Another Fun Weekend

Most of my weekends in London are packed with interesting and fun things to do.  Here's how things often go, on this fairly typical weekend in January.

On Saturday, I woke up, and dad and mom went for their runs.  While I was alone, I did my blog and wrote a poem.  I have millions of projects that I do in my spare time!  Then, when dad came back, we went right out to Tony's.  Tony is our local "fruit and veg" man; he used to work in Portobello Market (he had a stall), but then moved his business to a cobble-stoned mews (a kind of alley in London; it used to be for stables) in our neighborhood.  He sells to restaurants and does some private deliveries.  On Saturday, he has his assistant named Jess, whose boyfriend is an actor.  Tony doesn't sell to most people, but my dad is a "special" customer.  As usual, Tony's "shop" was busy and bustling with fun.  Can you guess what Tony gave us?  A whole flat of strawberries, for free!  He said they were not good enough for the restaurants, so we could have them "if the Mrs. will make jam of them" (which mom certainly would!).  We did bring them home, and mom did make strawberry jam, which was delicious!

Next we went to meet Chris, dad's friend and colleague, and his wife Maureen and son Calder. We went to a cafe/restaurant, and Calder and I went on his DS, which I think is rather boring. At the cafe they had a lunch-type meal, and we snacked on french fries and calamari. Then we walked to a coffee shop in the Market. At the coffee shop we got hot chocolate.  Then we said good-bye, and Dad and I went home to do work.  "Work" means the many projects I do and, for dad, the book he is writing.

We had a 'movie night' that evening:  while eating dinner we watched the movie Oliver about an orphan.

The next day, Sunday, I woke up and had a very good, fun run with  dad.  At home, mom made scones, and we had a filling breakfast with scones and strawberry jam--made with Tony's strawberries!  Then I walked with my dad to the Wallace Collection, a museum in Marylebone; we went to a drawing class there, which is held monthly.  The drawing teacher  was very helpful and made us think more about perspective.  I drew two pictures that I really liked, including one of "The Young Cicero Reading" by Vincenzo Foppa (1427 - 1515.  We also looked around the museum:  loads of great art!

Vincenzo Foppa (1427 - 1515), The Young Cicero Reading

After the Wallace, dad and I walked to Emma's new house (Emma is a friend from Seattle, also here for the year), which is in Chelsea.  On the walk, while dad and I were having interesting conversations, we saw a great big heron land on a tree.  When we got to Emma's house, there was another family there, and we all had dinner together.  The dinner consisted of soup and sandwiches, but not just any old sandwich:  the best sandwich I had ever had!  It was a grilled panino made with ham, cheese, tomato--the usual stuff--but grilled!

These are my weekends:  usually some art, often some friends, and always fun!