Tuesmonday

I bloody love a long weekend and I love that the month of May has two of them. It's civility and generosity rolled into two. I also love Tuesmonday. You know, that wonderful negation of Monday blues by sheer fact of it already being Tuesday and thus one day closer to Friday. It's pretty wonderful.

So I had a good long weekend.

Butter chicken curry

On this day four years ago I met a very nervous Lovely Boy outside White City Station. He was going to cook me dinner for the very first time. We hadn’t kissed yet, we hadn’t flirted, we’d just spent time in our respective heads wondering and undoubtedly over-thinking.

Those who know LB know he’s not a braggart – unassuming, quiet, enthusiastic, gentle and genuine, yes – but a show off? Uh, no. So when he offered to cook me his butter chicken curry and told me it would be the best butter chicken curry I’d ever eaten I was intrigued.

The girl who ate Christmas

I’m still digesting.

Christmas 2012 – Lovely Boy’s and my first together in London and I think we did it in style.

It’s been a strange experience sticking it out in London this December, when in all December’s past 

I’ve been itching to get home for a Sydney summer with the family and all but counting down the minutes until check-in at Terminal 3. That itch is still resolutely itchy but because I couldn’t scratch it this year I’ve been distracting myself with Christmas craft. And god has it felt good. I honestly wasn’t sure how I’d go, playing the long-game this winter, but really, even in confessing to a bout of tears yesterday, I’ve surprised myself at how well I’ve handled the cold and the lack of family distraction (though there’s still January, February and March to get through so plenty of time yet for a toy drop.)

A long reign and a wet weekend...

London two weeks ago...

New York feels like forever ago. We arrived back dazzled by the rare London sunshine and not even two and a half hours of re-root canal the day we landed could diminish the warm, soul polishing embrace of the sun. I don’t really want to relieve my dental disaster so I won’t, suffice to say that I feel unwittingly dragged into adulthood for having been mature and (mostly) brave throughout the whole ordeal. Jetlag and temazepan may have helped.

We had an – god, do you know, I was about to write “an unseasonably beautiful four days” but then realised that actually, it’s freaking June and four beautiful days should be seasonably, reasonably expected. But then this is London. And this, currently, is London Summer:

This afternoon, crossing Vauxhall Bridge. Normally
you would be able to see the London Eye from here

Anyway, we had a lovely four days back in London before returning to work, which we spent mostly with Lovely Boy’s brother and his kids, who were at the start of a holiday through Europe. Lucky for them. We took them for a gourmet lunch at Borough Market before spending the afternoon drinking Pimms (lemonade for those without the necessary id….) in the wildflower garden atop the Southbank Centre. It was so delightful.

Preparing for the Jubilee. Pre-appalling weather.

Fiona Banner's boat atop the
Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank

And then it was work for a week (busy, mental, stressful, changes ahoy) before another four days off to play in honour of the Queens Jubilee. I have to confess to be totally fascinated by the royals – not fascinated enough to brave 70,000 on Pall Mall for a fleeting glimpse of them and certainly not fascinated enough to spend seven hours on the side of the Thames, wedged in a crowd and getting totally drenched. But you know, fascinated. As I’m sure every man and his corgi already knows, in the greatest of British traditions, it rained. ALL weekend.

The neighbours getting their Jubilee on

Lovely Boy and I spent most of it on the sofa watching the pomp and pageantry on the television. Though on Saturday, when it was only mildly miserable, we went for an amble along the river towards Putney, where boats were beginning to muster for Sunday’s flotilla and snooped in a neighbourly sort of fashion on all the street parties going on around us.

Quite a bit of bedraggled bunting is still about the streets even now and all the flags throughout central London hang limply – like depressed wet washing. It’s a bit tragic really and only makes me wonder what kind of weather we can expect for the “Summer” Olympics next month. It would be churlish to say I hope it rains, yes?

A moment of forlorn homesickness when I spotted
this on a bench along the river near Putney

The long weekend wasn’t a total bust though. On Sunday Lovely Boy recreated Clinton St Bakery pancakes – DELICIOUS – and on Tuesday I moseyed down to Crystal Palace with a work colleague for a swim. I can’t remember the last time I swam laps in a 50m pool, and it was pre-Easter chest infection that I so much as gazed at my swimmers so it was quite the return but I loved it. Loved feeling totally pooped at the end, loved being able to just swim, and loved the company actually – because let’s be honest, sometimes swimming laps is fucking boring.  

A three day working week can only be sweet (and swift) and the weekend just gone was intermittently windy and wet but on Saturday Tori took me for some mani pedi pampering as an early birthday present. Shiny new nails and lunch at Hix in Selfridges to follow before some window licking on the third floor. It was the ideal girly day.

Lovely Boy's Clinton St tribute. #impressive

And today, for a wet, cold Monday, wasn’t actually bad. There’s a lot of things on the work horizon, most of them busy-making, but a constructive, exciting meeting first thing has given me a renewed sense of direction about work and my role and opportunities to really learn. There’s also a huge new professional development that I’m reluctant to talk about lest it disappear again but once I know for certain I’ll be shouting modestly from the rooftops about it. So stay tuned for that news broadcast.

Spotted on the corner of New Oxford and Museum Sts on Saturday

In the meantime, I have 32 to prepare for. I’ve stopped looking for grey hairs in case it becomes some sort of self-fulfilling prophesy and am preparing myself, Zen-like, for a philosophical sort of birthday. I don’t care much for the even numbers so this year is going to be mostly about consolidation. Dead sexy I know but this is what getting old does to you.

Kusama, cocktails and a little bit of crazy

It would be a stretch to say I got to meet Yayoi Kusama two weeks ago.

It is true to say that if I *had* stretched I would have got within an inch of her thanks to an invite to the press view for her retrospective at Tate Modern. One of several art world perks that are increasingly coming my way these days. But I'll get to those.

We're doing a huge project with Tate at the moment around Kusama's show and so it was incredible to get the chance to explore the exhibition without the hoards and to really have the space and time to allow total absorption in her obsessively beautiful, dark, quietly poetic works. People think dots when they think Kusama and you do get dots here - lots of them - but the curation is so thoughtful that they go beyond any glib pop-esque moment to become a really powerful meditation on madness, infinity and beauty. Because they are beautiful....

Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room - Filled with the Brilliance of Life, 2011 

It was a pretty lovely moment, one of many recently actually, that have punctuated what has otherwise been a stressy couple of weeks that in my head got totally out of control. Exhaustion, homesickness, flatness, semi-brokeness, tiredness and a general case of the Over Its when it's come to public transport and three hour daily commutes, living in Hammersmith and wearing three days worth of outfits all at once. The Lovely Moments are the only things that have kept me from spinning totally out of control. That and a waning full moon?....

In amongst the stress was schlepping out to Croydon in the snow and sub-zero temperatures to get my new visa, or Biometric Residence Permit, as they call it these days in yet another step to dehumanise, humiliate and overly manage you. £850 and four hours later and I'm allowed to stay for another two years. A new lease on London life but one I don't think we'll be renewing when the time comes.

Funnily enough the day after my visa adventure was Lovely Boy's and my three year anniversary. Three years since Lovely Boy first cooked me dinner, three years since we drank three bottles of wine to overcompensate for nerves and an anticipation for not quite sure what and three years since we first kissed at the 94 bus stop at Shepherds Bush at 2am drunk and dizzy and elated and freezing.

After finally getting to have our date with Grayson Perry we decided to honour our little anniversary with a re-enactment of all the key details except the 94 bus stop. We (Lovely Boy....) cooked butter chicken curry, we drank too much wine and we smiled a lot. It was a good night and a perfect moment to reflect on everything the last three years have brought us both.

The last week, despite a shitty few days at work, brought other bright moments in amongst the crazy. I got a very small pay rise - more gesture than largesse - but I'm grateful for it nonetheless, going some way as it does towards improving the balance on my budget.

Which is good - because apart from groceries, I have cocktails to save for. And a holiday.

The joys of Night Jar...

On Friday night I met up with a gang of fabulous girls for some demure bar hopping in east London in pursuit of good drinks in new and interesting locations. Starting with a quick dose of art at the Barbican, first stop was Night Jar at Old St, where the cocktails are curated around themes of pre-war, prohibition, post-war and Night Jar originals. The decor was speakeasy and the music was jazz. I can't quite remember the name of my beverage but it had something to do with paradise and beach-combing so you could say it chose me...

From here we went for Vietnamese and from here we went to the back lounge at Callooh Callay on Rivington St. This detail (back lounge versus front lounge) is important only in that to get to the back lounge you have to walk, Narnia-like, through a wardrobe to get there. 

Novelty factor or no, I completely loved it. The decor back here was Dali meets disco and again I can't remember the particulars of my drink but only because I remain distracted by the drink that was on the table across from us:

Look closer....

Yes, they are gnomes.

It was a great way to shake off the week and on Saturday Lovely Boy and I set to being grown ups by opening a joint account and doing the groceries. And making a collective decision to pull ourselves out of the doldrums by booking a holiday. And not just any holiday - but a holiday to New York. HELLS YES! I'm already thinking about what I'm going to pack. We found this amazing loft in Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn to stay in thanks to some savvy internet research and now we're to the planning. I cannot freaking wait. Something to soften the blow of Monday blues.

B is for...

BOY, LOVELY

Lovely Boy and I had a date on Saturday afternoon. More an attempt to re-engage with life in London than re-kindle any lost in the early days of marriage romance, we ventured out on Saturday afternoon with a plan....

BRITISH MUSEUM (see also: Perry, Grayson)

First stop was the British Museum. I've been wanting to take Lovely Boy to see the Grayson Perry exhibition since I saw it last year and this week I managed to wangle some free tickets and so we were off. And we were off, dressed in all our finest fleecy layers, anticipating the forecasted snow. But so, it turned out, was everybloodyone else.

As his teddy bear Alan Measles, Perry writes a very sardonic, very funny blog that takes pointed aim at the fatuousness of much of the art/celebrity world and there's a beautiful vase in his exhibition, titled You Are Here (2011) that lampoons the myriad reasons why people might flock to his show. Whatever their reason of choice on Saturday, it was so busy that despite our free tickets we couldn't get in. And so we've had to raincheck it for next Saturday. Which takes care of next week's date....

Grayson Perry, You Are Here, 2011. (detail below)
Image courtesy: Victoria Miro

But because we were there, and because Lovely Boy had never been beyond the gift shop on a lunch break, and because the last time I was there I was an awkward, chubby, homesick teenager, we decided to have a wander. We spent maybe an hour perusing the sculptures in the Greek halls before heading up to the fourth floor to ogle the Egyptian mummies. And then having had enough of that we headed on to the next part of our little London date.

BOOZE (see also: Tate Modern members bar)

Catching the tube to London Bridge we warmed our mitts with a mug of mulled wine before heading on to Tate. One of our wedding presents was a 12 month membership and I lured Lovely Boy there on the promise of a drink at the sixth floor members bar. If we saw any art it was completely by accident. The two hours we spent there were passed sitting in rock star position against the windows where Lovely Boy sipped an ale and I had a fat glass of pink wine while we watched the snow roll in over St Paul's. If it wasn't already one of my favourite London views it would absolutely be now. It was low key and cool and breath-taking all at once. And by the time we left there was snow already settling.

BOROUGH

Heading back to Borough I took LB to Elliot's, an unpretentious, welcoming, busy restaurant on Stoney St a couple of doors down from Monmouth. I've never been for breakfast - Tor has - but she took me here late last year for a pre-wedding, carb-free, supper. We ate four different entrees from a menu dictated by the freshest produce available at the market that day and washed it down with a big glass of wine. It was a great date. And one I wanted to have again - with Lovely Boy. And boy did it not disappoint. Fried squid with mouthwatering black spelt, homemade garlic flatbread, charcuterie and cheesy cauliflower. All before the kind of hot chocolate cake with butterscotch sauce and homemade vanilla ice cream that leaves you both rapturous and lost for words. I'll be going again. I suspect Lovely Boy will be too.

B is for... SNOW?

OK obviously B is not for snow but in the interests of a linear narrative snow needs to come next so suck it up and read on...

Well, really, there isn't much else to say except that it snowed and it was exciting and by the time we got home we looked like a Mr and Mrs pair of snowpeople. Until we started to melt. And then drip. But still, there is something so inherently joyous about snow. I don't know if it's the novelty factor of seeing your street turn into a monochrome canvas of white, if it's the gratitude for distraction from the just-plain-old-grey cold or if it's the satisfying squeaky scrunch of footprints that break that beautiful pervading quiet that comes with snowfall. Perhaps it's just seeing your husband declare his love for you in the middle of the road.

BLUEBERRY PANCAKES

The first time Lovely Boy cooked me pancakes I was so hungover I was probably still drunk. I'd arrived home at 3.30am, unable to articulate and sliding along the walls with a rare lucid gratitude for their capacity to keep me upright. That was Hen's Party Version London. And I think that's where blueberry pancakes as my new breakfast happy places comes from. Even when I'm full to bilious I still have to eat until there's nothing left. But I do draw the line at licking the plate if that's any consolation....

BUDGET

Welcome to Misery Sunday. Try though they might, not even the blueberry pancakes could stave off the depression that came with sitting down to do a grown up version of a budget only to discover that when it comes to my financial situation, income - expenses = balance........ EQUALS NOTHING. The spreadsheet would have cried with me if I'd added in expensive face cream, occasional flowers and my bi-monthly purchase of Chanel's espresso-coloured waterproof eyeliner.

Things are about to change drastically around here if we are to have any hope of travelling anywhere this year that's not simply to and from work. It's kind of depressing. And the kind of grown up that is frankly B for boring and far from fun. So thank goodness for free tickets to Grayson Perry next weekend?..... I wonder if that reason is on the vase somewhere....

Whatever the case it's time to get fiscally creative.

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.