Darling Have Fun...
Drinking brandy at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon isn't something you might usually find me doing...
But today if you had come along to Banners restaurant in Crouch End, that is exactly what I WAS doing...!
Anadi and I had gone along there for brunch following an outing to Hampstead Heath... It is allegedly a hanging out place for famous actors and film producers and people of that ilk; many of the East Enders Cast choose it as their place to eat...
Not being television watching people we agreed that we wouldn't necessarily know if we were dining with anyone of fame or notoriety...
There was a nice companionable energy of sharing an enjoyable Sunday experience with our fellow diners.
It is a fabulous place colourful and lively, with amazing plentiful wholesome food. 'It would have really suited me to live around here twenty years ago' I said to Anadi' I WAS living around here twenty years ago' he laughed...
We ate at the bar, as that was the only space, and opposite us a blackboard was hanging on the wall with a list of hot toddies that sounded like magic potions...
Abbot Espresso seemed very attractive to me as an 'after dinner tipple'... to be enjoyed mid afternoon...!
The toddy is made of brandy and Frangelico - a hazelnut liqueur - syrup and a double espresso...
It tasted as well as sounded like a magic potion...
It felt like it had special properties and that anything was possible now...
Breaking free from my own self imposed restrictions has always given me a feeling of limitless possibility...
Abbot Espresso somehow seemed to hold freedom and abandon in its hands...
I reckon I was influenced into making such a choice by my friend Jane yesterday, she was recounting how her chiropractor was telling her about the value of après ski... To ease and relax tired muscles from the day on the slope...
I must have logged 'alcohol after exercise is good for you' somewhere within my psyche...
About four years ago, my New Year resolution was to drink more alcohol...
My alcohol intake for the previous year could be counted on one hand.
I failed at that resolution, before it really got going, I drank three marguerites with a friend one evening in January, in London. I didn't feel that good the next day, and so never really got into training for the alcohol drinking...
I recognised that like all things it takes practice to build up endurance for something new...!
At the start of the next two years the alcohol drinking resolution was resolved once more, with the same degree of 'not sticking to it'...
Until I met Anadi...
I remember some years ago watching the film 'The Runaway Bride' where she abandons herself in her relationships with men, even to the extent of choosing the eggs the man ate at breakfast rather than choosing what she wanted for herself.
When I watched the film I recognised my own similar tendencies around men... Including the running away to reclaim my own 'sense of self'...!
With Anadi rather than take on any habits of his, as mine, I have instead discovered new aspects within myself, one of them being that drinking alcohol occasionally - every day in Corfu! - is fun...
The reasons it was on my New Years resolve list is now evident to me...
It is fun, and I was missing out not doing it :)
It was fun too to revisit Hampstead Heath. I was last there in the year 2000 when the Southern X Country Championships was held there. It is a great venue for a X country race and a great venue to extend my return to running...
I decided that four minutes running one minute walking was a good way to go a bit further without distress to my ankle. It relaxes me in the stretch of it, to know I am going to let it recover, breathe, regroup, before we 'go again' - and in truth, the overall pace turns out about the same.
We covered seven miles around and about, up to the top of parliament hill at one time, the wonderful vista of the city across to the West End of London stretched out below us, past duck ponds and swimming lakes, through woodland and along squishy grassy fields.
The day was bright and sunny, and ever so mild. We were hot and sweaty and I could have been in shorts and a T shirt.
It felt good, it was fun to run...
I like X country running, it is where with the track, I first begun...
I remember feeling under pressure to succeed, there was a lot of expectation on my young shoulders as I was a very fast runner, expected to win!
I remember saying to my mother
'Mummy, you don't expect me to win do you..?
And she hugged me and said
'I don't mind if you come last, I want you to have fun...
Have fun darling...