The Top Floor Flat

Alright, this might make me late for work but I’ve decided it’s been far too long since I did a proper update.

Picking up where I left off after last night’s teaser; I went down to Kent after work and stayed with Kathryn’s boyfriend’s family. Their house is in a stunningly gorgeous are of the country, with lots of wide fields (the ones nearby were wheat and berries so the whole area smelled amazing too).

The weekend was fairly low-key. We were lucky that the weather was the best it had been in ages. The family with which I was staying had a pool, and a lot of space outside where we set up croquet and badminton games and spent most of the day out in the sun. On Saturday morning, Kathryn and I took their golden retriever, Rollie (short for Roland, not because he’s fat) on a really long walk through all of the fields. There are public walking paths that take you along the outsides of these farms and it was so nice just to be out walking around. That afternoon, we went shopping with Ollie and Tom for the 18 people who would be there that night for dinner (between ourselves, Ollie’s family, his other friends who were coming and his sister’s friends) and got enough meat and produce to feed a small army. The evening consisted of eating, enjoying the last of the sun, and playing Lego Indiana Jones on the Wii (a surprisingly fantastic game). I headed up to the guest room where I was staying to get to sleep early as I was exhausted.

The next morning, we went swimming in the pool before lunch and then for lunch went to the really cute local pub.

Which, if you can’t see from the picture, is called the Spotted Dog. It overlooked the whole area and all of the open fields.

After lunch, we had to head back to London (much to my disappointment). It had been such a fun, relaxing weekend.

Kent is really a beautiful area and beyond the natural scenery, there are so stunning houses (castles really) as well. They are either private homes or public buildings (one was a school) but they sort of sit overlooking all of the fields and every so often one will just appear around the corner. The house in which I was staying was much more reasonable (although still quite posh) and although I didn’t take a picture of their home; this was their neighbor down the road:

It was also really nice to be around a big group of people my own age and everyone I met was very nice.

Monday evening, Mimi convinced me and her friend Julie who was visiting from the states, to take the commuter boat down the Thames. This is nothing like the Perfect Commute that I took (with free drinks and food) but is actually a legitimate commuter method that stops at a number of piers up and down the river. The boat was fairly small, and packed with people, but it was such good weather that it was nice to be out on the water. The three of us then went to this amazing Thai restaurant before meandering back towards home. I got back fairly late but just beat the thunder storm which finally cleared some of the muggy air out of the city. Hopefully today will be a little cooler; it’s not so enjoyable to have perfect summer temperatures in a top floor flat and office!

Speaking of which, I’m now well behind this morning and must get everything ready to go. Today (fingers crossed) should be the day we launch the new site so try to go take a look!