MY WEEKEND

ONE of the bonuses of being self-employed is being able to start the weekend early. So it was that Friday lunchtime became clocking- off time. I had booked - and planned my whole week around - a massage at the Elemis Day Spa in Bond Street, and had stored up all my knots and tension. Unfortunately they got the booking wrong and instead of an hour's all-over soothing I got a half-hour's vigorous back rub. I left more stressed than when I went in. My also self-employed boyfriend, Pete, met me at the Royal Academy of Arts and bought me a Japanese cake from a shop on Piccadilly to calm me down.

I'd made him a RAA "friend' as part of his birthday present, so we went to see the Paris exhibition. I loved the curtain of what looked like raspberry/liquorice bootlaces that you walk through and Jean Tinguely's Ballet of the Poor, a huge, rather menacing-looking mobile that moves every five minutes, scaring the life out of those looking at it.

Then we went to the Millennium bridge, which we'd last been on in the days when it wobbled. We crossed - slightly disappointed that it no longer wobbled - to Tate Modern to see the Warhol exhibition. It took me seven-and-a-half minutes.

It was just too easy and I'd have been a bit miffed at having paid pounds 10 to see it (which I didn't as Pete is a mate of the Tate). There was, however, an air of excitement in the room where the "celebrity" silkscreens - Marilyn, Jackie O, Liz Taylor - are.

Then home to Old Street.

Most of our neighbours seem to spend the weekend away and we met a couple of them on our way up from the car park as they struggled with their weekend bags.

Friday nights are "ours".

We rarely accept or offer invitations to do anything and generally start the evening with a martini and a bath and discuss the week - it's one of the few times we get to do this as Pete often works till at least 8pm and I start work at 6am.

Feeling greedy, I had a martini and a gin and tonic (it had been a hard week).

By the time Frasier came on, I was fast asleep.

Saturday Pete was working so I went and bought the papers. Old Street has a real community spirit. I know most of my neighbours by name, my local bobby (yes, we have one!) and my newsagent. I read all the papers, which took me forever. Because Pete's studio (he's a photographer) is in the same building but on the ground floor, we talk on walkie-talkies. So I buzzed him about 10 times, and he became increasingly annoyed as I read out interesting bits from the papers. Then I bought Hannibal on pay-per-view while eating salami. I spent the rest of the day preparing my fishing flies because Sunday was the first day we'd be going fishing for trout, as the season had just opened.

This meant a 5am wakeup.

I love leaving London while most people are still asleep.

We had packed a huge picnic, which involved lots of chocolatey snacks. I only realised how stressed I was as we left the city landscape behind and all that concrete was replaced by lovely green fields and mist. By the time the sun was fully up, we were on a boat, on a lake in Northamptonshire, and my perspectives changed completely. That was how we stayed until teatime when we packed up and returned to Old Street with our catch.

As the fields turned to buildings I felt the process reverse and the knots start to form once again, in readiness for another London week.

Copyright 2002
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