Weekend visitors to London

Here’s a brief summary of my last fun weekend, in late March.

Saturday evening, after a day at work, I met up with my friend Wilhemina. Wilhelmina comes to the UK only occasionally as she lives on the continent but she is special to me as she was one of the girls I met during my first ever time out en femme.

We met up at the Way Out Club. Now, I’m not so sure that this is really the best place for girls to meet just for a chat. It took some hours for the club to fill. We mainly sat on the sofa but obviously that is not the thing to do as it is the main seduction area. The club seems to be principally a pick-up joint and I find it a bit sleazy. The stage show featured Vanilla Lush and Vicky Vivacious (whom regular readers will recall from our visit before Christmas). I quite like their act really. There was also a curious old lady doing an impromptu singing number as a French maid. Pourquoi? Oh well, it’s a night out; but, truthfully, if I wasn’t meeting friends there I wouldn’t choose to go there. I prefer a mainstream venue with less scruffy, leery types!

The next day I got to the West End in good time for refreshments in the Brasserie in Greek Street. I haven’t been there before but I realised that it is connected to La Roche, which is probably my favourite London café. It is now on my list of places to frequent. I had a Danish pastry and cappuccino with hazelnut as breakfast, both wonderful. I love my mid-morning coffee and have a weakness for cakes (more anon). Mind you, you’d forgive me if you saw the selection on offer …

At Melanie, the very pleasant Italian restaurant in Old Compton Street which was a fairly recent discovery, I was joined by Wilhelmina again, and by Stella, Amy, Petra, Kimberley, Ange and Johanna. Lunch was slow but I didn’t feel that was a problem – it’s Sunday afternoon, after all. The food is good, as is the wine, and I thought the prices reasonable. I’m sad, though, that our little Italian waitress has just been made redundant.

Kimberley, Stella, Petra and I went for a stroll in Covent Garden, did a bit of window shopping and eventually wound up in Patisserie Valerie near the Freemason’s Hall. My eyes are too big. Even after a three course lunch I couldn’t resist a slice of chocolate cake. It was HUGE, though. Too much! But, to punish my greed, the others made me eat it all. I felt quite wicked, but somehow strangely satisfied. I’m supposed to be on a quest to lose weight, but the will of the deranged genius known only as Le Pâtissier, whose miasma of chocolate fumes settled upon my pliant and innocent mind, bent my will to match his own. I obeyed. I consumed. I became … evil. I was an innocent caught in a web of indulgence that I could not escape. It was fate. It was entrapment. I succumbed to irresistible forces. Mmmmmmmmm …. Burp!

Sue x