A weekend stroll

A weekend stroll

Believe it or not, summer has arrived in the UK. Yes, summer, on the second week of August. Oh well, better late than never…although we were all starting to wonder.

Having been away for a few weekends already, I thought I ought to make the most of being around. 

I had planned to sleep in on Saturday. However, I have a problem that most people - including my dear husband - would dream of having: I always wake up early. It sounds great, said like that, and is most definitely very useful during the week days. On weekends, however, I would like to sleep in to be able to recover from the lack of sleep of sleep from the week. Sadly, if my body has been waking up all week at 6am, then Saturday and Sunday will not be an exception. 

The result is that by 11am I am usually exhausted and ready to go back to bed. 

Anyways, this is a problem for another day. 

So last Saturday, having planned to sleep in and take it easy, I was up, having cleaned the house, showered and had breakfast by 8.30am. I headed to London to meet Alice. We had breakfast at her place, in a living room flooded with sunshine and warmth. It felt absolutely amazing. 

We then headed off to Hampstead Heath (of course, most tube lines weren’t working properly so getting there was a mission in itself). As we walked towards one of the entrances of the park, we saw a gigantic mansion. There was a plate on the outside with a name on it. 

Alice, who is usually a very knowledgeable person (she did survive through France’s hypokhâgne) blurted out ‘Oh, isn’t he the guy from the battle?’. Now, we are still not sure which battle she was referring to, nor which guy, but in any case he turned out to be a painter. (We googled it). She probably will never forgive me for sharing this. 

We spent a few hours soaking the sun in the park, before heading for my first ever acupuncture session in Camden. I can’t tell you exactly what happened, but it was a memorable experience. As soon as she put the needles in, I almost instantaneously passed out into a deep sleep. You’re probably thinking it’s because I had woken up at 6am but it’s more impressive than that. I was lying on the side - since all my ‘problem’ areas are on the left of my body - and was therefore not in a very comfortable position to sleep. I need to go back!

On Sunday, we walked around Windsor, Eton and the castle’s grounds. There was the biggest queue for the castle but luckily we decided to stay outdoors. 

By Sunday evening I was knackered, but a good, healthy, i-ve-been-outside-all-day kind of tired. I want more of these kind of weekends. English summer, please stick around for a bit.