isabella

had important guests in town who wanted to visit isabella plantation for sentimental reasons. apparently it was there that they were held up for over an hour while i napped at 14 months old. such love, not wanting to wake the sleeping child. little wonder i'm still bad (good?) about sleep and am nothing but grumpy when roused. they were hankering for flowercam (is there such a thing?) to see the condition of the flowers before going to the plantation. sort of like the live cams trained on ski slopes so one can see skiing conditions. didn't have the heart to tell them that the best time was mid-may, and in fact met someone at dinner the night before who'd gone three weeks ago and saw the flowers at their prime. so we were a few weeks late (or 11 months early) and the rhodies were half strewn on the floor. but on the plus side the plantation was empty and we'd it all to ourselves. 

felt like such a responsible adult, mind. had them round for super early home-cooked dinner on friday, put them to bed, then went to C's new sloane square nest (baby due any week now!) for a sophisticated italian dinner. what's it about the italians who do everything better?! the yummiest bruschetta to start (fresh, sweet tomatoes and basil, creamy tuna with capers, avo with feta) a mountain of the best ham (lovingly hand carried back from her last trip to milan before baby) and the most gorgeous main of rigatoni sicilian-style. washed everything down with a sublime brunello and had ice cream at the end. felt so grown up and stayed till about one before responsibly going home and straight to bed, up bright and early for the isabella plantation jaunt. and as all good richmond visits include a petersham pilgrimage, after our fill of flowers we had coffee and scones at petersham nursery before crawling through the city (darn you, london traffic!) for japanese lunch.