London and Gordo

Mmmm - warm beer

Jason was lucky enough to be able to spend 3 days in London on his own visiting friends and family. Ok, so its Jason writing this, but sometimes speaking in the third person is fun and yes, I do consider myself lucky.

The mission was to fly from Biarritz (about 45 minutes from Salies) on Thursday and return on Sunday. Thursday and Friday nights were spent with my oldest friend (known each other since we were 5) and arse kicking hospo guy Graeme and Saturday night with my big brother Ev. I hear you saying "how come Jason graces Ev's presence with 1 night and Graeme gets 2 nights ?" Well, there is a particularly good reason for this, which I will mention shortly.

So, to cut a long story short, Jo drops me off at the airport and I catch a quick 1 1/2 hour flight to London. Graeme picks me up and we get back to his house where a quiet family dinner with his wife Tanya and their beautiful children Jordan (17), Taylor (7) and Mia (4) was on the cards.

Quiet - yeh right.

We had a fair bit to catch up about and 6 bottles of wine and a beautiful meal later and I was hitting the sack (the couch actually) at 3 am. I was then woken up by Mia jumping on my head at 6.30am. No worries, I had to get up anyway and I hadnt come to this crazy city to sleep.

Now to the reason why I stayed with Graeme for 2 nights. We had a reservation at Restaurant Gordon Ramsey - Gordo's flagship restaurant. 3 Michelin stars of gastronomic pleasure. Now I know that I have received the feedback that I am always stating that we just had the "best meal yet" but the meal I had that night was the "best meal I have ever had in my life". 500 quid best!! Lucky I wasn't paying as Graeme knows how much I love food and offered to pay. We even got to tour the kitchen and meet and talk to the Executive Chef! Once again, it is amazing how many doors get opened when people realise that you are a kiwi. The evening was glorious and once again, I wont bore you with the details - and there were many, as this meal was all about detail. My only regret was that Chris was not there she would have so appreciated it - possibly more than me.

That night ended at 5am and once again started with a Mia attack bright an early. Hey - it was great to catch up on the latest episode of Hanna Montana though.

Ev picked me up about 10am and I went to his place and got to hang with my extended family - Sonja (his partner), cousins Ruby (7), Lottie (4) and Isabella (4 months). Emotional times as they are so far away and Big Ev (hes 6 foot 5 inches tall) is my favourite man on the planet. Its such a shame that our kids dont get to spend time together. In fact, they couldnt be further apart. The time with them all was prescious. We had a beautiful dinner then went to a traditional pub where various people tried to convince me that flat warm beer was nice. Whatever.

That night ended at 3am then I was off to the airport at 10am for my flight back to Biarritz.

The entire time in London I reckon I got about 12 hours sleep. I felt great though as I was so amped to see my special people and have a few days in massive London. Great mission. On return to Salies, we had a final dinner where we all dressed up and shed some tears. Off to Paris and the final leg of our journey. Its been a blast.