London with Legs & Cat

Hello! I'm back to my weekend ritual of blogging and drinking coffee. And boy do I have a lot of stuff to write about. I could really go mental on this blog with so much detail but we crammed so much into the weekend, that it would take me a whole week to write about a weekend. So, rather than write nothing, I'm going to just make sure I've made some notes and uploaded lots of photos. Here I go:

Friday:

Claire and Laura picked me up and took me through to Biarritz. Not being used to travelling light, I was super early for the flight and spent quite a bit of time just hanging about! Flight was grand and I got straight into a very sunny Stansted and straight into M&S Food for a train picnic. Before I knew it, I was in Liverpool St and I managed to work out the correct bus to Legs' place. First time on a London bus and it's so much simpler now as you can just tap on and tap off with your bank card! Legs came to meet meet me at the bus stop and took me to her flat, which is an absolute oasis in a bustling, warm neighbourhood. We had a quick wander, she went back to the flat for a Zoom meeting and I had a bit more of a wander to get my bearings and have a £5 glass of cider. (Welcome to London!)

Legs' flat - outside and in! 

Cat's train was due into King's Cross around 5.30 so Legs and I jumped on the tube to spring the surprise. You should've seen her face when I appeared. Totally shocked to see me, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!!!!!!!!!" Absolutely brilliant. Legs had made a reservation for a table at Granger which is just across from the station so it was straight in there for drinks and dinner. After dinner, we went to the Lighterman in Kings Cross for more drinks before heading back to Legs place for Cat to dump bags. After that, we went downstairs to Legs' local, Two One Four. 

Saturday

Despite a reasonably sensible night of boozing on the Friday, it was still a late one so I was absolutely shattered when my natural body clock woke me at 7.30 on Saturday morning. Thankfully, I managed to get back to sleep for a wee while in order to prepare myself for what was likely to be a huge day. I wasn't wrong. Once we got going, we headed to Maltby Street Market for the most amazing range of street food that you could imagine. The biggest surprise for me was the availability of GF options and how many of them were listed-on-the-menu. We all went hard for the kind of stuff that squares you up after a night on the bevvy: fried cheese and bacon rolls with jalapenos and chilli sauce. Thank you Venezuela. After that it was round to Borough Market for even more GF treats. I simply couldn't say no. 

For us, Super Saturday began in earnest when we arrived at the Flat Iron Square beer garden. 20 years on from the infamous trip to Dublin, Cat and I were away for the weekend, drinking pints and watching rugby. Class. 

We moved on to Vinegar Yard for the Scotland match and, as the pints flowed, so did the nonsense. 

It came a point where we needed to make a decision: stay here and accept that it's just going to get mental, or leave and make the reservation that Legs had made for dinner in Shoreditch. We went for the latter, but with the amount of pints we'd already had, it still got pretty loose. Dinner was at Bibo and the lobster paella was washed down with plenty of sangria. The food was good and the service was outstanding. We were last to leave the place! And we headed straight to The Looking Glass, a late night cocktail bar / club for a dance into the small hours. We even got the night bus home. Oh, to be young again! 

Sunday
As you might imagine, it was a slow start to proceedings. But we had an agenda: get Cat to Kings Cross for her train at midday. After such a late one, Cat's fitbit clocked her 10,000 on the way to the tube. Once we said our goodbyes, Legs and I added quite a few more steps to our own step counts, managing to rack up 18k of walking alone by the end of the day. It was brilliant. We wandered along the Regent's canal to Camden; ate incredible Afghan street food for lunch and people watched; walked through Regent's Park; hired city bikes and took in the biggest of sights including Oxford Circus, Trafalgar Square, The Mall, Buckingham Palace, Horseguard's Parade, Downing Street, Parliament Square, the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Bridge, the London Eye and the National Theatre. What. A. Day. We did about 15k on the bikes! And Legs almost got me killed with her utter disregard for other road us. Hilarious and brilliant. I tell you, it was a much deserved pint at the Woolpack in Bermondsey when we got back to Legs' hood at about 6pm. We had Franco Manca pizza for dinner but it was nowhere near as good as the one I got in Glasgow at Christmas. You can't win them all. 

Monday

After the busyness of the previous two days, my plan was to take things a bit easier on the Monday. Legs was working and I had the idea that I'd just wander and see where I ended up. It was freeing, and it was great. I picked up some food for a picnic lunch overlooking the river; visited Tate Modern which wasn't as good as the last time I was there, wandered the south bank and bought second hand books at a small stall outside the National Theatre; crossed the river at the Golden Jubilee footbridge and headed into the heart of central London; saw people on a balcony at Trafalgar Square and wanted to find out how they got there, realised it was the National Gallery and that it was free so went in and saw absolutely incredible pieces of art; had a wander through Chinatown and Carnaby Street; then finally went to M&S on Oxford Street. By the time I'd gotten the tube, walked back to Legs' flat and we went for dinner at an Indian restaurant in Borough Market, I'd covered 15k on foot! 

Tuesday

I was up early doors and Legs walked me round to the bus stop at the back of 8am. We said our goodbyes with both of us in total agreement that this weekend was much needed and one of the best we've had. Hopefully it wont be too long until another similar one is in the pipeline. I hopped on the bus to Liverpool St, grabbed a coffee and my train pulled out of the station around 930am. Remarkably, I thought I saw Louise Buisson, a school mum who owns a wine shop in town, in Liverpool St. I got off the train and there she was at Stansted too. Mental. She'd also just had a girl's weekend in the Big Smoke. With no checked luggage, Stansted was easy to navigate and before I knew it, I was taking off, and tucking into my gluten free picnic that I'd picked up at Boots. It's just the simplicities of being able to grab food on the go that I really miss in France. Aaaargh. Anyway, that was me. Four action packed and brilliant days in London with great friends. And to think I'd swithered on going or not. You cannot put a price on reconnecting with old friends like that. 

Meanwhile, in Pau

Four days without me was never going to be a problem for Iain and William. They were so busy, I don't even think they missed me. Iain even ended up having a bit of a soirée on the Saturday night with the Ramsays and Ciara and Eioghan round for beers and takeaway. Apparently William was loving having the boys here and in Iain's words, "It looked like we'd been burgled". However, Iain's fun times came to a crashing halt on the Tuesday afternoon when, en route to collect me at Tarbes airport, he stopped for fuel and put petrol in the car instead of diesel. Cue a ridiculous chain of steps including him dry boaking in the forecort of the petrol station with Olivier as they tried to syphon the petrol out, them deciding to buy a pump and having to removed the back seat to get into the fuel tank, Steve and Laura getting dispatched to collect me and me having to cycle up to the petrol station to get house keys. I'm just glad it wasn't me that did it. Shambles without me. ;-) 

But, it's good to be home. 

Lorna.