What a crazy two weeks it’s been, with the children returning last week. With a brand new class that hasn’t been at school for 6 months, the first week was all about setting up behaviour expectations and reminding them about how to sit still and put their hand up if they want to talk! They’re a really nice bunch of kids though, with a lot of personality but also less sass than last year’s lot for the most part (although maybe I’m talking too soon). We’ve also had an unusually warm weather, with the first two weeks of September giving us a lovely farewell to summer with high 20s and early 30s and plenty of sunshine.

A few highlights from the week before last were playing another escape game, which we did mildly better at than the first one, some beautiful sunrises on my morning runs, and Rachel and Stu’s cat joining in on a movie night – looking about as impressed with ‘Double Team’ as I was. I also had a fright one morning on finding a huge spider in the shower with me – I hadn’t realised they got that big here, but how wrong I was! Luckily I was able to shuffle around it and make my way out to grab a container to catch it in and throw it off the balcony.

Last weekend I had a pretty quiet weekend, with a bunch of skype and Whatsapp calls on Saturday and then just going climbing on Sunday. I was supposed to meet up with Geoff in the afternoon on Sunday but he wasn’t feeling well so we rescheduled for Tuesday. After work on Tuesday, Peter and I met Geoff at the park down the road and we enjoyed the sunshine for a little picnic before heading home for dinner. I’ve been working 10 hour days for the most part, so there hasn’t been a lot of room for doing too much after school, and combined with the rising Covid-19 rates here, I’ve been quite happy to come home and relax. We’ve been watching The Fall and cooking lots of nice meals in the evenings but not really doing much else.

In saying that though, we thought perhaps with Peter’s weekend off this week we could have a little adventure. We booked in at the Barbican Conservatory for Friday evening at 5:30 and met up there to be directed through a very well set-up socially distanced and mask-wearing route around the Conservatory. I’ll attach some photos – the Barbican is a gallery/theatre/library with very brutalist architecture, so the Conservatory being filled with beautiful plants growing over the concrete balconies and exposed piping is an interesting contrast. We stopped for a glass of wine in the bar and finished our walk around the one-way system before heading down the road towards Bank to stop in at a steak restaurant for dinner. It was a weird experience being the only customers in the restaurant for most of the time we were there, but not particularly surprising considering the lack of office workers in the financial district at the moment. The food was fabulous though, and we had a lovely Australian wine with our steaks as well. We then took our time walking back home.

On Saturday we had a slow start before hopping on the train at around 11 to head out to Walthamstow. I’d been to God’s Own Junkyard before (the neon signs collection) but Peter hadn’t, so we were checking that out before stopping for lunch at a couple of the breweries that surround the art space. We had half a pint at Wild Card brewery, and then Pillars, which both had nice beers and friendly staff happy to chat about beer. We picked up a small bottle of Sloe Gin at Mother’s Ruin Gin Palace and stopped for a hot dog at a little stall catering to all the customers wandering around the precinct. As it started to get a bit busier we headed down the road and hopped on a bus that would take us all the way out to Epping Forest. Epping Forest stretches across the border between London and Essex, but we were visiting the southern corner in North-Eastern London, which had beautiful walk and bike paths passing through ancient woodland. We took a few little paths that went deeper into the woods and were quite surprised to spot cows grazing! Both of us were getting a bit tired as we reached the road that led into Loughton and we planned to stop at a pub.

Unfortunately, the beautiful weather meant that the pub’s outdoor areas were packed and neither of us were keen to stand or go inside. Our original plan had been to walk across to a pub that Peter thought had been a restaurant that he used to visit with his grandfather when they used to visit Essex. However, it was going to be almost a two hour walk and given we’d already done almost 20,000 steps we were both a bit tired. Our compromise ended up being to call an Uber, as it was only a 17 minute drive! When we got to the pub, which was in middle-of-nowhere-suburbia, we got a seat outside in a nice spot. We ordered a beer but when Peter went inside to check it out he quickly realised that it wasn’t the place he’d thought. After a bit of further research and a text to his mum, it became apparent that the restaurant he was thinking of was in Chelmsford, Essex! We both had a laugh about this, but nevertheless enjoyed a beer and dinner at the pub, which was lovely. It was a bit of a hike back to London though, an hour and twenty or so on buses and the tube, so we’ll be more careful to do our research next time.

Today I had a quiet morning and then headed over to book club in the afternoon. Due to this week’s new Covid rules (no gathering in groups of more than 6), we’d split into groups of 5 so we could still meet up but be sensible. The Beekeeper of Aleppo had been this month’s book and it was perfect to instigate a lot of discussion around the refugee experience in Europe. I headed home at around 5:30 and we had a skype with Lee and Sus and then just got ready for the week ahead!