Liverpool at Last! - A lovely meal at Otello's

Despite a late night, last night, I was up early today and Sara and I set about removing items from the garage in readiness for the builders to take off the roof.  Our friend Jan(et) came around and helped - especially cleaning and dusting some of the items before they were stored in the house - thank you Jan(et).  Ivan from Robin Hill Farm also came round with his van to load some of the items to go off into storage at his farm.  I had a good breakfast this morning and after visiting the shop for a jar of coffee and a newspaper eventually set off for Liverpool at about 10.15 a.m.  The road was relatively clear but for some reason I don't understand I made the mistake (which in the end was quite fortuitous) of driving up the A34 towards Oxford rather than taking the A338 towards Swindon.  This meant that I drove up the centre of the country rather than taking my usual westerley route via Gloucester, Worcester and Walsall.  As it happened, because of problems around Walsall, my route gave me the opportunity of carrying on up through Lichfield, Rugeley, Stone and Stoke-on-Trent joining the M6 north of Stoke.  Unfortunately, the motorway was blocked again and so I took a more circuitous route through Middlewich, Northwich and Runcon eventually arriving in Liverpool at around 3.30 p.m.  Malcolm and I chilled out with a cup of tea and I skyped Sara to say I had arrived safely.  This evening, Malcolm and I joined Geoff and Alma for a delightful meal at a restaurant in the unlikely location of Gatacre Park Drive. Really excellent food at Otello's which I highly recommend.  The restaurant was reasonably full but not as full as is usual, I was told, probably because of the European Champions League Cup Final between Barcelona and Manchester United.  I am delighted to report that Barcelona won!  Whilst writing my blog today I noticed an interesting fact in my On this Day column.  The two major Liverpool FC disasters, (Hillsborough - 15th April and Heysel - 29th May) both occured on dates shared with major shipping disasters - 15th April - Titanic and 29th May - Empress of Ireland.  I also have a feeling that both ships were registered in Liverpool!  How spooky is that?