meeting my aunt for coffee and a Chelsea bun at S D Bell's Leaf & Berry tea-room.
I don't think Bell's has changed very much in its traditional character for - shall we say - fifty years.
Indeed it has tripled in size, with a few flat-screen televisions, a shop, and so on, though essentially it remains a thriving, popular place.
In the afternoon I swam the customary eighty lengths of my health club (Bannatyne's), wallowing in the hot tub adjacent to the pool thereafter.
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| Self at Campbell |
The club has undergone major renovation recently, though the swimming-pool, sauna, jacuzzi, steam-room and changing-rooms haven't been refurbished at all.
Now I have to admit that I do enjoy a good Chinese meal, particularly the sweet-and-sour prawns or chicken.
I've been making my own for about a year, and this was one of my better decisions.
I buy battered chicken pieces and those handy pouches of egg-fried rice.
The sauce is easy and quick to make: wine vinegar, stevia brown sugar, pineapple juice, tomato ketchup, cornflour paste to thicken; onion chunks, garlic, pineapple chunks, finely-sliced red pepper or carrot.
Of course the quantity of these ingredients and the method matters.
I consider the quality, viscosity and taste of the sauce to be essential, so I have it precisely to my liking, and judge restaurant sweet-and-sour sauces by my own.
I've more or less stopped drinking now, unless you count the odd half-glass of wine.
My aunt had recommended a film when we were at S D Bell's, The Green Book.
The intention had been to go and see The Favourite, though my aunt's thumb's-up to The Green Book was so good that I climbed into the jalopy and made a bee-line for Queen's Quay in Belfast, viz. the Odyssey Pavilion, where there's a cinema.
This pavilion, as they call it, is a ghost-town these days, because all the restaurants have closed, apart from about two.
There is one bar at the front entrance, the W5 science museum, and the multi-screen cinema.
The splendid IMAX theatre was closed down many years ago and appears to be in moth-balls.
What a shame!
Still, I did enjoy The Green Book, a really lovely film about Dr Don Shirley, an eccentric black-American concert pianist and his journey to various American venues in the Deep South with his bodyguard/driver, Tony Lip, a gruff, no-nonsense Italian-American bloke.
Remarkably I counted a mere six couples in Screen Seven, a number that certainly doesn't reflect the excellence of the film.
If you get a chance, do and see it.
