5 day weekend, part 2

Better late than never to complete this post... A continuation of Part 1.

My mother-in-law looked after Little Planet on Bank Holiday Monday, so M and I headed into town to the British Library's Magnificent Maps exhibition, which was, as you would imagine from this venerable institution, a well-researched and detailed review of maps from 200AD to the present day. I used to be a Reader at the British Library when I was completing my PhD and though my membership has expired I was delighted to learn that reapplying would be incredibly straightforward. Remember that big life change I've hinted at recently? This would facilitate that immeasurably... But for now (and for the next few years) it's life as usual.

Afterwards, we shopped in Marylebone: The Conran Shop, Skandium, Daunts. We lunched at a bustling The Providores: I ate the grilled chorizo on creamy root vegetable gratin with a soft boiled egg, four nut dukkah, green olive, chilli and oregano salsa; M ate the sweet potato, spinach, wild garlic, feta and herb tortilla with yoghurt, basil pesto dressing, pinenuts and greens. It was all very fresh and flavourful though M didn't think it quite lived up to the hype.

Before returning home to play with Little Planet, we popped into Bill Fontana's River Sounding exhibition at Somerset House. This site installation used the sound of water to take us on an acoustic journey into the bowels of Somerset House, in so doing evoking the history of the River Thames that once flowed through the building. Meandering, atmospheric, haunting, spellbinding.

Tuesday was spent painting and decorating (photo top). M concentrated on painting the living room completely white - he's taken a whole week off to do this. I took delivery of a furniture order from John Lewis and spent all day in Little Planet's room setting everything up. Little Planet has been sleeping in her own room since she was 6 months old and yet until now her room has contained just her cot and lots of junk. Quite simply, we have been using her room for storage and she has been using it just to sleep. Now that she is nearing two years old, we thought enough is enough.

By the end of Tuesday, her room had become a space in which she can play and relax in: as well as the cot she's already been sleeping in, her room now has a toy box filled with toys, a wardrobe, the chest of drawers and changing unit that has been in our bedroom, a bookcase filled with her books, her beanbag chair, a chair for us all to sit in and gaze out the window - an activity Little Planet enjoys a lot as she loves staring at the cat, the fox, the squirrels and the birds that all make good use of our back garden. We are still waiting for her curtains and blind to be made and fitted - when this is done, I will post photos.

And then on Wednesday it was back to work for me.