Weekend: food, drinks, countryside, drinks, food (repeat)

Got back at a reasonable time from Windows and after a restful 10 hour sleep woke up starving. We walked through Borough Markets in the London Bridge area, which made me even hungrier. It's like a fabulous Farmer's Market with loads of cooked items as well as fresh ingredients. Free samples, fresh food, packed full of people - it was awesome. Seems like a great place to go get some gourmet ingredients to make a lovely weekend meal.

We ended up at a cafe where I had my typical breakfast for 3 days running: latte and croissant with ham and cheese melted inside. Mmmmm.

A few hours later, John and I met up with friends of his at Live Bait restaurant in Covent Garden. A bottle of Bollinger, a few bottles of Sancerre, and several platters of seafood later, we were stuffed and happy, again. Covent Garden is full of tempting shops, but I had neither the time (nor the willingness to spend) so we headed back to Paddington Station to catch the train to Reading.

John's friend Tom has a place out there. Well, "place" is an understatement. His family has a proper English countryside farmhouse, with vines growing up the building, large rooms, an Aga oven in the kitchen, and loads of bedrooms and bathrooms added at various stages. Outdoors are horse stables, swimming pool, a garden, and I'm sure other things that I missed during the night tour.

Tom invited his mates over for a roast and a full on meal of fresh food. Beef roast, salmon in a pastry shell with veggies, a leek and cheese dish, steamed and buttered carrots, parsnips and potatoes...it was amazing. The veggies were fresh from the garden, believe me, since I washed and peeled most of them. There was a group of 8 of us, and it was so nice to be chilling out at someone's house with a homecooked meal, eating off Wedgewood china...it was so English! : )

Most of us were up till 2am, doing silly things like wrestling in the living room and setting off fireworks in the backyard, all the while drinking through the wine and port. His friends were all really cool and easy to get along with. I had an excellent time.

Sunday morning we woke up to a dirty kitchen and a need for caffeine, so we starting the coffee and the cleaning, ending up eating leftover roast beef sandwiches for breakfast. Most of us had plans in the afternoon, so we set off towards the train station around 1pm or so to get back into London.

The rest of Sunday was just spent napping, enjoying some sushi and getting ready to fly back to India (sniffle sniffle). I had such a good time in London, and would love to have a chance to spend more time there. It was another much needed getaway from Mumbai, but now I am just homesick for home with a capital H. A few more weeks...