Notting Hill

One of the reasons I’m feeling so homesick is that our last week in Notting Hill was such as lovely one.

The weather was spectacularly good – amazingly warm for the beginning of November, with cloudless crisp blue skies.  It seemed impossible that it could ever rain in London.

After we moved out of our flat, we stayed at Guesthouse West  on Westbourne Grove, the hotel where we’d held our leaving party a couple of weeks previously (which I just didn’t have time to blog about).

It’s a lovely little hotel, though it must be admitted that our room was rather cramped, what with a baby and a cot and the fact that we were maxing out our inflight baggage allowance and had a ludicrous number of suitcases. 

But the staff were friendliness personified – as they had been at our party – the public rooms inordinately comfortable, and the location to die for.

So I spent the last few days lunching at 202, lounging with friends in the hotel bar, popping out to Tavola and playing with the make-up in Space NK. 

Some girlfriends and I dined in the labyrinthine gothic cosiness of Julie’s – a Notting Hill institution if ever there was one – renowned for its incredibly sexy ambience (it’s the nooks and crannies that do it) and dreadful food, though even that rose to the occasion by being really quite edible. 

I also finally found the time to use the gift voucher for the uber-hip Cowshed in Clarendon Cross which I’d been given for Mother’s Day and treated myself to a ‘Cowgroom’ – two therapists working together to give a facial and a manicure, with all sorts of extra head, shoulder and feet massages thrown in.  I think it was utterly blissful, but can’t be quite sure as I fell asleep half way through.  My skin and nails sure looked fabulous afterwards though.

All in all, and for a brief few days, I got to experience what Notting Hill must be like if you’ve got unlimited money and unlimited free time, or indeed if you’re the woman in the therapy cubicle next to mine, who could be heard declaiming loudly, ‘yes, darling, I’ve got a premiere tonight and I can’t possibly go with hairy armpits’.

Yes, I was DYING to see who it was, but at the time was half-naked and pinned down by two beauticians, so couldn’t go and peek through the curtains.