Well I’m packing plenty in these days. The advantage of working from home is that you can start early, finish late and free up some time mid day, which is what I did yesterday. I met my friend Gilly for lunch at Somerset House, with a view to having a bit of culture as well as a gossip.
We stumbled upon a new cafe there, which apparently opened only five weeks ago, called Fernandez & Wells. A big, modern, clean and bright space with Spanish Iberico hams hanging up and wholesome soups and salads on the menu, it would have been rude not to try it! Sadly, F&W are not likely to get rich on us two. As they had only one portion of their white bean and vegetable soup left we decided to share a soup (not from the same bowl!!) and share a quinoa salad. This was washed down with a glass of house tap water. Our meagre fare, which was very tasty and quite enough for lunch, did not prevent us sitting at the table for nearly two hours, chatting as only girllfriends know how. We did round off with an amusingly named coffee, a “stumpy”, which was effectively a latte with less milk served in a short glass. Tasty though.
After lunch it was time for a bit of culture. Neither of us is an art buff so our tour round the Courtauld Gallery was rather briefer than some of our aficionado friends would have liked, but we enjoyed it just the same. The building itself is worth a visit and while I don’t think either of us was particularly moved by the exhibition of Spanish line drawings, we both love the Impressionists and were in awe of standing in front of the originals of such well known paintings as Van Gogh’s self portrait or Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’herbe or Renoir’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère.
But awe and culture are thirsty work and we just had to pop in to the Courtauld cafe for a cup of tea before parting!
I took the fast boat home — a great alternative to overcrowded, germ-ridden tubes and buses while my immune system is potentially compromised. Then, fortified by good food, culture and great company, I got down to work and produced a required contribution to a special report my company is producing. I finally submitted it at at around 10pm and felt much better for having done so.
This all set me up well for being more organised today, Wednesday. I woke when Martin got up at around 7am and by 8am was checking emails, putting some future conferences in my diary and starting a small story for work. After a relaxing bath with the good book I’m reading at the moment — Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day — and a nifty tying of a scarf on my head to sit under a hat for warmth, I got myself out into the glorious January sunshine.
A quick call into the doctor for a probably unrelated minor issue and I headed to the river boat pier at Canary Wharf. For once I was pleased that I had a twelve minute wait for the next westbound boat. It enabled me to stand in the sunshine looking over the water and reading more of my book.
I alighted at the Globe theatre and walked across Southwark bridge, still enjoying the sunshine. I was heading for the gym, fore my first yoga class since I started the chemo. It’s a “power yoga” class, so I was not entirely sure how I’d find it and whether I would feel any pressure on the port I have inserted. But I needn’t have worried. My hard work over the past five years or so has paid off, and I found the class infinitely manageable, probably much more so than many of the others in the group. It was a great feeling. If I can keep this up I’ll be delighted.
Being as how the gym is just round the corner from the office, and given how well I was feeling, I could not leave without popping in. Thanks to a warm reception from my colleagues I decided to stay a while and finish my story from the office rather than at home. It felt good and “normal”, which is an important feeling to savour while it’s available.
All in all a very good couple of days ahead of Friday’s round three.
