Totally Spoiled

Last Thursday was my birthday and I've been totally spoiled for the last four days.

I try not to work on my birthday so I booked Thurs and Friday off to make it a nice long weekend. No such thing as a lie in when you have a toddler so I was up early Thursday morning opening cards before DH went off to work. Lia and I then headed to my parents as we'd arranged for them to have Lia for the day on Saturday and I wanted to make sure she was settled in before leaving her for the day.

My Mum was good enough to buy me one of the new Michael Powell designs - Greek Village 1 which I had asked for as well as giving me some cash to spend in London. I also saw lots of family and had a nice, if quiet, day.

The main excitement was all arranged for Saturday. DH and I met in London in the morning and the first thing we did was go on one of the London Walks - we've done some of these in the past and really enjoyed them so it was nice to do our first since becoming parents. The weather on Saturday was absolutely perfect - lovely and warm for walking about but not too hot that you just want to flake out. After the walk we went to a food market near London Bridge which was amazing, the smells were enough to fill you up. Unfortunately for us we couldn't buy anything as we didn't want to carry it around London for the rest of the day but we did have a good lunch...

We then walked back from London Bridge to Covent Garden (crossing over on the Millenium Footbridge) which was quite a walk! Covent Garden Bead Shop was the destination to spend not only the cash my Mother had given me but also some of the money DH's Mother gave too (although DH wouldn't let me spend all of his mother's gift there as he'd never get her to understand how I could spend all that money on beads...)

We continued to walk around that area for about two hours - stopping for a drink in a nice, amazingly uncrowded, wine bar and then heading to get another part of my birthday gift from DH's Mother - a case for my new Ipod which was itself my gift from DH). I know I moan about my in-laws but they're good with gifts - they just send cash and I can get whatever I want!

We were booked to see Mary Poppins on Saturday evening so we were wandering around near the theatre looking for a place to eat and squabbling over what we wanted when we found a lovely little Moroccan restaurant just around the corner from the theatre. The food was very reasonably priced (£53 for both of us - three courses, wine and coffee) and it was really good. No I can't remember the name but DH got their card so I'll post it later as I'd definitely recommend it.

The final treat of the day was Mary Poppins which was amazing. I will admit that by this point we were flagging a bit given the amount of walking we'd done but the energy of the show made it impossible for us to not join in with the clapping and shouting.

So that was birthday treat and it was truly a wonderful day.

Sunday we had to drive home from my parents (a 2 hour drive) but we went to a French Market that was in town before we left and got some great food for our lunch (a picnic in the park). Last night all three of us were totally exhausted so we just ignored the housework that needed to be done and vegged out in front of the TV (well DH and I, Lia went to bed).

In addition to the above my other birthday gifts were:

Michael Powell's Cottage Garden 2 (the last part of my gift from MIL)

The Cat's Whiskers - Birds of a Feather Dilly Bag, Grandma's Thread Minder, Alyssum Scissor Pocket and Spring Fever - all of which are shown here.

Teresa Wentzler's Sun Dragon

Michael Powell's Snow Series - Church Window Chart (you can get the charts from US shops but UK shops only have the kits)

A Mon Ami Pierre's Nine Red

All that and I still have some money from my FIL to spend but I'm going to a LNS this saturday so that will probably vanish there.

See, the post title is true - I have been totally spoiled!