Barcelona!!

A disgrace. My friends' son Max turned 1 recently and I had seen him for about 45 minutes in his entire life. So I booked a ticket to Barcelona to properly introduce myself to the wee man and catch up with his awesome parents. They had moved since I last visited, and I instantly fell in love with Gracia, where they now live. It's lively, leftish, youngish and with loads of quirky shops and little restaurants. Some of the old locals can still be found gossiping on one of the many squares in the area.

In between playing with Max, we had a lovely time catching up and when Martin offered to stay home with Max, Elena and I went out and did some shopping. In my case two identical dresses in grey and black from a local brand. Which was the same dress Elena wore on our Friday night out. So not very original but hey, we're not really at risk of being at the same time at the same place wearing the same dress. Saturday evening was spent drinking Aperol spritzers in Barcelonetta, where the pic was taken. A great weekend, again!

Oh, and one thing: when Martin posted this pic on facebook, one of our mutual friends commented 'Saskia looks ready to be a mum'. I would advise not to interpret this pic as such, or you could get very disappointed. ;-)

Back in Blighty

Big Ben, a photo by Gypsy Saskia on Flickr.

It had been two months when I landed at City Airport on Thursday evening. Two months of missing London terribly. And it was good to be back. As soon as I got on the DLR this big grin appeared on my face and it didn't leave it all weekend (well it did briefly but I'll get to that later). Reason for the visit was my friend Heather's farewell drinks as she is moving back to New York. It was lovely to be back in The Hide, have a chilli raspberry martini and catch up with colleagues. For the rest of the weekend, brekkies, lunches and dinners were planned. I saw many friends, ate fantastic food, and managed to do some shopping as well. Heels from LK Bennett, tea and granola from Waitrose, books from Waterstones and bits and bobs from Boots. I visited Nero and Pret at least twice a day, reading the papers on my iPad while people watching.

The only 'minor' glitch was the fact I showed up at City Airport for a flight out of Heathrow. Oops. Expensive 'oops' too.... Hopefully a mistake I will never make again. But even after leaving the UK a few hours later and many a pound lighter because of this, I can look back on a fantastic weekend in the city where I'm at my happiest.