Easter
It was so nice to have a long weekend.
Friday we just went to a farm shop for coffee and cake and some goodies for the weekend, followed by a trip to the garden centre. In the afternoon we started putting stuff in the allotment - cabbages, brussels, kale, broccoli, celeriac, kohl rabi, and romanesco cauliflower in the brassica bed, plus tomatoes and sweet peppers in the tomato bed, and parsnips in the planter.
Saturday we went to London! We went to Serpentine Gallery to see an amazing exhibition by sculptor Barbara Chase-Ribaud. Her work was beautiful.
'Cleopatra's Wedding Dress' by Barbara Chase-Ribaud
We had brunch in the restaurant next door, the architecture for which was designed by Zaha Hadid and was beautiful. I had shakshuka which burned the fuck out of my mouth but was delicious.
We went for a lovely stroll through Hyde Park back into town, and into Longchamp where I chose a new handbag to go with my Derby outfit. We then headed to Lock & Co, the oldest hatters in the world, where G was fitted for a top hat for the Derby. We were expecting to get a rabbit felt topper, because silks are ludicrously expensive, but they actually had some vintage silks in just a few sizes - one of which fitted G and was even less than a felt! The one he's ended up with likely dates from 1930s, and is one of the few left using that silk method because the factory in Belgium that produced them burned down in the 50s, it's just so cool. The whole experience was pretty cool - the Royal family all get their top hats from there, and Churchill got all his hats made and fitted there.
Hat shapes customised for Franklin D Roosevelt and Jackie Onassis.
And than, hat and bag sorted, we went exploring around the little courtyards and side streets near Saville Row and St James's Palace, which was just really cool.
G discovering a hidden courtyard near St James's Palace
We did then make the mistake of passing through Piccadilly and Leicester Square on our way back up to King's Cross, but that aside we saw some lovely parts of London. We finished off the day having tacos for dinner at a lovely Mexican place in Coal Drops Yard.
Sunday we finished up in the allotment - potatoes planted, along with onions and courgettes and squash and corn all in the open bed; leeks, chard, beetroot, plus the first lot of lettuce and mizuna seeds in the salad bed.
G also cooked an amazing Easter meal of lamb chops from the farm shop, with a ludicrous number of roast potatoes and veg. Plus we'd picked up a box of canele in Fortnum and Mason on Saturday, so we had a delicious dessert.
Monday we drove back over to my hometown to go to the cemetery - Thursday is M's anniversary, so we took some flowers up for him and my Nana and uncle. We also went to an aqua-scaping shop to collect some plants for our new aquarium, and started setting that up when we got home.
So it was a lovely long Easter weekend. Bit of a bummer to go back to work yesterday, but it was good while it lasted.