This week’s highlight after getting back from France was getting together with the AV5 for Clare G’s birthday. Which we celebrated, for the first time ever for any of the five of us, on her actual birthday.
Kicked off with cocktails at The Escapologist in Seven Dials, where luckily it was another table’s drinks that smashed everywhere as the hapless waiter tipped them down the steps by our seats. It was also two for one happy hour when we were there, always a Brucey Bonus on a Friday eve as I hunter-gathered 10 cocktails back for pre-dinner consumption…
Then we were off to a restaurant that Clare’s son Archie had recommended – a Burmese place called Lahpet. Really excellent food and sweet service, so an excellent choice! Winner dishes included a ginger salad, some corn and pea fritters (often dry but lovely here!) and my current fave thing, a baked Burmese style aubergine, as well as a beef curry, chicken bites, a prawn dish and various other delights.
Def a better end to the day then the start – which began with my Spanish lesson online where I had too many French words in my head because of our trip to Tim & Mel’s. This was swiftly followed by my 6 monthly PET CT scan up at the Dark Side, for which I’d been nil by mouth all morning. Definite cost cutbacks in evidence – the freebie (dry) sarnie has now been replaced by a measly two pack of biscuits.. I have quite the collection of these in our nibbles cupboard care of Parkside and CCL.
On Sat we were on our way to watch Ellie from next door playing netball for her top of the league team London Pulse Under 23s. Sadly it was in Leyton of all places – one of the many miles-away netball locations that spawned the phrase ‘FFSH’ – Far Flung Sporting Hellholes, though to be fair, once there it wasn’t quite that grim!
They really are super athletic – a tad more whizzy than in my days of playing for the Surrey U16 second 7 a lifetime ago.. And the little dresses are definitely shorter – or are young legs just longer these days?! A bummer though that they lost to Manchester Thunder who had a chunky but very accurate goal shooter. Ellie doing her best to ‘wear her as a rucksack’ here!
H and I also finally got round to seeing Dear England at the theatre which I mostly thought was very good in terms of sporting insights, the cast – just could have done without the ‘funny’ bits where they insert past prime ministers etc. And it was boiling in there! I think they still had the winter heating on despite it now being almost spring-like (occasionally!) outside.
Our final (very middle aged!) news is that we have a new member of the household. As our cleaner can now only come once a fortnight, as she’s looking after her grand-daughter on the other week, it became quickly clear that our floors are minging! Maddie somehow sheds fur like she’s sheared a sheep overnight, and with the muddy dog paws and H’s kitchen exploits, I am ‘over’ the constant clean ups. So – introducing ‘Nosher’! A Eufy robot vacuum that is good at pet hair – the main point – and also does mopping as he circles around. He is protected here by some furry doorstops, to prevent being bashed by the living room door to the left – the only space we could find to house him as he was quite a bit bigger than I had expected…
H had now become ‘app man’ – watching Nosher on his phone if we are out and about. Which was useful as somehow he did get wedged between a kitchen chair’s metal legs and was sending ‘stuck’ signals out… He does have a map of his areas so won’t – we hope – tumble down the steps into the white space while he’s out and about. We will see… x