The Hox­ton Hotel (‘the urban lodge’) in Lon­don recently had a sale, where a lucky few could purchase rooms for £1 a night or £29 a night. Most came away with nothing, but Sam was lucky enough to not only get a room, but two con­se­cu­tive nights on the wee­kend of her birth­day! Fantastic!

Said wee­kend star­ted last Fri­day, we each took the day off and took our quick and usual route into the cen­tre; mee­ting outside Lei­ces­ter Square, cases in tow, ready to be tou­rists for a cou­ple of days. After apple juice and lunch in St James’ park we took the Northern Line to Old Street and chec­ked in, elec­tri­fied by the overwhel­ming tren­di­ness that is both the hotel and surroun­ding area. 

Note the scis­sor, paper, stone pillows. With pre-booked tic­kets for Ave­nue Q at the 5:30pm mati­nee it wasn’t long before we were back on the streets, explo­ring Hox­ton and Sho­re­ditch and grab­bing a Tor­ti­lla (potato quiche) and roas­ted veg­gies from the exce­llent and deli­cious Food Hall on Old Street. We LOVE this place and would spend a for­tune here if left unaccompanied.

Middle of the middle in the stalls we watched the well prai­sed Ave­nue Q as the Gary Cole­man refe­ren­ces whis­ked over our heads and the ‘grab your dick and dou­ble click’ line resoun­ded. Though we enjo­yed it, the abun­dant acc­laim meant it did not meet our high expec­ta­tions. Away from the Noel Coward thea­tre and back to Hox­ton Square where we had reser­ved a table at The Appren­tice, as recom­men­ded by a friend. A little unner­ved at the emp­ti­ness of the place we peru­sed the night menu’s offe­rings, opting for the spicy leek and carrot soup of the day star­ter and the “Osso Bucco with risotto Milla­nise and gre­mo­lata sauce” as main, with Sam choo­sing the Sal­mon and spi­nach dish. Osso Bucco is a dish of tasty veal shanks and it was pure bliss — I didn’t need my knife to cut the meat, it simply fell apart, all juicy and scrump­tious — it was perfect.

On Satur­day we con­si­de­red rushing to Lei­ces­ter square to grab thea­tre tic­kets early in the mor­ning; but rising late at 10am we quickly aban­do­ned this notion, ins­tead just follo­wing our noses. Up ‘n’ down Brick Lane, past Les Trois Gar­cons — too eccen­tric for Sam’s tas­tes, to the Food Hall for cara­me­li­zed gar­lic bread, cheese, spi­nach tor­ti­lla and anchovy cau­li­flo­wers, res­pec­ti­vely devou­red by the canal off Upper Street near Angel. 

Dar­ting back in via tube we saw the sites; Tra­fal­gar square, Buc­kingham palace, Hyde Park and all that. After a tea/cappuccino recu­pe­ra­tion stop spent watching the pas­sing hor­ses and cyc­lists in Hyde Park we tried to find an eve­ning event. All the movies at the BFI film fes­ti­val were sold out, as were any shows we’d plan­ned to see — jud­ging by the boards in the square. Music events were the next option but of course the wee­kend doesn’t have free papers to look these up! Going out on a limb, we hea­ded to the Apo­llo Thea­tre loo­king for tic­kets to Rain Man sta­rring Josh Hart­nett and Adam God­ley; luck would have it they still had some and for £31 each we grab­bed upper circle seats for the 7:30pm sho­wing. With two hours to spare we had a set menu Chi­nese din­ner at Mr Kong’s in Chi­na­town — the usual duck pan­ca­kes, sesame bread, sea­weed et al. 

Neither of us had seen the Dus­tin Hoff­man movie, we went in without any expec­ta­tions and without grounds for com­pa­ri­son. We left abso­lu­tely stun­ned — wow; the play was bri­lliant with God­ley and Hart­nett supre­mely lea­ving us on ten­der hooks. This was the first straight up play we’d seen together and no doubt we’ll be back for more of the same.

Sun­day took us to the areas of Lon­don we wouldn’t nor­mally go, Lon­don Bridge, Tower Bridge, the Tower of Lon­don and later South Ken­sing­ton for lunch and the museums. We stop­ped at the Hoop & Toy in Ken­sing­ton for a rela­ti­vely cheap but tasty steak/burger with a bottle of red ‘Cape Pro­mise Pino­tage’. With alcohol fue­ling our sys­tem we plea­santly stum­bled around the Vic­to­ria and Albert museum, nap­ping by the large middle Eas­tern car­pets, and then later to the Natu­ral His­tory Museum — through Geo­logy, past the birds and into the realm of the dino­saurs, before being ushe­red out at the close of play. 

More tea breaks back at the Hox­ton Hotel where we pic­ked up our bags and aim­lessly chat­ted as the time whis­ked away, soa­king up the cool­ness of the vibe, shoes off and rela­xed. Then home and an end to our won­der­ful wee­kend; loo­king for­ward to the next one.