A weekend of food (and birthdays)

I’m not fussed about ageing, but it does feel odd to think that I’m in the last year of my twenties. As soon as I turned 25, I got (accidentally) pregnant, so the latter half of my twenties has been a bit of a blur of babies and children. In my head, I’m still about 24, and sometimes it feels like I’m very much waiting for life to pick up where it left off at just turned 25. I hope that doesn’t sound like a depressing statement. It’s not about regretting my children in any way, it’s about musing on a path not (yet) travelled.

I don’t like to do too much for my birthday these days. I just want to eat good food and have a bit of “me time”. At the moment, the me time is a bit of a juggling act that involves too many other sacrifices, but boy did we do well on the food front.

On the Saturday, all I could think about was an American style breakfast – bacon, pancakes, milkshakes. Mmmm.

Googling nearby ‘American breakfast/brunch’ led us straight to The Breakfast Club in Spitalfields. But obviously I’ve been out of London for too long, because one look at the huge queue of trendy, young(er than us) types had us sacking off that idea all together. I don’t get it, is it that good that you have to queue for breakfast? Or is it just a fad?

So, we ended up at The Diner by Spitalfields Market, which has an almost identical breakfast menu. And it was gooood.

After a wander around Spitalfields with very full bellies, Arlo was beginning to tire of our grown-up activities, so we popped into Bump PR’s 4th birthday celebrations being held at the nearby Museum of Childhood. The children’s entertainment provided a welcome change for Arlo, and Sam was highly amused by the toy exhibits whilst I caught up with some of my blogging friends and the lovely Bump PR team.

Saturday night was rounded off with a takeaway from our awesome local Thai, watching The Voice, and doing our usual routine of taking it in turns to run upstairs to resettle Rory (and sometimes Arlo too for good measure).

On Sunday, we did what has now become the tradition on my birthday – having my side of the family over for a home-cooked lunch. Although it’s a big squeeze to fit everyone in to a house that is very much lacking in entertaining space, Sam enjoys cooking for everyone, and it’s far easier than eating in a restaurant with the children, as when they get bored they can go off and play with their own toys rather than force us to make an early exit.

Waitrose gave us a bottle of fizz and vouchers with the idea that we’d use it to treat someone special. Except, it being my birthday and all, I decided that I would just treat myself, and so we chose a very nice cut of lamb for my birthday lunch. I love lamb, but it is not the cheapest, so it really is a bit of an indulgence when we do choose to buy it. (just a note to say that there are still a few days left to make the most of the Waitrose ‘thank you’ campaign – a free bottle of champagne with every online order placed in January). 

This year, my birthday lunch was a little bit different, because we had my Dad with us. This is the first time he’s been to the UK in four years, and therefore is the first time he’d met Arlo and Rory, let alone seen me since before I was pregnant with Arlo.

I rounded off the birthday celebrations on Monday with a pub lunch and a new winner of my ‘best local burger’ award. It just so happened that a local cake company were also using the pub as the backdrop for some product photography, and once they finished up we realised we had well and truly hit the ‘free cake’ jackpot.

I am still waiting for that birthday cake that Arlo kindly offered to make me, though.