Yeah! Theatre!

Ah, the joy of having theater nights to look forward to.

On Saturday, Dutch friend Nynke and I will see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I saw it before and absolutely loved it. Bought better seats than the £10-you-can-see-most-of-the-stage-if-you-tilt-your-head tickets that I had last time.

And in April, another friend is visiting, and Sandra and I will see what Enron is all about. It had rave reviews so am very much looking forward to seeing it!

Both shows are afternoon shows so we can indulge in some of the fab food London has to offer in the evening. In this case Hakkasan and Harwood Arms. The former is one of my fav restaurants in London, awfully stylish and amazing food. The latter is a gastropub that was awarded a Michelin star this year. It still has pubquiz nights on Tuesdays and the most expensive main is less than 20 quid. How good is that?!

Zumbatastic

One of the highlights of my week is the 5.45pm Zumba class on Friday. The dancing makes me happy as a pig in mud and it signals the official start of the weekend. It's 45 minutes of dancing to latin music, some Bollywood, the ketchup song occasionally, Love Potion Number 9 rather frequently and much more.

My gym only started doing the classes recently. And over the past weeks I have seen the class grow from 20odd women to a record 45 or so yesterday. There were also three men, who I am pretty sure were there only for some oggling. Poor Indian dude may have had more sincere intentions but the guy couldn't dance to save his life. He just stood there staring at his feet trying to make sense of it all. Anyway. The reason for this increase in zumba-ets is not only due to the fun factor of this class I believe.

It must have something to do with Doni. Venezualan Doni. Professional salsa dancer. And sex on legs. That is, when he's dancing. I once saw him while grabbing a coffee and he looked awfully ordinary. But while dancing. Fock. I bet all 45-odd women were secretly hoping to be dancing in those strong muscly yet lean arms. Nothing is sexier than a man who can dance. Who does the manly stuff really manly and has the softness that goes with the more feminine movements.

Now the sexier I find instructors, the more I cover myself. So my Zumba class attire consists of long black running pants and a dark blue University of Stellenbosch poloshirt that I have had since 1997. Clearly not all the attendees think this way. The number of bare midriffs increases by the week. And the more flesh, the worse the moves generally are. These girls make me laugh. They stand in the front, don't seem to know their arses from their elbows and hang around after class to ask some undoubtedly very intelligent questions. Me? I simply hope my red face and not-so-latin hips have gone unnoticed and just massively enjoy myself.

Dutschj

My boss is a bit of a muppet. In the nicest possible way. A good guy who likes his cricket and football and once admitted feeling a bit uncomfortable a Dutch, and a female Dutch at that, was so into cricket. I thought that was kinda cute. Recently, he has started copying a colleague, who has schpoken to me like disch sinsch I joined the firm. Assuming that is how the Dutch generally pronounce their english. Boss takes the effort to put it into writing though, especially when the Dutch guard is doing the London-Reading shift on his train home. Below the email he sent me last nite.

"Itsch Friday scho itsch de Dutch guard on de train to Reading. He hasch jusch announsched that I can't usche my perschonal schteeeeerio in the quiet car.

Schoot - I wasch hoping to lischten to schome tunesch

Have a good weekend - can we speak Mon re this survey thing?

Doidoi.......however you spell it!"

It had me in stitches. The doidoi is the result of me once ending a phone call with my Dutch boss with the words 'doeidoei'. English boss has been using it every time he sees me since. Men truly are just big kids!

Cooking spree

Now that my workdays are short, I spend more time preparing my food. It's not so much the cooking that I don't want to make time for but I just hate doing grocery shopping straight from work, laptop over shoulder, etcetera. So it's usually M&S salads and soups, or sushi on my way home from the gym. But these days... I have a fridge full of mozzarella, feta, goat's cheese and halloumi. Frozen peas, alfalfa, avocado, red onions, mushrooms, mint, parsley. The yummiest things end up on my plate. Was it Leon's superfood salad yesterday (from the cookbook my parents got me for my birthday), tonight it's a recipe from my favourite fashion blogger. Oh, the joys of having time to shop and prepare delicious meals!

Oh, and my house smells of hyacinths. Lovely fact. And the London Starsucks are now also selling the instant coffee that hit the US last year. Stupid fact.

Laughs and more laughs. And Matthew oggling.

When I read Private Lives was premiering in the West End in March, I asked my workvriend Viv, sitting opposite me, if she wanted to come along, and bought tickets straight away. That was back in November. Months flew by and all of a sudden we found ourselves in the Vaudeville Theatre yesterday, three days after opening night. Private Lives was written by Noel Coward some 80 years ago, but its themes are timeless. Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen were brilliant, the jokes were endless, and we had a fantastic night taking it all in, feeling enormously alive. A brilliant Saturday night.

Fetish

I'm afraid I took my bag fetish to a new level today. After four or so months of drooling over the Mulberry Alexa, my wallet was safe as I am not the type who's organised enough to get herself on a waiting list. For a bag. I'm a bag fetishist, not a bag victim. However, today, on my way to the gym, I remembered my local Waitrose has a Mulberry section in the non-food department. And there it was. In oak and butter. Waiting for me. First things first though, and throughout my zumba class, I could only think of That Bag. So as soon as the class was finished, I wet my face, sprayed some deodorant, and headed to the counter in gym clothes and uggs, asking to see The Bag. And it was as soft and beautiful as I thought it would be. The Bag is now mine.