It’s hard to believe but it’s been four months since I went to the little house above the boulangerie. Four months!
With Very Good Friday tomorrow and Even Better Easter Monday, the time has finally come to head back to Nice for a long weekend.
The only question is, what has Letad done to the house?
It’s the end of a very short era for me, the office is packed and moving is underway.
Corks are about to pop and we’re to leave the building in fifteen minutes.
In true London fashion, everyone’s heading out for drinks and then, oh bliss, a four day weekend!
Looking forward to Very Good Friday!
Where I work there are quite a few clubs.
There’s Salad Club where everyone brings ingredients to make salad. Then there’s Soup Club for the end of the month when everyone’s run out of money and are eating tinned soup because they can’t afford salad. And there’s Craft Club where people get together to do crafts and drink pints. It’s all good.
This week I’m the inaugural member of the Sauerkraut Club. Having eaten far too many lentils, I have bloated to the point of explosion (I’m like the girl who turned into a giant blueberry in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory except in my case, I’m a giant lentil!)
Two of my best friends in LA are on raw food diets and are eating loads of sauerkraut to build healthy gut bacteria and so I thought I’d better found the London branch of the Sauerkraut Club and follow suit.
It’s surprisingly addictive and seems to be helping. No takers at work yet surprisingly but there’s a vegan who I might be able to persuade to join!
Sunday morning, the temperature was one degree, a balmy Spring day (not) and so we set off to go to the top of the Shard, the tallest building in Europe… at the moment.
It had been snowing heavily the day before and we didn’t have high hopes for visibility but it was a surprise for the Dad of Letad, K-Mo as I affectionately call him, in order to celebrate his 80th birthday.
At the top of the Shard it was bitterly cold. Snow was being cleared from the open platform and visibility wasn’t great. At least it wasn’t a whiteout though. We’d hoped to be able to see Primrose Hill but it wasn’t our day.
After the Shard we headed off for a long lunch at a nearby restaurant. Not near enough for Letad and I as we ran out of money and had to get out of our taxi and walk the final leg. It was absolutely freezing!
Several hours later we staggered out into the cold. Brrrr!
It had been a lovely day out, a birthday to celebrate but come on Spring, this is getting ridiculous!
I’m so over winter!
I walked into the foyer after a long day at work and waited for the very small lift.
Stepping inside I pushed the button for the sixth floor. A strange judder, then nothing. Then ten seconds later, a bounce.
Something was very wrong.
I pushed the button again. The lift bounced and then bounced every ten seconds in a most annoying way.
I was stuck. Bugger.
Luckily I’m not claustrophobic and luckily I was alone as the lifts are only big enough for two people preferably not strangers.
I pushed the emergency button and then decided to ring the lift company rather than ring the building porter who is quite hard to get hold of. Luckily someone answered even though it was after hours and a nice man said he’d send someone out.
Bounce, bounce…
Then I noticed the floor level had changed. The bouncing lift was moving slowly up the building. Bounce, bounce…
I prized the inside doors apart to see that I was stuck between floors. I released them and the lift bounced a few more times.
I prized them apart again. I could see out but I couldn’t open the exterior doors.
Bounce, bounce.
In the meantime Letad was very kindly texting me puns about being stuck in a lift from France. How supportive!
Twenty minutes later the lift bounced to the third floor and then for no apparent reason it released and went back down to the ground floor.
The doors opened and I quickly staggered out into the hall.
To the startled man standing waiting I dramatically warned him not to go in there and then I walked up the six flights to the little flat.
It looks like I’ll be taking the stairs from now on…
Sunday morning and my landlady arrived at 10am. It was sadly time to bid farewell to the pink sofa!
Letad and I lifted the scratchy pink cushions off the scratchy pink base. We lifted it and gently wiggled it around corners and through doorframes. We squeezed and pushed it until it popped out through the front door and into the hall. And we slammed the door behind it.
Then a man with a van came to pick it up. And it was gone.
After a year with the pink sofa, the little flat looked strangely barren again. Dare I say I had grown a little fond of my nemesis after all.
Not for long however, I did a little furniture rearranging after work and suddenly things looked much nicer. A lovely blue grey calm exuded from the wall where the pink horror once stood.
Pink sofa gone!
It’s snowing heavily and Letad and I are holed up in the little flat for the rest of the day, I suspect.
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| Spring! |
We’ve been out to do the obligatory wedding things for the weekend (pick up rings, pick up suit) and now with snow falling heavily, we’ve called it a day.
Apparently the odds are quite high for a white Easter!
Yesterday was the first day of Spring!
Suddenly I have visions of flowers bursting into bloom, birdsong from the treetops, golden sunshine, light breezes, picnics on Primrose Hill and pretty summer dresses.
This morning it’s snowing.
Back in the saddle.
A lot of my time is spent art directing and recently I haven’t been doing what I’m actually quite good at, designing. Today however I walked in to work, picked up my trusty drawing tablet and sat down at my desk.
Pushing my sleeves up, it was time to get back in the saddle and start designing again. Hello Photoshop, I’ve missed you!
By 6pm I was feeling pleased with where I’d ended up. A new direction done. Products, patterns, logos, the lot. I can work extremely fast and so with a conference call with the US scheduled for 7:30pm, I headed back to the little flat so I could do the call from home.
By 7:45pm the call was finished. Everyone loved the new direction and now I have a week to finish it before the office shuts down literally as we’re moving to Camden and I’m off to France for Easter.
Cracking the whip!
A pound, a pound, my kingdom for a pound.
Actually the scales have started to behave and I’m a pound down this morning! Shout from the rooftops, ring the church bells and alert the media!
Well, before getting too carried away, let’s see what happens tomorrow. As I know from experience, it can all go pear shaped… literally!
all about gem 