Booking a hollybob

Nathan and I drove into town today and parked outside Liberty's! It felt highly decadent and weird to be able to pull up and park somewhere so central. The shops were open. Tourists were drifting about. It felt very much like a week day and seemed highly counterintuitive and naughty to park on a single yellow lines. We half expected to return to find a clamp, or to have had the car towed away. No matter how sure you are of the rules, there's always some technicality the bastards can get you on. There are many streets in London, for example, which have different regulations on the different sides of the road. Southwood Lane in Highgate where we park our car is one such road!

Anyway, we were in town to meet Sam and Matt, and we had a rather jolly little lunch in my new favourite Greek restaurant on Brewer Street. I had borek: delicious little triangular filo pastry parcels filled with spinach and feta cheese. Lovely with a salad and paprika sprinkles...

We were going to eat at the new vegetarian version of Pret A Manger on Broadwick Street, but it's proved too popular and was full to the rafters! It was designed as an experimental pop up, but we read today that it's just been made a permanent fixture.

The purpose of our trip into central London was to take another step towards booking our holiday of a lifetime to USA next summer. We're driving coast to coast and have now planned our route through the central of America, taking in a load of the sorts of places I've hitherto only dreamed of visiting. We're doing it all: Grand Canyon. Monument Valley. San Fran. DC. NYC. The travel agent is going to spend Tuesday putting a package together for us, and, all being well, on Thursday, we'll be able to go in and pay for it. I think we all started to get a bit of a rush of excitement, and a sense that it is actually going to happen now. It's no longer a crazy pipe dream!