Weekly Diary: sea views, fresh (h)air and 30th birthday celebrations continued
I'm milking this birthday for all it's worth...
Hello! Welcome back to the Weekly Diary, where I chat about my week as a freelance social media manager. I’ve been quite the social butterfly recently, but rest assured, my weeks do not always look like this!
Here’s a quick glance at what I got up to last week:
Five blissful hours spent in the salon with my lovely hairdresser Millie
Midweek night out at Live at The Pantiles
Day date in London with an old university pal
MONDAY
After a solo weekend, I am very happy to have James back, clattering around the house at 7am (jkjk, he’s actually very quiet while I’m still snoozing).
Monday is usually my ‘catch up on emails/admin’ day, so I’m at my desk at 8am cracking on with my to-do list before James drags me out of the house for a walk.
Lunch is the real highlight of this Monday - there’s some leftover roast chicken in the fridge, the perfect excuse to have a roast dinner every Sunday imho. I make a toasted sandwich with the chicken, some sliced cheese and chilli jam and I think it’s one of the best lunches I have ever made.
James cooks a lentil bolognese for dinner and we watch an episode of Amazing Hotels: Life Behind the Lobby with Monica Galetti and Rob Rinder. I’m a sucker for a behind the scenes, especially when it involves mega luxury hotels.
TUESDAY
I do not sleep well on Monday evening (almost certainly because of the double espresso iced coffee I made myself at one in the afternoon 😬), so I am feeling sluggish today. I end up doing the one thing that is a total killer of productivity for me: sitting down at my desk in my pyjamas, and not actually getting dressed until gone midday.
After FaceTiming my mum, I pull myself together, pop on some makeup and choose an outfit that I know will make me feel really good. I instantly feel like a new woman and manage to get through the rest of my to do list, so I’m calling that a win.
I make chicken stir fry with lots of vegetables, noodles and a pad thai style sauce for dinner, garnished with a fried egg, crushes peanuts and a squeeze of lime (it’s divine and super quick to rustle up). While we eat, we watch the Netflix documentary about Gene Wilder, which I cannot recommend enough - so heartfelt and moving.
WEDNESDAY
James and I are off to the seaside today to view a house (we’re not moving any time soon, just taking a look at what’s around). He heads off to the office bright and early and I get into editing mode as I’ve got quite a few pieces of content to finish.
I’m craving avocado on toast with eggs, but to my dismay, both avocados in the fridge are still rock hard. I improvise by quickly cooking up some frozen peas and crushing them with olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper - the pea mixture spread on toast with a soft boiled egg on top is delightful and I will absolutely be making it again. What a win!
Mid-morning rolls around far too quickly and I leave the house a good ten minutes after I’m actually supposed to, which results in a very fast walk/jog to the station to meet James, but I make it on time (slightly sweaty and flustered, but on time nonetheless).
The house in question has been really lovingly restored by the current owner, but it doesn’t quite tick enough boxes for us, so we make our way back to the station with a pitstop at Sainsbury’s for a sarnie and head home.
The rest of the afternoon flies by and before I know it, it’s time to rustle up some dinner. I’m making a Jamie Oliver recipe this evening: meatballs with pasta and a tomato sauce. I think the meatball mixture needed another egg as the meatballs were a little dry, but other than that, it was delicious and only took 45 minutes!
After dinner, I go outside to give the garden a quick drink and admire the roses that are miraculously blooming for the second year in a row. I am in no way green fingered, but there’s something lovely about tending to plants and flowers and watching them flourish. When we do eventually buy a house, I’m roping in my mum and grandma to help me create the garden of my dreams!
I catch up on the rest of this week’s episode of The Great British Sewing Bee (I fell asleep on the sofa last night and missed the last 20 minutes) and then drag myself off to bed to read.
THURSDAY
I’m up bright and early this morning, mainly because I’ve got quite a bit of work to do and I’ll be spending the entire afternoon with my lovely friend/ hairdresser Millie having my hair coloured (what a difficult life I do lead). For once, I actually have an occasion to go to after having my hair freshly styled - my darling friend Gem booked tickets for live music and dinner on The Pantiles tonight for my birthday. What a treat!
I do two loads of washing and then hurry out of the door for an impromptu breakfast with my friend Jayne, despite the aforementioned work that is still sitting on my desk. We’re going to one of our favourite spots, The Beacon - and the sun is shining (hooray hooray), so we get to sit out on the balcony overlooking beautiful views and blue skies.
We order coffee, apple juice and bacon and egg baps and spend a blissful hour or so catching up on our lives and making creative plans. It’s so lovely to sit and chat with a dear friend and fellow writer on a midweek morning; Jayne was one of my first ever paid subscribers and she always has time for my thoughts and ideas.
I walk home with a full belly and an even fuller heart, quickly pack my bag and reply to a few emails, and then I am off to my hair appointment.
Millie and I spend a dreamy few hours catching up while she meticulously applies foils to my head, and the five hours that I’m there go by in a flash. I make a beeline for our local shopping centre to pick up a few bits in Boots and then head to the toilets to get changed for my evening out on the town ala Rachel from that infamous X Factor audition (“Yeah of course, I’ve been singing all my life, all round the towns and everyfing…”).
I’m early, so I grab a table at Lemons Bar on The Pantiles, order a pre-dinner cocktail (non-alcoholic, of course, seeing as I cannot handle anything more than a couple of drinks these days - all hail Lyre’s non-alcoholic spirits, they are THE BEST) and take in the buzzy atmosphere of The Pantiles on jazz night - plus, England are playing, so there are people spilling out of almost every single pub and bar along the colonnade.
When Gem arrives, we find our table, order a glass of fizz and settle in for an evening of live music, delicious food and precious quality time with each other. I absolutely adore Gem’s two little boys, but it’s equally so lovely to have her all to myself for an evening.
The entire bandstand comes alive when the band starts their first set, people already up and dancing as waiters bring tray after tray of mezze style small plates that look and smell absolutely divine. We tuck into salmon with samphire, flatbread and beetroot hummus, roasted tomatoes and terrine as the musicians serenade us.
Our main courses (sea bass for me, miso aubergine for Gem) are equally delicious, as are the desserts (gorgeous peaches and cream and the most decadent chocolate torte I have ever eaten in my entire life).
Before we know it, it’s time to get into our carriages and home to bed. What a night.
FRIDAY
We’re at the end of the week, folks! If you’ve read this far, THANK YOU.
Today I’m off into London to spend the afternoon with an old university pal - we’ve got tickets for an exhibition about Japanese folklore at the Young V&A. I get through some work bits in the morning and then catch my train into London Bridge.
Luckily, the weather is glorious and the sun is shining, so we grab a seat outside a cafe and catch up on our lives before we head into the museum. We haven’t seen each other for a good five years due to the pandemic and it’s such a treat to get to spend this time with him.
After a wander around the exhibition (it is excellent) and a quick lunch, we hop on the tube to Oxford Street and head straight to Foyles bookshop. It has five floors and is probably the biggest bookshop I have ever visited aside from the iconic Waterstones in Piccadilly. I immediately pick up a copy of Blue Sisters, Coco Mellor’s brand new novel - I inhaled her debut, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, in about two days. I also buy Alice Vincent’s Why Women Grow and, on Sams’ recommendation, a collection of short stories by Ling Ma called Bliss Montage.
Drama students to the core, we can’t not take a walk down memory lane in the drama section, reminiscing about those heady days when all we had to worry about was turning up to rehearsals on time. It’s the perfect end to the day and I get on the train with a smile on my face and three books I probably didn’t need in my bag.
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed spending an unusually social week with me.
Lauren xo
That dinner looks delicious, and those cocktails!! Really enjoyed this style of writing, such a fun chatty format