Supper in Easton

This morning I went to St German's to celebrate Mass. Clare drove me there and then went on by car to the School of Optometry to collect a new pair of specs. It was good to have an opportunity to observe the feast of the Transfiguration a day late, as there wasn't a service I could get to yesterday. Peter gave me a lift into town afterwards and I caught a bus home from there.

There was a letter from HSBC waiting for me in the post when I returned, containing the remaining
balance of the closed Cardiff Crime Limited account in the form of an up to date cheque. This will be used to balance the books, and dissolve CCL, finally owing nothing, and with nothing left over. It was advice from someone who didn't understand the Cardiff RadioNet setup, which led us to believe we needed to establish a 'not for profit' company alongside the business to fund the BCRP business crime manager role. It was a sledgehammer to crack a nut, a waste of time and energy, but at last we have closure, ahead of winding up Cardiff Business Safe.

Late afternoon, Rachel, Clare and I went to Bristol by train, benefiting from a group ticket offer which gave us three tickets for the price of two. Our train stopped in Lawrence Hill station, where Owain met us, as he'd just finished work. The DVSA office is five minutes walk from the station and he lives ten minutes away. He was pleased to have an opportunity to show Rachel his new abode, and for Mum to adjust his curtains, now equipped with blackout material, thanks to her extra efforts.

We'd agreed to go out for a meal together, so we walked a mile from his neighbourhood across to St Mark's Road in Easton, to a recommended Indian diner called Thali, serving an excellent selection of spicy food - not too hot - set out on a tray in small portion dishes, offering a variety of different tastes around one's key dish of choice, whether meat, fish or vegetarian. This way of serving is what is apparently known as a Thali in India. We were delighted with the food we tried, and walking there certainly gave us an appetite.

The restaurant is only a few hundred yards from Stapleton Road station, so it was possible for us to check for a return train time to coincide with finishing the meal and getting back to Cardiff not too late. There wasn't an outbound train stopping there at this time of night, so we had to take an train going into Bristol Temple Meads to pick up a Cardiff train. We were very lucky, as a long distance train bound for Cardiff had just arrived twenty minutes late. Instead of having to wait until nine for the next scheduled train, we were on our way half an hour early, and reached home by ten.