A Sunday in London

Okay, dear readers, let's start the England recap!  We begin in London on Sunday - well, no, actually, let's back up to Saturday first.  Mom had a conference in London two weeks ago, so Dad and I flew over to join her on Saturday morning.  For the record, I got home from the ball at 2am and we left the house at 6:30am to head to Dulles; I didn't feel too bad for the first few hours, all things considered, but as soon as the turbulence started... well, let's just say I'm glad that we lost five hours by flying east!  Saturday could not have ended soon enough.  But, happily, just before the clock turned over, Dad and I met Jon at the arrivals gate at Heathrow and we all hopped on the tube into central London.  We dropped Dad off in South Kensington at Mom's hotel, and then Jon and I headed north to his flat to get reacquainted.

(Yes, the reunion was as wonderful as you'd expect, but we've been through several together on this blog since I moved back to DC so we don't ned to go into details now, do we?  Good.)

I only had one day in London this trip and I wanted to make the most of it - luckily, Jon was totally on board.  He arranged for brunch with a good friend of ours in Notting Hill, so we set off early on Sunday morning to meet Alex at Ffiona's, around the corner from where I lived for a few weeks when I was between apartments in spring 2011.  After a full English and a latte for me and pancakes with mimosas for them - clearly we were swapping nationalities that morning - Jon and I struck out for Kensington High Street towards Hyde Park.  We wandered through the blooming paths to Knightsbridge, where we realized that we had to hurry to meet our parents in Covent Garden and so jumped on the tube.  Mom and I left Jon with the two fathers to get fitted for their morning suits, and we made our way to east London to chat with our florist at A Most Curious Wedding Fair.  (I've been very mysterious about this new florist, I know, but I promise I'll introduce her soon!  In fact, I think she's got dibbs on this week's Wedding Wednesday post...)

Mom and I grabbed lunch at the food stalls in the Old Truman Brewery and then headed back west to pick up Jon and Dad at Porterhouse, where they'd gotten lunch and a pint with Jon's father.  (Jon's dad returned to Suffolk soon after the fitting; his mother wasn't able to come up to London on Sunday.)  My parents went back to their hotel while Jon and I meandered through Mayfair for a bit of window shopping to Soho, where we met up with two friends for a pre-dinner drink.  Mon and Dad rejoined us, and we celebrated Jon's birthday a few weeks early in delicious style at Dean Street Townhouse, which is where Jon and I had dinner the night he proposed 11 months ago.  Jetlag struck in the middle of my cheese plate, and we headed home after dinner to crash - we knew we had a busy few days in Suffolk ahead of us!