My weekend in London with friends

On Saturday it was Jared and I’s 6th wedding anniversary – I spent it in London with my two best friends and he spent it in Yorkshire with our two boys. Jared hurriedly passed me plastic bag of goodies before I got on the train, and I left him some breakfast things along with a present and a card. Although that’s not the norm, we’re both quite practical people and when your best friends are free the very same weekend; it is a no brainer. Last year was our 5th anniversary (nothing like stating the obvious), but Ru had just joined us, so I’m pretty sure it was spent on the sofa watching Revenge. Who said romance is dead?

It was my first time away from Rufus and I felt surprisingly ok about it. Jared is more than capable of keeping them both safe and happy, however I still ended up getting dinner ready, preparing breakfast, packing their overnight bags, ironing all their Sunday clothes and laying out the boys’ clothes for each day along with coats, hats and gloves. I wanted them to just have fun together, so I tried to minimise the practical stresses that are second nature to me. They played sports, went to a party, had a sleepover and went to see Granny & Granddad. Neither of the boys showed any sign of wanting to see me again, and Winston keeps asking me if I can work instead of Daddy which I find rather amusing.

I arrived just after 6pm on Friday and hopped on the tube to Waterloo to meet my two friends. I’m lying. ‘Hopped’ is not exactly true – I got very confused and after a lot of walking around, I finally got on the tube. I lived in London during my Uni years, but so much has changed since then. We ate a lovely dinner at The Green Room followed by Oktobre at the Southbank Centre, which was definitely the most bizarre, yet amazing things I have ever witnessed. A mash up of humour, acrobatics, mime, dance, trapeze, music, magic and mystery. I keep wishing I’d tried not to make sense of it and just enjoyed the randomness of it.

On Saturday I woke up at 8:20am. A disappointing lie in – but I lie in is a lie in, nevertheless. We spent the morning on the sofa chatting and headed out for brunch around 12pm. We ate at Hally’s on New Kings Road, which was my idea of heaven. I had two poached eggs with sourdough, rocket, avocado, chilli and lemon, plus a beetroot juice. Absolute morning perfection.

After being shown the delights of Anthropologie a year or so ago, it is now a must each time I visit London. Not necessarily to buy anything – I just love touching, looking, stroking and wow-ing at everything. How can so much beauty be in one shop? Such gorgeousness makes me so happy. We didn’t buy anything but left feeling decidedly perkier. The three of us then walked to the V&A as one of my friends works there, and we managed to persuade her to show us around on her day off (!) She also got us tickets to the Wedding Dresses exhibition which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Around 5pm my friend had a hair cut, my other friend had a manicure and I had my eyebrows waxed. Then in the evening we made a gorgeous roasted vegetable tart, ate cookies and ice cream and watched Pitch Perfect whilst scoffing leftover Christmas treats. I didn’t go to bed until almost 2am. My lie in on Sunday was a slightly more impressive 9am.

My coach back was at 11:30am, so I made my way to Victoria by tube (minus the confusion). I usually get the coach back from London – I find it more relaxing and it goes right past the street I used to live on! I slept, read and stared out of the window, a lot. It was such a perfect weekend and so relaxing. I feel rejuvenated.

After our weekend together I started reminiscing about our friendship and I couldn’t resist sharing a few corkers. I’m sure they won’t mind (!) The two of them have known each other since they were teeny, tiny and I joined them when I was about 15. The thing that brought us together was orchestra at school – I played the oboe, one the flute and the other, the French horn. We still make a lot of noise.

Exx