Listening to: Passenger, All the Little Lights
Reading: Susanna Kearsley, The Firebird (fantastic – might actually be my fave of hers) and Stef Penney, The Invisible Ones (enjoyed this – cleverly put together)
Gym: day off today (v tired post-London) but 121 due tomorrow
This month, I'm very greedy and have three trips to London. This was the first.
And London was fabulous. Met my best friend from work, had dinner out, and then talked a lot. (And I mean a lot.) Tuesday, up bright and early to go to the US embassy to sort out my ITIN (basically will save me from paying two lots of tax). This meant having no electronic stuff with me, so I had to leave my phone, camera, iPod, Kindle and car keys with my best friend. Thus there are no pics of the embassy building, the lovely buildings around it, the very scary armed police, the Aston Martin showroom by Marble Arch, Marble Arch itself… Anyway, apart from my shoes setting off the scanner alert (which often happens in airports, but the embassy reaction was a bit scarier) it was fine. Quick stop at Fortnum’s as I’d had a request from the teens for violet biscuits (which they have to share with me) (and isn’t that the best excuse ever?). Then I collected my stuff from my best friend and headed to Covent Garden to meet up with the Romance crew.
Covent Garden was the quietest I’d ever seen it! But there was an opera singer in the basement. She had a lovely voice, but as she was singing the song that my stepmum chose for Dad’s funeral, I wasn’t minded to linger.
Coffee at Tutton’s (why did I not get my camera out? Oh, yes, I was talking too much) and then we headed up to Blanc’s Brasserie.
This is us with a glass of prosecco, celebrating the fact that one of us was over from Aus, one of us had JUST had her first book published, and there were a couple of nearby birthdays in there as well… (We know how to celebrate.) Clockwise from front left: Sophie Pembroke, Michelle Douglas, Fiona Harper, Liz Fielding, Pamela Hartshorne, Caroline Anderson, Nina Harrington and me.
For lunch, I had crayfish and mango salad…
…followed by raspberry fool, and then a coffee.
I had a great time away, but it’s lovely to be home.
Oh, and one little treat from Fortnum's - in their chocolate department (and I confess I spent a little time there choosing things), they do these miniature teacups, roughly the size of my thumbnail, filled with different tea-flavoured fillings (or, in this case, a soft coffee centre). The pic doesn't do it justice, but basically it looks as if it's been sprayed with gold leaf. And it was totally scrumptious.
2 comments:
I'd love to visit London.
Mary - it's a lovely city.
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