Another Chilled Out Sunday...

Woke up early this morning to do my time with the CFA books, so I could have a guilt free afternoon out with Craig and Danielle. Its amazing what a bit of sunshine can do to brighten one's mood out. All the pubs at Primrose Hill were packed to the brim today, with even the 1st floor of the Lansdowne packed to the brim with people. Efforts to find a table at the Princess of Wales also proved futile as everyone had piled into the pub to watch the resident jazz band play. We ended up at L'absinthe having French bistro food, which was decidedly very average.

Primrose Hill is always brilliant on a sunny day. Its one of those chilled out places where you dont actually feel as if you are in London, despite being so central. At one end, you have the famous Engineer, serving more upmarket gastro-pub food, and you have Lemonia at the other end of the "village" serving up the great Greek meze. And in between you have pubs like the Princess of Wales and the Lansdowne, where you may bump into celebs like Noel Gallagher, Gwenyth Paltrow and Kate Moss. A but further up North, you have Marine Ices, which in my opinion, serves the best ice cream in London (not to mention great Scampi Linguine as well) - they only pour about 1 bottle of rum in each tub of rum and raisin ice cream.

So post lunch, we decided to ditch plans to head to Hampstead Heath and just chill out at the Princess of Wales and enjoy the jazz band. I hadnt seen Danielle for about 6 months ever since she started her MBA, so it was a good chance for all 3 of us to catch up - discussing the defensive qualities of condom sales in an economic downturn, to the effects of 3D movie technology on the adult entertainment industry. OK OK, we did have a yarn over cleaner topics, but none as interesting as those 2. Heh!

The chilled out Sunday continued into the evening as I drove further up North to Stephen and Rachel's place for a home-cooked meal. Thanks to Stephen, I got a tasty "Slim Fast" type meal (gosh I need it, after my complete lack of exercise after busting my knee) of baked sea-bass, crushed potatoes, broccoli and steamed veggies. Exactly what I needed after a couple of heavier meals earlier this weekend.

I swear my god-daughter's vocab triples in size everytime I head up there, both in English AND Mandarin. At the rate she is going, the standard of her Mandarin is going to outstrip mine (not that it is terribly difficult to do so) by her 3rd birthday. Heh! It took her a while to warm up though. I suspect that she was a bit confused about the length of my hair - I really need a haircut you see. But gosh, once she did, she was on really good form, running and climbing all over the place. I even taught her how to do a "fist bump" so she could get an insight into street culture, just in case she wants to start wearing baggy jeans soon, and listen to some old school Tupac Shakur. By the end of the evening, she was doing the fist bump thing completely spontaneously. Heh, Im so proud...

So there we have it. Another weekend gone! Where do they go??!! The Lakers are playing the Magic on ESPN, and I am trying to decide whether I should watch Kobe Bryant score his usual 30+points (gosh, I miss playing sports) or do another hours of studying before hitting the sack. Hmmm....

Have a great week ahead everyone!