A wet bank holiday weekend and a lot of Italian food

As required by English weather law (not formally acknowledged in any statute or case law) a bank holiday weekend must include at least one day of rain. Unfortunately, the August bank holiday abided by this law.

Post work and gym on Friday, I met my brother Rudy in London, taking him out to dinner to Bella Italia on the Strand. When it comes to Italian food, I am not a fan of chains; I genuinely think there are too many good Italian restaurants in the city to resort to them but since by brother is a fan of the place, we went there. The food was mediocre -the garlic pizza bread we shared was slightly too greasy and the pasta I had wasn't something I couldn't make myself- after too much food we met Richard and headed to the arcade on Southbank for a game of bowling. As I didn't come last, I was quite pleased with the outcome.

Saturday morning proved to be quite lazy. Having let Rudy sleep until 10am, I decided to be the horrid sister and wake the boy up. After breakfast, we all went to play some tennis at Wimbledon Park which was really quite nice, especially as there were moments of sunshine. Having showered and changed, we went to Rubino's for an Italian lunch. I decided on a huge lunch by ordering a calzone which tasted ok but wasn't anything out of the ordinary - this may just be my limited-calzone-eating experience talking, though. After a quick trip to Wimbledon, Rudy went home and me and Richard headed back to the flat for a little while after which I started prepping dinner and for a night out with Rosie and Chloe. Both are two of my favourite people to go out with so it was lovely to spend a night out together (at the Slug in Fulham) which was fun.

No I don't usually eat my pizza with sugar; it's just to show
how big the calzone actually was

Unfortunately, I ended up paying for the fun night out, come Sunday morning. I ended up wasting most of Sunday, spending it on the sofa which was a little disappointing. Towards the evening, me and Richard headed up to Wimbledon Village for some coffee at Paul which was so lovely and relaxing, as we sat there and people (and dog) watched.

Waking up on Monday, I was ready to be productive and make the most of the additional work-free day but that optimism and energy soon faded as soon as I saw the endless amounts of rain outside. Nevertheless, being unable to stay in for another day, me and Richard decided to take on the rain and head out to Clapham Junction. Since the best medicine for a miserable, rainy day is banana bread, our first stop was Birdhouse. It seemed that the torrential rain kept most people at home which meant we got a free table straight away. Result! Having had our lovely, comforting slice, we faced the outside yet again and walked around some shops before deciding that lunch was overdue. Having walked up and down Northcote Road, we decided on Café Tamra, managing to grab the last available table. The café was really warm and cosy, with lovely cushions and what seemed to be a Lebanese inspired menu. Richard had some bruschetta with oven roasted tomatoes and melted cheese (so good) whilst I had the Superfood Salad, which amongst many other things, had grilled halloumi, falafels and roasted veg. The salad tasted incredible and although not the cheapest thing on the menu, was definitely worth it and very filling. Our lovely lunch over and done with, we decided to grab some comfy seats and coffee at Starbucks, before grabbing some food for dinner and heading home. It was a great day (in spite of the weather) and the evening was spent, just as it should have been; watching telly under the duvet!

 
Muah

 
Roo xx