Spinnaker Tower

To escape the dust made by the lovely Angelo who is repairing our kitchen ceiling, we took ourselves off to Gunwharf Quay, Portsmouth. Delish lunch at Las Iguanas, Latin American food so a bit different. We had the house speciality, xinxim -pronounced zinzim - Brasilian lime chicken in creamy crayfish and peanut sauce with spicy coconut sprinkle. All the more delish as we had a voucher for one free main course. Scrummy.

Dominating everything at Gunwharf is the Spinnaker Tower, rising 170 metres above the Harbour and the Solent. It's taller, so they say, than the London Eye, Blackpool Tower and Big Ben. After several years of delays, cost rises and council resignations, it was opened on 18 October 2005. It describes itself as having a 350 degree panoramic view, not sure what happened to the other 10 degrees. Once again the glass lift isn't working, but no matter, we didn't want to go up today. Luckily as I tried for an uninterrupted view, the sun came out briefly in an otherwise bitterly cold and grey day.

Oh yes and I'm afraid I did succumb and bought home made fudge at the stall in the square. Just about made up for the free main course and certainly used up my calories for a week, but wow. Their cherry bakewell fudge is a dream, no not really its sickly and horrible and - gerroff - it's all mine ...