Ardsley House Hotel - Day One - Johnny English

Wednesday arrived and I woke at 7:20 to the sound of Tony getting ready for work, safe in the knowledge that today I was not going. Not only that, but me and Lauren were heading off on a "road trip" and poor Tony couldn't come due to the aforementioned work, buckets of the stuff, which is good, but we still wish he could have come with us.
So we lingered in bed having the obligatory holiday / weekend snuggle to let him get ready in peace and then we slowly started to get ready, until Lauren suddenly insisted that she wanted to go to the pictures today and not tomorrow. Another reminder of what was on offer Tin Tin, Lion King 3D or Johnny English, she made her decision based on the trailers and that meant we had to be at Meadow Hall before midday. I did my fastest ever pack and after locking up and then going back into the house 7 times and restarting the car 3 times (I am not very good at leaving the house last), we were off and in actual fact got to our destination with enough time to spare to not only get the tickets, but some early lunch too.

Meadow Hall Happy Meal

Lauren's choice was Ben Tuckers (KFC!!), however after being in the queue for over 5 minutes and not moving a step (and watching the boy in front eating a cheeseburger starter while he waited for his chicken), she swapped camps and decided a Happy Meal was called for. Meadow Hall Food Court is enjoying a makeover at the moment, the 90's big screen vibe is going, restaurants upstairs, fast food downstairs and a great choice too and not all higgledy piggledy like I remember.
Johnny English - well it was what you would expect, full of slapstick comedy- knocking the cat out of the window, putting his trousers on backwards, alarms going off when he's being covert, laughter guaranteed for as long as you can hold back the groans! Lauren's mind wandered in a few places, but it was the first live action film she's ever been to see at the pictures (we usually do 3D animation) and she did plenty of genuine laughing. She said "we gotta get that film on dvd" so I guess that's a thumbs up!

The offending item!

We did a bit of girly shopping - Christmas decorations from Paperchase, headband from Next before heading back to the car. We were nearly out of the centre when I heard "Oh you've got to let me have one of those, I'll never be naughty again!" We were passing a place called "The Marble Slab Creamery" (sounds a bit like an undertakers!) What mum could resist such a tempting offer? A few decisions and a few pounds later Lauren was holding the most enormous ice cream ever, one scoop Swiss Chocolate, one scoop Mint, swirled with M&Ms (and all the time me telling her this was too much and just to have a kids cone) all encased in an Oreo dipped waffle cone (the bit she really wanted).
By the time we arrived at the hotel, Lauren looked like a chocolate chimney sweep! Luckily I had a bag full of tissues to brush her down before covering her up in a coat and bundling her into reception carrying 75% of the offending ice cream hidden in a Sainsbury's carrier bag, hoping we wouldn't leak chocmint on the carpets before finding a bin.

The Ardsley House Hotel looked like it did on the website which was reassuring, check in was easy, everything seemed great. As usual our room was miles from reception, down corridors and up and down staircases, but when we got there the room was a large family room with a double and 2 twins and a balcony overlooking mature trees.
We unpacked, watched some telly and generally chilled before getting changed and going down for dinner at 7pm which is when the restaurant opened or so we thought (because that's what they said at reception and in the hotel guide). We asked for a table for two but were asked to wait in the bar and a menu would be brought to us. It was - after a wait and this is how it went on, everyone was very helpful but in a slightly odd way. No-one went into the restaurant until 7:30, someone said that was when it opened. I heard one couple ask, in a tone which suggested they'd been here a few days "does the menu ever change?", once every couple of weeks apparently.

Not quite parfait!

Eventually we were lead to the table by the waiter, I had the glass of red wine that came with the meal and Lauren had a jug of water. We had beautiful flower shaped pats of butter. The waiter brought us warm rolls, which we needed as we were sat near the draughty fire exit, next to a table of about 11 men and 1 lady all jeans and t-shirt business people from a mutual industry who were very loud, but thankfully clean of mind.
For starter I had chicken parfait with a little salad and dressed with a jus of I think red onion. It was quenelles of paté but not parfait, it was OK but a little bitter and not light and moussy like parfaits I've previously had.

New potatoes and mash?

Tasty stew..with dumplings or buns?!

For my main I had beef and Guinness stew with mash and dumplings. A dish of vegetables came too, carrots, beans and new potatoes, even though I already had mash. The stew was tasty, the meat some was tender, some dry and some a little hard, it had little button mushrooms in and as always I wondered if they were tinned. The dumplings looked like choux buns, definitely not suet dumplings.

Greasy pizza

Lauren was given the bar menu to choose from and decided to just have a pizza. She said it was OK but I tried a bite and the base was stodgy and it was very greasy, she did it justice but I was pleased when she ate my carrots and new potatoes. The dinner was average and perfectly edible, the wine was fine, the service was good but odd if you don't mind be called "love" and "dear" all the time, but I don't feel it was worthy of the menu prices for those who had to pay.

So off we set for bed, only to discover that the toilet had stopped working, it no longer flushed. Maintenance  were not working so a lady called "Mandy" quickly arrived to take a look. She fiddled about in the cistern for a few minutes before declaring it unfixable and within 10 minutes (the second quick pack of the day) we were in a different, but fully functioning room. I was well impressed with how quick they helped and sorted it all out without any umming and aahing, it was very impressive. So overall my impression of the hotel is, it's a bit tired, it looks nice but when you look closely there's some rough edges, it has a few strange practices but the staff are the best thing about it, very friendly and welcoming...and so off to bed, see you tomorrow.