A rare relaxing weekend

Having had a fairly hectic, sleep deprived week - which included lots of catch ups, birthday drinks and panic Hen Party planning - a relaxing weekend was much needed, especially considering I won't be having any more of those for the next 8 weeks...

Having had a quick session at the gym and a bite to eat at Itsu, I started the weekend with Alex's birthday drinks at Katzenjammers by London Bridge, which promised authentic Bavarian Beer. The place isn't overly large, but what it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in noise levels! We managed to grab a table, and squashed on to the benches more people than should have been possible. I had a cider for the night, thereby missing out on the Bavarian beer - I'm sure if you're a beer fan, it would have been quite a treat! The place also served food which I skipped on, having had dinner but it looked soooo good. They had typical German sausages with all the potato and pickled cabbage you could wish for! Although it was nice to see Alex and celebrate her birthday with her, I have to the say the place was so loud; I couldn't hear the person sitting next to me. Nevertheless, that is the beauty of having Alex as a friend; I end up visiting places, I would never ordinarily do...

On Saturday, having had a lovely lie in and lazy morning, me and Richard shared a pizza for lunch at Franco Manca, choosing the Meat Feast which was very good indeed! Lunch finished, we headed to Westfield, both in search of shoes for Edita and Donatas' upcoming wedding. Whilst the wedding shoe search failed, it was nice to walk around the shops, which I haven't done in ages. We did take slightly longer than expected and had to suddenly bring our window shopping to a halt, rush home, grab a bottle of Rose from the fridge and head back out to West Kensington for dinner at Indian Express (as suggested by the name, they serves Indian food). The place is basically a takeaway with 5 or so tables in the reception which allows you to have a sit down meal. Whilst completely unpretentious, with minimal décor, the food was incredible! Me and Richard shared some onion bhajis and samosas for starters and for mains, Richard had vegetable biryani whilst I had Thai Green Tikka Curry with pilau rice - it was something I had never seen on an Indian menu before and as it came highly recommended, I decided to give it a go. The dish proved to have a sweetness to it but didn't have the thick creaminess to a typical Tikka which proved to be a great, delicious combination. It was a lovely meal which we enjoyed with a bottle of wine (that we brought ourselves since the place doesn't sell alcohol) with the nicest, most friendly staff I have met in a long time! They even gave us a pistachio (and something else) flavoured ice cream, as it was our first visit there which was very tasty too. We walked off our dinner by mooching back to West Brompton station, fully intending to visit Indian Express again.

Waking up to the sound of rain pelting down and the wind oozing, was never going to make for a very productive Sunday. Having spent far too much of the morning doing absolutely nothing, we had brunch at home (Richard made omelette) and eventually headed to Wimbledon to run some errands, getting caught in some torrential rain, leaving us both soaked, in spite of using an umbrella. Having bought some ingredients for dinner, we headed back to Southfields for a drink at Starbucks. I spent the afternoon reading a magazine, whilst Richard was doing something or other on his phone. It was so nice to just sit and read and not do anything at all! Having not done it in such a long time, I forgot how much I had missed it! The rest of the day was spent watching either ATP tennis or a Michael McIntyre DVD and eventually making a chicken stir-fry for dinner. The ideal Sunday, in my books.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Muah

Roo xx