The last day of Easter

I don’t know about you but these Easter holidays seem to have lasted forever (In a good way), and while we have had a LOT of fun my little monkeys are definitely ready to go back to school – being free with the cartoons has finally started to loose its appeal.

So on the last day of holidays I decided come hell or high water we were going to get out of the house.

Bank Holiday Monday is a bit of a funny day with some things but not all things open.  Also I was figuring that every other parent would be experiencing their same version of cabin fever so wanted to go somewhere where we wouldn’t spend the whole time fighting with crowds.  So this may seem an oxymoron considering my motivation. But we headed up into town to walk around Covent Garden and then across to Trafalgar Square to join in the St Georges day Feast.

We left early so Covent Garden was really pleasant – not too many people but still loads to see and we spent a good hour watching all the street performers, and listening to the music.

Heading towards 12 we walked across to Trafalgar Square where they were putting on a St Georges day festival.  It was a really great thing, with lots of games for the kids to do – creating a shield and collecting gems for different Knightly behaviour, there was live music and loads of food stalls.  We missed all the food because my 2 wanted to have a go on the swing-boats, but just as they got to the front of the queue the heavens opened – undeterred Bella road the boat while Eadie and I got soaked to the skin.

A little soggy we then walked back into Covent Garden to try out the Shake Shack.  I had heard lots about what a great burger it was, but to be honest I was really unimpressed – it was really expensive £21 for 2 hotdogs a single burger 1 x fries and a milk shake.  And while the girls liked their hot dog and the Shake was good, my burger didn’t look that different to a McD’s and had cost 3 times the price.

Despite being a little disappointed our tummies were full, so we walked back to the tube talking about whether the girls would like to be professional ballerinas one day and if so would they dance at the Royal Opera House.

 

Things to look forward to in 2014

So 2014 did not start the way I thought.  But in a spirit of optimism I have started a list of things I would like to do / things I would like to see / places I would like to eat.

So come 2015 we will see how many things I have managed to tick off.

Places to eat:

Social Eating House

The Delaunay 

Bocca di Lupo

Balthazar

Green man and French Horn

The Grain Store

Dishoom

Vivo

Super Tuscan

Burger & Lobster

Opium ChinaTown

Shakeshack

Chotto Matte

Duck & Waffle

The Attendant

ChickenandSteak

Merchants Tavern

Casa Negra

The breakfast club

 

To Drink:

Monty’s Wine Bar

Red Church Bar

Mr Foggs

The Experimental Cocktail Club

The Major of Scaredy cat Town

Night Jar 

Lounge Bohemia

The Hawksmoor Bar

 

To Read:

Barbara King Solver – Flight Behaviour

Lionel Shiver – Big Brother

Americanah

The sisters brothers

The Lost art of keeping secrets

Brokeback Mountain

Breathing Lessons – Anne Tyler

Changing Places – David Lodge

Instead of a letter – Diana at Hill

Angelica Huston Memoirs

The little old lady who broke all the rules

Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet

The Maze Runner

Shift

The young World

The 5th Wave

 

To see:

Good People

Henri Matisse

Feast of St George

Rooftop Film Club

Berndaut Smilde

Baileys Stardust @ National Portrait 

 

To Do:

Paint the shed

Paint the garden furniture

Decorate the Spare Bedroom

Buy a spare bed

Go to New York

Learn to Salsa dance

Take care of myself

Get Divorced

 

A few of these have been ticked off already and I am sure I will add to it as I go along.

Lets see in 2015 where I got up to.

Heres to 2014 – lets be having you then.

 

 

 

 

 

Wine Wednesdays

This week has been more like a wine week rather than just wine Wednesday.  The girls have spent part of their Easter holidays up with the granddad and dad in Liverpool.

Missing them terribly; but I decided to fill my days up with different things to stop me being too much of a sad sack moping about.

On Tuesday I was invited by The Guardian down to their offices where Sheryl Sandberg was giving an interview about her new book ‘Lean in for Graduates’ – she was very impressive and you can read what I thought here.

On Wednesday I was truly stitched up by my boss. She is a uber-networker and belongs to numerous networking societies (yes I think the same!), as Thursday was her birthday she had asked me to attend a networking event in her place.  Literally having nothing else to do I couldn’t really say no.  So I trotted off to The Delaunay to partake in some high-brow tete-a-tete.

It was honestly one of the most bizarre experiences of my life – with a table full of pseudo-intellectual, upper-class and middle class conservative individuals.  At one point I had to order a LOT more wine when somebody started to bemoan the cost of putting their 4 children through public school.  The wine actually stopped me getting upset with their very closeted view on life; and instead I found the whole thing rather amusing – besides I made the most of the free food and wine.

Thursday was my boss (see above!) birthday, so to celebrate we had all booked a cheeky few hours off at the end of the day.  We headed off to CowShed in Notting Hill for an afternoon and evening of blissful massages, pedicures, dinner and a LOT of Champagne (she might just be forgiven for the night before)

Friday and only 1 more day until the monkeys return, so I spent the day getting my house in order (literally), and then trotted back into town to meet a friend here, The food was good but not mind-blowing, but we drank a good umber of Margaritas and she introduced me to TINDER (please tell me this is not my future!) and then we discovered Lounge Bohemia a place which takes its cocktails VERY seriously.  And results in you desperately trying to pose for photos not showing how drunk you are (and failing miserably – sorry Jo!)

7 year bliss

To celebrate 7 years without killing each other (or anyone else), Mr Smith and I decided rather than going away we would enjoy 24hours in London

After dropping the girls off at the saintly grandparents we headed off on our grown up adventure.
We dropped our bags off at the fabulous Shoreditch house – our home for the night.

First a spot of lunch at Bodega Negra

From there we had tickets to see Book of Mormon
Absolutely hilarious – and almost as funny as the show were the 6 grey haired ladies in front of us, who clearly didn’t realise how controversial the play is. They looked surprised and shocked as they laughed at things they were desperate to be offended by.

For dinner we headed to Eyre Brothers
For a delicious dinner
And even more delicious wine

Finally we ended up back Shoreditch House for cocktails before collapsing into bed.
Here’s to the next 7 years Mr Smith