Today was yet another supremely beautiful day here in London. The last few weeks have just been amazing with the weather, with this week being the proverbial cherry on top of the sundae: 70s and sunny all week long. We’ve had the windows open and The Max has spent a good deal of time at the park.
Sadly (or not, since I got a lot done), I wasn’t with him most of that time. He’s been there with his various part-time nannies. I’ve been writing, mostly either on the chaise lounge in our reception room (i.e. living room) or on the balcony.
As Tony says, my new office(s). I’ve mostly been in the front room though, since there’s a house across the way from us getting some extensive work done. Read: hammering, sawing, noise, noise, noise. Not exactly conducive to writing. And I’ve been doing lots of writing. I’m up to chapter 10 in this new book and nearly 16,000 words in. Over 6,000 words this last week. That’s pretty good for me (and not every day had a nanny). If I keep this up, I’ll be done with the book in early July.
But back to the glorious weather. It’s very un-London-ish or, at least, not the stereotypical London. The Max has also just started using his early rider bike that he got for Christmas. He’s grown a bit since then AND the weather is really good enough now to be out and about on it. In the space of a week he’s gone from barely able to use it to coasting at full speed down hills, barely touching the ground. Pretty amazing. My boy is learning to fly.
Tony technically had today off work for the bank holiday, but he’s super busy right now, so he went in anyway. So I went ahead and had our Friday nanny come out and The Max got to go to Queen’s Park and see a petting zoo of some kind. When Tony did get home, we ran out to the market because a bunch of shops are going to be closed because of the holidays. We were a bit late though, so we wound up just stopping at Essenza and having some antipasti and wine (apple juice for The Max). The Max also had another honeycomb ice cream from The Kitchen Pantry which he enjoyed a great deal (only his second full size ice cream in his life).
Since we didn’t get any food stuffs at the market, we went out for dinner after that (Max still on his bike). Tony was thinking we’d go to one of the Spanish tapas bars (there are a number of them in the area), but Max stopped his bike while we were out on Portobello and said “I want to eat out.” We said “Sure, where?” since we were already planning to eat out anyway and Max stopped, turned his bike around (no easy feat for the little peanut) and took off. We thought he was headed to this one Thai place that has an open air balcony, but he zoomed right by it and went straight to Goode & Wright.
It’s one of our favorite little places with great, friendly staff that all know Max by name. Max even has his own little song he sings, which pretty much just goes: “Mr. Daniel, Mr. Daniel, Mr. Daniel” (endless repeat with ups and downs and various tonal variations). He loves Mr. Daniel and Daniel is very kind to him. Goode & Wright has only been around since January, so it’s as new as we are. They’ve got great burgers and awesome chips (french fries). Other stuff too, but the burgers are really good so I usually wind up getting one of those.
It’s kind of an undiscovered little place. I think people pass it by because they see the burgers at the top of the menu and don’t see that there’s other things as well. I hope people start to find it. It’s a great place to stop on Portobello Road to eat and watch the people go by. And hey, any place that The Max gives his seal of approval to is a good place. He’s quite the little connoisseur.
Tomorrow we’ve got more wonderful weather. It’s a beautiful time to be here.
(and no, I didn’t find a Mary Poppins…)
