My First Year in London: Cookies and Ice Cream

Friday last week was strange.

I’d worked a long day on Thursday (because of the Cycle Hire shift) so decided I wasn’t going to get in until 9.30am. I did a few things and spoke to a few people and suddenly it was lunch time. I headed to Borough Market to pick up treats for mum, Naomi and Jess who were visiting at the weekend. I got back to the office for 1.30pm and by 2.30pm I was out the office, back at London Bridge and in the pub! We had to pack up all of our stuff and be out of the Pier Walk office by 3pm on Friday but the movers arrived early and we thought it best to get out of their way... A couple of pints of London Pride later, I headed back to the house for a chilled out Friday evening watching the Graham Norton show, trying to spot Michaela and her friend in the audience...and we did!

Brennans

I couldn’t go to football again on Saturday; I’ve injured my knee and wanted to play netball on Monday evening so instead I rested and kept my weight off it (ie, stayed in bed all morning watching Ally McBeal). I had a quick spring clean around the house and set off to meet the Brennan ladies in Bexley. I beat them there, but I’ll let them off since they came 200+ miles further than I did. Once they arrived, we found the hotel (apparently mum is a ‘premium member’ so we got free drinks from the bar!) and cracked open a few beers whilst we chatted and got ready for the night.

We were in Bexley for an engagement party. Whose engagement party?! Becca and Liam’s engagement party!

Short explanation: Becca is my cousin
Long winded explanation: Becca is my mum’s best mate Jane’s daughter

So Becca is my cousin and Liam is her lovely fella, and the night was ACE.

CAKE!

What a great night!! We got to see people we haven’t seen in years, have a great dance and quite a lot to drink. And I’ve just realised I can’t actually remember getting back to the hotel – RESULT!

I had the horrible job of waking Jess on Saturday morning; I won’t repeat the answer I got as she picked up the phone… safe to say it wasn’t, ‘good morning’! Our planned quick get away so that we could spend more time in London before Naomi and Jess had to catch the train home was thwarted by Southeastern trains engineering schedule. Everything worked out fine though – we caught the bus into North Greenwich, dropped bags at my house a couple of stops on, then headed into town.

Ben's

The weather was lovely as we made our way around Chinatown, Leicester Square and Covent Garden where we watched the violinists, the Chinese guy playing a strange looking (but weirdly hypnotic) instrument and feasted on the best cookies and ice-cream (so good, it was blog-title worthy). During our stroll around town we searched for eggs. Not any old eggs, The Big Egg Hunt eggs. I think we found about 6 or 7 but there are about 210 hidden around London at the moment and it’s great fun trying to find them (and something easy to do with a hangover). Before long though it was time to get the bags and head to Euston to wave the girls off.

But not mum.
No, mum was staying another day and I had the day off! And what a day it was. We got up early (not exactly through choice, but through mum’s terrible sleep pattern…or lack thereof) and headed into London, to the Charles Dickens museum near Russell Square. It’s not huge and they’re currently refurbishing some of it to build an extension but what we did see was great. The museum is on Doughty Street where he lived with his wife and where he wrote Oliver Twist. It’s a WC1 postcode and he paid £80 rent per YEAR… 150 years on and I reckon rental price on a property like that there would be around £800 per WEEK!

Prince Alfred

And speaking of scandalously low rent back in the day, our next stop was Maida Vale to see the house mum and Jane lived in 30 years ago. After a nice trip down memory lane we carried on our West London jaunt in the sunshine and set off past the BBC Maida Vale studios towards Warwick Avenue and the Prince Alfred pub – a very quirky, cool little pub me and OB went to on the evening of my 20^th birthday whilst singing Duffy’s Warwick Avenue at the top of our voices...Ahhh memories! After a swift couple there we carried on down by the canal until we reached the Grand Union at Westbourne Park and had a late lunch (spicy whitebait highly recommended) and more booze.

Ouch

Quick trip back to the house for a cheeky nap (sleep off the booze) then we headed out to netball. Mum used to play a lot and so was keen to see me play. We lost, of course – I’ve decided it’s just our thing, if we won now it’d kind of ruin our vibe… It was a tough game and my knee just about held out but I doubt I’ll be doing very much on it for the next week. As the best physio I know is about 12000 miles away and the others are in Manchester I’ve been making it up as I go but I reckon heat packs, elevation and ibuprofen should do the trick, eventually. But please let me know if it’s not!

Mum left for home this morning and I headed to my new/old office at St James’s Park, unpacked my stuff and caught up on yesterday’s emails. Only 18 office days left before NZ/Oz!! This week I’ve booked flights to Melbourne for a 4 day trip for me and OB, I’ve sorted out my bus from Dunedin to Christchurch and checked that this is allowed at Christchurch International. ‘Things still to do’ is a very long list but this week I’ll sort out insurance and send all the important info to the parents.

The rest of this week I’ll be feeling sorry for myself and my knee, going to the recording of David Mitchell’s BBC Radio 4 show and heading up north on Friday to see the girls and pop home for Sunday lunch on Mother’s Day (note to self: DO NOT FORGET THE CARD!).

Until next time,

Bren x

Ps, This evening, as well as keeping up with the football scores, I’ve been watching Leanne La Havas’s Scala gig. She has a bloomin’ lovely voice – go forth and buy her stuff.

Pps, Anyone been watching The Tube?..No?..Just me then?... Well anyway, I spotted one of the guys, David Waboso on the tube yesterday... AND...

**CELEBRITY SPOT**: Eddy Izzard - I was chillin on the park bench eatinf lunch today and who strolls by headed towards the Met Police HQ?... Eddy frickin Izzard! Fave spot so far.

Ppps, more pics from this weekend: