Who Moved My Cheese?

Last week saw the birthday of my son Robert, Happy Birthday Robert. Twenty-three is a good age! The issue of what do you buy a twenty-three year old doesn’t really come into play as Robert is a, not so secret, consumer, and so Rie and I took him to the Trafford in Manchester so that he could enjoy spending some dosh.

The Trafford (Centre) is one of those enormous shopping malls that are a world of their own. If you arrive at the Trafford on a midwinter day, with the snow thick on the ground, you would walk into the mall into a controlled temperature closer to the tropics amidst a Grecian, classic design and palm trees, not forgetting an amazing fountain that shoots water about forty feet into the air.

Anyway, I digress. It was a good day out, we are all busy people and don’t really get that much time together, so that when we do, it always seems very special. Robert, with Rie’s encouragement, blitzed the shops, and was getting some pretty sexy clothes, when we decided it was time for food. As we are all confirmed Italiophiles, we head for Carluccio’s. You might have seen the recent TV show of “Two Hungry Italians” revisiting the land of their birth on a culinary feast. Well, the food was amazing and was all that is required of a good birthday lunch. Robert enjoyed a starter that included a block of fresh Parmesan cheese. It was truly the best cheese that we have all ever tasted. So good, in fact, that we got a big block of it, along with other goods, from the deli before we left.

And, it was round two in the shopping mall. By this time, we are all arrayed with carrier bags looking like contestants in a shopping show. I have a variety of bags including the two most important to me, the Nespresso coffee supplies and the Carluccio’s deli bag. Of course, we have to go into the Apple store. From my point of view I am tuning into an Air Book, Robert keeps eyeing a Mac Book, and Rie has developed a particular way of looking at iPhones and wondering, allowed, if the four is really better than the three? I managed to bring my website on every machine that I touched, it pays to advertise, and Robert left a message on a stranger’s facebook page suggesting that leaving your page open in an Apple store was not such a good idea, before logging them out.

We arrived home, happy and replete, from a lovely day together. Robert headed out for a jolly and Rie and I settled to watch a DVD. It was then that I suggested we might enjoy some cheese and biscuits, and it was then that I realised that I had left the deli bag in the Apple Store; sadness, and bereavement followed. But, hey ho, we hoped that someone had found the bag and was, at that very moment, enjoying the contents.

Then Rie decided to call the Apple Store just to see if anyone had handed it in. No luck there, but they suggested that she phone Carluccio’s as someone might have handed it in there. Well, they hadn’t, but Carluccio’s were so amazing that they deserve a big mention in this week’s blog.

Despite that fact that it was me and my lack of awareness that had lost the bag in the first place, they insisted on replacing it, free of all charges. My gratitude is total. What amazing people and what an amazing philosophy. Not only do they do the best food ever, but they are the most wonderful bunch of people.

Please do go and check these guys out and check out the work they are doing on world hunger, “Action Against Hunger” and “Working towards a sustainable future”. Wonderful work and wonderful food at a restaurant near you.

Buon appétito
Sean x