Making a Weekend of It

It's been a bit non-stop since I got back from holiday—already over two weeks ago—and last weekend was no exception. After failing to find the Arrested Development frozen banana stand, which was supposed to be in London until 21 May, but which disappeared on Thursday, we stayed in on Friday night and made macaroons. Well, most of us watched macaroons being made and ate macaroons, which was just as much fun.

Yes, we have no banana stand in London today.

On Saturday morning, I went running and then it was time to finish off painting my living room and bedroom. Each room had a statement wall when I moved in last October, and I finally got around to dealing with them. A few weeks ago, I removed the wallpaper and then I spent most of the bank holiday weekend painting over the dark red paint of the bedroom and replacing it with a pale plum colour. The statement wall in my living room is now a light sky blue. On Saturday, I just needed to do a few touch-ups; it isn't perfect, but painters are expensive, so I'm happy, and now I can finally put up some more pictures and mirrors.

My newly painted bedroom

Blue-sky living room thinking

After heading into W1 to do some errands, I hurried down to Herne Hill for another bridge night, which chalked up another victory to my six-month winning streak. I had initially thought that Sunday might be more relaxed, but my parents decided to come into town at short notice, so we went for coffee at Notes, followed by brunch at the Dean Street Townhouse. I've been to the Townhouse before for dinner, which was lovely, but it has a great, New Yorky, casual chic vibe at brunchtime. Although I wasn't drinking, I enjoyed a virgin cocktail (the Orchid with apple, ginger, pineapple and almond was delicious). I skipped a starter and went straight on to the Townhouse burger, with cheese and bacon. It wasn't medium rare, but that hardly mattered because the meat was so juicy and tender.

Brunch o'clock: Dean Street Townhouse burger and the chocolate peanut fondant

Then came my dilemma: I had 45 minutes to get to south-west London for a softball practice and the pudding I wanted (chocolate peanut fondant, natch) would take seven minutes to prepare. Regular readers will know of my inability to say no to a chocolate-peanut butter combo, so I ordered the pudding and ran to the bathroom to change, Clark Kent-style, into my sports kit. The fondant ended up taking 15 minutes, but was well worth the wait: rich, gooey chocolate, with a molten peanut butter centre, accompanied by peanut ice cream. Very naughty indeed.

I just about made it to practice in time, by which time the sunshine had disappeared. I've never played softball before, although I used to play a lot of rounders at school. As expected, I proved a much better batsman than fielder, and every muscle in my body is aching today, while my wrist display the bruises that demonstrate how hard I was hitting the ball. Of course I'll be going back for more!