Two important birthdays

Well sure enough the new baby princess was born on Saturday morning, while we were having breakfast with a view of St Paul's. The birth was announced late morning. James and I were by that time shopping in Selfridges - where strangely I bought some shoes. I say strangely because shoe shopping is not an activity that we enjoy either separately or together. It was an impulse buy. 

Then we met up with the Smith clan for our Fawlty Towers lunch which was Jennifer's choice of celebration for her special birthday (the actual birthday will be on Monday so not the same as the Royal Baby's!) It was great to see them all and lunch was hilarious! Basil, Sybil and Manuel served the food in a slapstick manner while quarrelling and generally behaving outrageously towards the guests. They were all very good and there were many references and tributes to the television series. Basil announced that he thought James was German and Sybil's conversation with Jennifer was brilliant; "What age would you like to be Jen? Thirty?" "Yes I would like that!" "Well that's not going to happen, is it Jen?" Sybil compared James to Basil and said that he was an "aging, brilliantined stick insect"!

Next the celebratory afternoon continued with a trip to The Shard where we ascended with alarming speed to the 72nd floor. The views over London were excellent and we wandered round the viewing gallery pointing out landmarks. I loved being up there but I do think that there are too many unusually shaped "novelty" buildings springing up in London recently. As well as The Shard there is the ugly Cheese Grater building and the silly looking Walkie Talkie building. It's as if the architects are running riot. 

We ended up at Nando's right beside our hotel for dinner where we relaxed and had a lovely chat - Josh and Ben really loved the food, which was chicken, chicken and extra chicken! It was a brilliant day and a fitting celebration of my wee sister's special birthday.