Something to sing about

Oh I’ve had a lovely weekend.

Visits from best friends from home are just the tonic to my life gin. It means to be pajamed until 2.30pm, talking and laughing and drinking tea. It means desperately absorbing the ease and familiarity, wit and delight of a dear friend, like sunshine on an increasingly autumnal day, so enormously grateful in the knowledge that you can live on the other side of the world for five years and still pick up like it was yesterday.

It’s been a lovely, lovely weekend.

Has Spring finally sprung?

I've gone a bit postal the last couple of days. Has there been a full moon? I don't know. All I know is that this morning, and yesterday (ok, and the day before) I've just wanted to cry. Cranky, inarticulate, toy-dropping tears.

Hormonal, homesick too maybe, and really just ready for a break in the weather.

At Lovely Boy's suggestion, this afternoon we left the house. It was 18 degrees - heatwave, I know - and headed for a stroll through Hyde Park and Come What May.

The crowds in Hyde Park willing the sun to get its shit together

The sunshine was weak - like a muscle released from a six week cast, withered and not sure it really remembers what to do. But undeterred, it seemed everyone was desperate to make the most of this mirage of Spring, running towards it literally and otherwise and just hoping not to end up with a mouthful of sand.

No sand thankfully and no real need for sunscreen - but sunglasses and slip on shoes sans socks! Woo!

A month of weekends

I know absolutely it's been too long since I've written when one of my eight devoted readers called me to ask if everything was alright (sorry Dad - yep, all OK. Just been a little too busy lately but I'm back now and raring to write).

It's been a month of weekends and tomorrow it's August and after next weekend's scheduled nothing it will be non-stop until October with house guests, more weddings, a weekend or two away and just the general chaos of living in London while working full-time and planning a wedding back in Sydney. Is it wrong to be wishing I was already on a beach in Thailand? Or at the very least on a plane home for Christmas? I'm kinda pooped. But the last four weekends have been brilliant and special for a host of reasons so I'm not sorry in the slightest.

Weekend One, July 9-10: Paris

There was something delicious about going to Paris FOR THE DAY with my purse and my passport. The occasion was my dear friend Nina's hen party and while she and the rest of The Girls were there for the whole weekend, there were only enough pennies in my purse to manage a day trip, albeit a decadent one. Grazia got me from Kings Cross all the way to rural France before a nap got me the rest of the way to Paris. I didn't think about packing a map (probably because it offended my alliteration) and so there was an interesting moment of Parisien Marco Polo via text message before I eventually joined the group near Notre Dame for lunch and then an afternoon of vintage shopping and macaroons. It was A LOT of fun. My new 80s Lanvin dress that's just a little bit fabulous and my 50s skirt that LBB is convinced was made from curtain material. And his point exactly?....

A cocktail in the Marais and then I was back on the train and back to London. It was a long day but a truly great one and I still can't get past the thrill of actually being able to GO to Paris for the day. I mean, it takes an hour and a half to fly to Melbourne - it takes a Grazia and a half hour nap to get to central Paris. I love it. And I can't wait to be back in October with Mum and Max.

Weekend Two, July 16-17: Monkey Island, Nina & Steve's wedding.

As is often the case with a hen party, a wedding typically follows and the next weekend LB and I were off to Maidenhead for Nina and Steve's oh so lovely wedding on Monkey Island in the village of Brae...

You get to Monkey Island via a footbridge. Nina and Steve, being resident of a 18th century Dutch barge houseboat, got there via their home up the Thames. The weather wasn't so fantastic but the rain held off for the ceremony and the setting was so idyllic and so quintessentially rural English that everyone was just charmed - though the love for the bride and groom probably had something to do with that also.

The reception was in this great room with this brilliant chandelier and I honestly had one of the best seats in the house - looking straight out at the happy couple and then out through the glass doors to the river.

The food was delicious, we had the brilliant company of my old flatmate and her partner and for LB in particular it was heartening to realise that weddings don't have to be scary and that even a nervous groom with an A4 sheet of paper can still steal the room with his heartfelt, hilarious speech. The dessert bar undoubtedly also helped. If this wasn't an idea we were already considering we would have absolutely filched it for our own little soiree in January. 

We didn't last late into the night because a week of work hell left LB literally nodding in his chair before the dancing had even started and so we left, after the vodka shots but before the disco but in time to see the beautiful paper lanterns lit and sent off into the sky. So lovely. And the full moon was a treat.

 

The next day was lunch up river (down river?) where we caught a rare moment of sunshine before the rain re-appeared and then it was home to London to collapse. Two weekends down two to go.

Weekend Three, July 22 - 23: Friends from Home


Earlier in the week (in fact the Friday before the weekend before) LB, Tors, her Hungry One and I had dinner and too much to drink with the fabulous Danne, catching up on all things life, love, work and travel and then the following Friday my little Bondi friend Imara came to town. She'd been in Paris visiting her sister and this was her first visit to the UK. She didn't have a phone, she didn't have a map - so I gave what I thought were fantastically precise directions to the Haunch of Venison gallery off New Bond St, where I would meet her once I'd finished my meeting at Louis Vuitton. It turns out my directions were fabulous but til the last street - something I only realised as I myself walked up the street on my way to my meeting. Thankfully she's an exceptionally bright girl and I found her on the front steps of the gallery (a block from where I said it was) and all was well.

Now New Bond St is certainly one way to introduce a person to London and heading to the nearest pub for a glass (OK, bottle) of wine with my boss we walked in to find nearly every man in there dressed in top hats and tails. Obviously they'd been to a wedding but having walked just past Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana et al on her way to meet me, the hilarity of the scene was not lost on me, though I'm still not sure Imara's convinced this isn't a typical Friday in the city.

Moving on to Soho to say farewell to Danne and to collect the Lovely Boy, we then went to dinner in Chinatown, so starving we may have ordered a duck. A whole duck. And we may have eaten it all.

The next day we braved the crowds and went to Portobello Road, via the obligatory stop outside the 'Hugh & Julia' travel bookshop, before then escaping into Hyde Park. After a brief trip through the Michaelangelo Pistoletto exhibition at the Serpentine we took refuge in the summer pavilion, designed this year by Peter Zumthor. It was, as I imagine it was envisaged to be, a sanctuary. Even with the dogs and kids and crowds it was so peaceful and lovely and calm inside, in stark contrast to its rather severe exterior.

Exahusted and foot sore and in need of wine and sofa, we headed home for an evening of food and talk and bad films - all that was missing were the Mint Slices. The next day we headed for Spitalfields for some East London experience before moving on to the Southbank for some sightseeing at the Globe and Tate Modern. Imara is currently working with Bell Shakespeare so there was no way we couldn't pay a visit to the Bard's original stomping ground if she was to go home with her integrity intact. Or without her I Heart Shakespeare keyring, come on, right?

After visiting the engrossing, complicated Taryn Simon exhibition at Tate we then lay on the grass in some rare summer sunshine drinking juice and talking life. I can't articulate how good it was. So good it made me painfully homesick for my life in Sydney where there are lots of friends to lie on the grass drinking juice and talking life with. London has many wonderful things about it - but a gang of brilliant girlfriends....... I miss my gang.

Dinner at Dishoom with OTHER old family friends followed and then LB and I took her to Covent Garden to spy on the Opera House. For my money though the sky was the most breath-taking thing about the moment. The next day I was back to work and Imara had London to herself before heading back to Paris on the train. I loved having her here and I can't wait to be back in Sydney in December in amongst my gals.

Weekend Four, 30-31 July: The weekend just gone.

This weekend has been remarkable for it's lack of remark. I had a haircut. I finished my book. We had dinner at the delicious da polpo in Covent Garden with Tors and the Hungry One to discuss plans for our upcoming weekend jaunt to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival and then we had ice cream. 

And then this afternoon, in the sunshine that's still loitering about from last weekend,  LB and I went to Whitechapel to see the Thomas Struth exhibition after wandering through the madness of East London and Brick Lane, where we came across this brilliant mural and another underway:

And THEN we came home and I have been sitting on the sofa ever since, writing while Lovely Boy has been cooking, inspired by the new Simon Hopkinson food show on the beeb:

Grilled eggplant and fetta. Yes it was delicious and yes I am eating off the cushion while I continue to sit on the sofa. It's been THAT kind of weekend.

Long and lazy weekend - the first

I do so love a long weekend. Religious rites, royal weddings - whatever I can get and this weekend was the first of two consecutive four day weekends here in London and it has been BLISS. Apart from a small freak storm, the sun has shone and with most other Londoners having absconded for more exotic locales, those of us left behind have had plenty of room to move in the parks, on the tube, along the pavement. Love it.

I started the weekend on Friday with a godless pedicure. I say godless because what other kind of good pedicure can there be on Good Friday? The afternoon was spent drinking pink wine in the sun with a lovely new pal until 4pm turned into 10pm and I was what in polite circles is known as totally smashed. So smashed I misplaced my centre of gravity and walked into the kitchen doorframe on getting home. All class....

Saturday my head hurt from the sturdy mix of a frazzled, water-deprived brain and a knock-now-lump above my eye..... Thankfully a hair appointment, some time with the token rubbish magazines and an afternoon BBQ at LB's BF's penthouse in Chiswick went some way to improving the situation. It was such a beautiful afternoon, hot even by London's usually shite standards, and so when the freak storm appeared out of nowhere the surreal state of London's weather was really hit home. Rain lashed the roof, the trees swayed, thunder, lightning. It was the kind of storm that made you wish you were lying on your own sofa listening to it all and not contemplating a trip home through it.

Thankfully the storm was fleeting and yesterday LB and I headed into central London for a date with some wedding decorations - Wills and Kate's - not Lovely Boys and mine, but should the municipality of greater Avalon decide to decorate the main street with bunting in our honour next January I probably won't protest...

Paddington Bear getting into the street party
spirit in the window of Hamley's

Liberty window.

Probably not sanctioned by the Palace...

It was quite a fun day, playing Spot the Tat among the windows of Regent and Oxford Streets, and the stroll through Hyde Park afterwards was also quite lovely, in that "Ok I'm getting hot and self-conscious now, can we please find some shade" sort of way. We did find shade - and a view to die for - at the top of the ferris wheel near Hyde Park corner, set up for the celebrations next Friday and there was something so childishly fun to the whole experience. All that was missing was the ice cream really.

Having walked up Regent St, along Oxford St and then across Hyde Park we decided that seeing as our invitation to this week's royal soiree has clearly been lost in the post and hell will freeze before we line the mall with 100,000 others, we should stroll to Buckingham Palace, up Pall Mall and then hot foot it out of central from Embankment. And so we did.

Having seen all the set up being, well, set up, I'm not so sure the best place to watch the whole spectacle won't be from the comfort of my house. Pajamas optional. The forecast for rain also votes for this option... And frankly, if Wills and Kate - The Wedding is anything like William and Kate - The Movie, which I shamelessly watched last night through slightly ajar fingers (in fairness The Guardian did describe is as "So bad it's awful - toe-curlingly, teeth-furringly, pillow-bitingly ghastly" so it's not like I didn't know what I was in for) well, I'm not sure how much of Friday I'll be able to stomach. But by god I'll give it my best. Never mind the dress, I'm just impressed with the hilarious contemporary art it's inspiring...

Rachel House, Royal Pinata, 2011

Lydia Leith, Throne Up, 2011

Today was the last day of the weekend and was spectacular only for its uneventfulness. I didn't quite manage to clean the house, book my flights home, book Berlin for the August long weekend or do anything else I had on my list - including the photography exhibition at the V&A but what can you do? Apart from wait three days and try again on the next long weekend.

Welcome back woollens

It's cold. The clocks don't change for another two weeks, winter doesn't officially start until November 1 but today was the first day I felt it in my toes. That numbing, achy cold that says, "Hello, I think I need socks. And probably some sensible leather shoes in the form of smart boots." I was anticipating this day. Last week I pulled out all my woollens - the chunky knits, the cute cardies, the accessory scarves, the functional scarves, the v-necks, the roll necks and my three pairs of knitted bed socks. And still I left the house today in fabulous but totally inappropriate slip ons...

The grey is steadily making itself known, mopping up the last occasional blue days and sunshine with a moody sort of melancholy that will eventually see it settle in until March. Which feels like forever away and too soon at the same time. Not too soon for sunshine mind, more too soon for a new year with an old broken plan. But one thing at a time.

LB and I had a lovely weekend, armed with little more than a plan to do "Something" that involved leaving the house. Something turned out to be a stroll through Portobello Road Markets, the purchasing of an exquisite, totally insane necklace (for me, not LB) and a visit to Hyde Park to see the new Anish Kapoor sculpture exhibition. It's been a while since I dragged LB somewhere in the name of Art but we had a great time and I am now earnestly in love with Kapoor's work. His Sky Mirror appeared to me like an alchemic dish of lost souls and moments, with the stainless steel disc angled skywards and thus reflecting the shifting grey clouds and silent thoughts of the world above. It was just exquisite.

 

To write about it or not write about it however remains the question. Pithy, self-indulgent observation is one thing, sitting down to extol my MAsterful opinion on contemporary art is quite another. I still haven't written anything for myself since the knee-capping of my confidence and honestly, it feels just like that summer in 2006 when that stupid big wave at South Bondi landed on me after a moment of hesitation (FYI dive, don't think) and I came away with a mouthful of sand and an inability to go beyond knee deep for the rest of the summer without having a serious anxiety attack.

I'd like to imagine that my triumphant career version of the conquering of my oceanic panic by successfully swimming the Bondi to Bronte 12 months later was somewhere in the non-wave near pipeline but I'm not holding my breath. Basically, my convoluted point is that I think I have to learn to swim again, artistically speaking. And without the help of that patient Bronte lifeguard. 

I'm trying not to over-think overthinking it but giving up on my career - momentarily, temporarily or forever, whatever it is I'm doing right now - is basically me on the beach, refusing to get my feet wet. Or unable to. I don't know. Whatever the case, Anish Kapoor on a cold, grey day in Hyde Park made something inside me want to get back in the water. 

I guess I just have to trust that whenever I'm ready, I won't sink, despite the conditions. Though speaking of conditions, I probably shouldn't be waiting for a warm day either.  

Mumma knows best

It's been a funny few days - misery has been digging my company big time but I've been trying not to let doomed job prospects and a rising tide of panic about what on earth I'm going to do next year overwhelm me every day. I've also been trying not to passively aggressively punish LB for having a job and a life and friends and oh well, everything that I don't have in London. I don't know what I did to deserve such a patient, supportive, understanding man. Survive all those stupid other boys maybe?...