L woke up early to head back to Mill Hill and tried to multi task and ended up breaking a glass, which A cleaned up for her at 7am and she felt so so bad, but also so grateful. She met the family and headed to Bristol where they had breakfast at the Lido and L bought nice coffee and a Barbour jacket. Then they drove to the St Pierre hotel in Chepstow which was a cute old manor and they relaxed for a few hours. L was low energy (weirdly) so read in bed whilst fam went swimming. Dinner was Salmon in the hotel followed by Bridget Jones’ Diary. A was watching The Expanse in the meantime and living his best life without L drowning in potatoes and beer. A also saw Yi in Broadway Market who was visitng and it was good to see someone from Harvard. He also then saw Eva in Regent’s Park. Male troubles were a consistent theme in his day.
On Saturday, L skipped the morning gym as she had slept really well (surprinsgly, despite sharing a bed with Liyana) and instead listened to Payne’s Politics in bed. Then had breakfast with the family which was gross and was the greasiest Welsh breakfast ever. The hotel were weird about all 5 of them sharing a table because the Welsh government has stipulated 4 max, apparently. Then they drove to the Breacon Beacons and hiked Pen Y Fan which was actually quite hard and it was really misty and windy so they couldn’t see the view, but was still pretty and L felt relaxed walking. In the evening they went to Celtic Manor for a steak (fish for L) dinner and she tried the best butter she had eaten in a long time and the waiter gave her some to take home. Meanwhile, A woke up late and went to see Cam Brookhouse and they hung out and spoke to Dave and chatted about life and his entrepreneurship. Then A headed to Chiswick and met the family in The Old Packhorse and had a lovely Thai dinner and watched Guardian’s of the Galaxy.
Sunday started with a gym session with the entire family at 8am followed by another bad breakfast for L but luckily they convinced the hotel to make them water porridge (still gross but better). They headed to Tintern, a small town in the Wye Valley and went on another long walk in the woods and along the river. It was surprisingly sunny. The afternoon was really thundery and Iman and Dad’s golf got rained off. L chatted to her mum for a good few hours about life. Then they ordered pizza and put the football on and watched together for the first time in years which was really nice. L got quite into it and was stressed out, United lost sadly to Sevilla 1-2. A woke up in his family home and chatted to his mum and then played D&D for 6hours but Chris had put in loads of effort and it was really well designed and detailed. He then went to grab food and went off to see Will Nott and Dave Harrison from Girton for a Joe & the Juice in Victoria, then headed back, had missed dinner and ate dinner and went to bed early ahead of an ADB call.
The ADB call was early Monday morning at 8.30am and it was a dry run for the Webinar. He then set up the iMac up for his mum which she was pleased about, and had a call with his lead Engineer in his new team at QB. He then headed back to 27G and settled into work for the afternoon until L came back. L started her day in the gym again at 8am with her entire family, and then had round 3 of bad breakfasts. They wondered if the service was just bad because they had only re-opened post COVID 1 week prior and the breakfast was a la carte for the first time. Then they headed to Chepstow and had their first real coffee in a few days which L split down her dress. They saw the castle and then headed to Swindon Outlets for about 1.5 hours and L went round every shop really quickly and ended up buying nothing except a jumper for A and some kombucha. They the family headed towards Earl’s court for dinner. On the way, L found a house in Chiswick (near Chiswick Park) and roguely called the estate agent and got a last minute viewing. The house was not great and L didn’t love the area but they drove around a bit and loved Priory Avenue (which she can never afford). They decided to eat at a lebanese restaurant in Chiswick and then L headed back. She was really overexcited when she got back and kept talking for ages, and then told A off in a loving way for not doing the bedsheets (which she then put straight in). They had a glass of wine and chatted forever catching up.
Coffee, Wine and Isolation 