The Long Weekend

There have been a lot of good things about coming to work in the UK. For example, meeting the man of my dreams who I'll be marrying in the next year or so. Another example is the fact that the attitude toward socializing is much more relaxed...we even have small gatherings with alcohol AT work quite regularly. And if you wanted, you could hang with the 'gang' every Friday night (not that I want to or do...but I could). And finally, one of the best things (outside of meeting R.) is the fact that we have amazing vacations over here. Just yesterday we had a day off. Yup, another long weekend. And there will be another one at the end of the month. It's great! In my field, we typically get decent vacations anyway, but here it's even better (in my view!). So...what did I do with my time?

Friday: left work at around 4:30pm. R. was having his 'leaving do' to celebrate his last day at his job. I met him at the Princess Royal near Old Street station. I was the first there, at a pub with a bunch of servers and only 2 other customers. But I had smartly bought a paper & so got my vodka and tonic for the wait. R. showed up about 15 minutes later. Along with him, and soon after him, came his workmates. Now...imagine...a large number of IT guys (plus one woman) all together. Quite a sight, eh? I had fun chatting with them about R. and getting all sorts of dirt. R. decided that it was a night for him to get completely smashed as I was there to take care of him. Woohoo. I finally got him to leave 5 hours later so that we could get some food...he was blotto and couldn't really tell me where to go so we ended up at the first curry house along the way. It was fine, but I had a challenge of keeping R. on task and relatively quiet. Finally, we finished our food (it wasn't all that great) and got on the tube. Here I had to support R. (no seats) and keep him awake. I certainly got to laugh a bunch of times, though I have to admit I got a bit frustrated at points. But he's taken care of me plenty of times, so he rightly deserved the chance to go all out. I finally poured him into bed where he proceeded to snore his night away.

Saturday: Time for a walk. I left Cricklewood at around 11:30am for a picnic in Hampstead Heath. I brought my map as I was going to walk over to Hampstead and then down toward the southeast end where a bunch of friends were gathering. Hampstead is a rather interesting place...not at all on a grid system. So I winded in and out of roads, getting a touch turned around at times and ended up much higher up than I expected. But it was lovely. The houses there can be so quaint and pretty. And while it was up hill, I knew that I'd hit the 'down' soon! I went to the outdoor market & purchases some lovely looking raspberries for my meal (I decided to go on a diet after the night before...Weight Watchers, here I come!). In and out of roads, finding paths to where I was going. Finally, I found the path I was looking for and 1 hour and 30 minutes later, I was at the picnic site. There I was joined by the hosts and eventually by 7 others, plus 2 babies/kids. We ate some food (I ate more than my berries I'm afraid...bad dieter, bad!), laughed and wine was poured (I was good and had a very small glass).

R. did not join me as he had a cricket match...and I had promised to come and see some of it. So a few hours later, I went on my merry way, walking toward the cricket pitch. I missed seeing him bat (46 pts) but was able to get there before the end. His team won. Which was good as he wasn't feeling particularly well at that moment! Hee hee. We hung out with the team for a bit and then headed home to cook. I was going to make a lovely Mediterranean dish but we didn't have any tomatoes, fresh or otherwise and I wasn't in the mood to run out. So instead I decided to use the salsa and make a Mexican meal with roasted peppers & onion to boot. And it turned out quite nice too!

R. decided that he would join me in watching "The Chorus". He's not really into independent films, but this one he truly loved. It's the story of a boy's school for 'bad boys', a few years after WWII. A teacher arrives who treats them compassionately and who begins a choir. He saves a few boys along the way. It was wonderful. A good ending to a great day.

Sunday: The boys went out to play cricket, so my friend, G., invited me to go shopping. We met at noon at TK Maxx (like TJ Maxx in the States). We tried on all sorts of things, from dresses to shoes to tops to skirts. And we each found a few things. G. found a lovely blue polka dot dress that fit her to a tee, as well as a cute stripy top that would be great with jeans or a black skirt. I found a pair of shoes with a wedge heal that ties up around your ankle...it's tan with little flowers on it...different than anything else I own. I also purchased a black & white skirt with a bold print, a 1/2 sleeve sweater with embroidered flowers and a black tank sweater with white trim that will go well with the skirt or almost anything else. And it was all for £75! The price of a decent pair of shoes. I was chuffed. We then walked over to the mall. There we didn't find any clothing, but were able to get some jewelry. In a fit of accessorizing, I bought two pairs of earrings and 2 necklaces that were on sale at Mikey. As I don't own too much jewelry but wanted to branch out, I was pleased with my purchases.

I ended my Sunday with R. We didn't do too much as we were both tired.

Monday: R. & I went to the Science Museum. I think we're a bit too old for the place in a lot of ways, even though we did find a few things to be interesting. I was disappointed that they had removed the psychology section, but did enjoy other parts. We left after about 2 hrs, which was just in time as it was getting packed! We had been thinking about heading to the Museum of Natural History but the queue was huge. Nah...not worth it, plus R. was dead tired. So off to home it was. We rested a bit, ate some leftovers for lunch, then went food shopping. Finished the day watching Arsenal win though one of their young new players got nailed and may be badly hurt. I cut R's hair to be ready for his new job today. And then off to bed. It was my favorite part of the day...we chose to go to bed 1 hour early so that we could lie there and chat. We end up talking about so much more when we're in the dark and lying there. It was a good cuddle and then off to sleep.

Yup, a good long weekend. Hopefully the week will continue with this trend!