It was Peter’s birthday this weekend and was a great excuse to make a bunch of plans, which we really haven’t done for the last month and a half. He was on night shifts so I was able to get up early on Friday morning to give him his presents – some Pokemon art work, a game of Monopoly Deal and a Mandalorian (baby yoda) mug. We then met up after work at Goose Island Brewpub in Shoreditch at 5. There we had ordered a tasting menu of their 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stouts, which we had to have with a burger for Peter and ‘loaded’ fries for me, as you have to order a ‘substantial meal’ in order to drink at a pub under current restrictions. The stouts were all delicious, and it felt very novel to be in a pub, even if we were in a socially distant corner with a glass shield next to us and were being served by waiters in masks. After we’d finished our drinks we headed home with perfect timing to briefly chat to Peter’s mum Ruth on Zoom before signing in to a ‘virtual pub’ night with his cousins and some friends. It was a late-ish night by our standards, but well worth the social interaction.

On Saturday I had to head off in the morning to get my flu shot – which I’d had to fight quite hard to get by the NHS so was quite pleased that I was finally getting it! They had no ‘proof’ in records that I was asthmatic so were being difficult about allowing me to have the free jab. After a fair bit of arguing I won though! I ran over to Canary Wharf to get that done and then we had a quiet morning of watching the Mandalorian. In the afternoon we went for a walk through Spitalfields to go for a glass of wine at Grapeshots, a wine bar that we like. We ordered our ‘substantial meal’ of a sandwich for Peter and a bunch of sides that I could eat, and had a lovely half-bottle of red before heading back home. We got back just in time to join the family Zoom for Peter’s aunt’s 60^th at 5:30, with people joining from the Isle of Wight, Durham, Newbury, Wales, Toronto and Pennsylvania. After the call we got our dinner going, a lovely leg of lamb that Ruth had sent Peter, and then settled in to watch Phantom of the Opera (the whole production is on YouTube!).

We had a slower start on Sunday, with a nice quiet morning reading and watching Saturday Night Live. We’d made afternoon plans with Lee and Sus so we headed off around 11:45 to walk down to Greenwich. After meeting them at the gate to Greenwich Park, we found a nice spot to sit across from each other to share some mulled wine and beers and catch up. It was drizzling, but luckily we were all wearing waterproofs and it wasn’t pouring so we were able to just deal with it. Sus was hungry though so eventually we headed over to Greenwich to get some snacks and lunch. At around 3 we had to call it though, as I needed to get home and do my food prep ahead of a busy week. We hopped on the DLR and came home for an easy end to the weekend – frittata for the week and spaghetti carbonara for dinner!