Notes by Nectar

After the gym on Sunday morning I met up with a friend for an early lunch. We went to Tasha’s and got a table without having to wait – it was about noon by the time we got there. We sat down and decided to share the quinoa salad and the penne with mushrooms. Both were very good but I thought the pasta could have been a little less oily. We were there for a while as we hadn’t seen each other in ages and it was about 2.30pm by the time I got back home. I was home for the rest of the day.

On Monday morning I had a session with Pete and later that afternoon I had a piano lesson. My dad arrived from Bombay that evening – he’d been there since the end of August, when we all went together for his medical treatment. The house had been so quiet for so long – and now it was back to CNN and dodgy Indian channels at full volume!

I went to the gym earlyish on Tuesday morning. On my way home, I was rummaging through my handbag and couldn’t find my keys. I was pretty sure I’d taken them with me and thought I’d have a proper look once I was outside the flat. As I approached our front door I saw my keys hanging there. Crap! I’d locked the door from the outside and then left the keys there. Anyone could have picked them up and walked off with them. And if anything had happened on the inside, they wouldn’t have been able to open the door to get out.

After I’d had a cup of tea and showered, Ajay (our cook/housekeeper) and I went to Lulu for the weekly shop. It’s not the most exciting couple of hours of my week, I can tell you. I’m waiting for the driver to come back from his (ridiculously long) holiday so that I can send the two of them together!

Apart from my session with Pete on Wednesday morning I did nothing but catch up with work.

On Thursday night I met up with a friend from Lagos who was in town. He’d booked a table at La Petite Maison and I’d been looking forward to it all week. He’s vegetarian though, so everything we ordered was vegetarian. To start with we ordered the burrata, the lentil salad and the scrambled eggs with truffles. For our main course we shared the risotto with goats cheese, the gnocchi and the dauphinoise potatoes. I thought the gnocchi was bland, but the risotto and potatoes were fantastic. We shared the cheesecake for dessert.

After dinner, we went to White Dubai at Meydan. My friend had been invited to a party and took me as his ‘plus one’. I’d never been to White Dubai – what a place! The music was so good – and I wish I’d taken a photo of the view of Sheikh Zayed Road and the Burj Khalifa from there. Our hosts had a huge section to themselves which was nice. I even knew a few people there. I got home at around 3am.

I was tired on Friday and spent the day in my pajamas. Well, until 6pm anyway, when I decided I had to get ready if I was going to be on time to meet my friends for drinks and dinner. I met a couple of girlfriends at Fai at the Palace Downtown. We had a drink and then had dinner next door at Thiptara. We ordered a lot of prawns as one of my friends eats only seafood. For our starters we ordered the papaya salad and the deep fried prawns with hot chilli sauce. For our main course, we shared the phad thai, stir fried prawns with basil and chilli, and we ordered a red curry with prawns. We also ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

Everything was fine, but when they brought us our main course, they brought us a green curry with prawns. They were very apologetic and eventually brought us what we’d ordered. They also gave us complimentary sorbets for dessert.

While the food was good, the service was terrible. There were only two waiters in the whole restaurant and getting their attention was not easy. It was Friday night and the restaurant was full – so two waiters really didn’t do the job!

After dinner I went to meet some other friends and left my two girlfriends at Fai. They later told me that the staff were still feeling bad about getting our order wrong and gave them a complimentary drink as well!

I was in high heels so luckily my friends picked me up from the Palace lobby and we decided to go to the Nippon Bottle Company at the Dusit Thani. I’d heard a lot about this place and had been wanting to go there. It’s just to the left of the lobby at the Dusit Thani, but the entrance is rather deceiving. Four of us managed to get a table and ordered some drinks. I thought it would be best if I stuck to wine, but the others had Kamikazes (I’ve only ever seen these as shots so it was weird seeing these served in tall glasses).

We each had two drinks and decided to join some of my other friends who were at La Cantine du Faubourg at the Emirates Towers Hotel. It was after midnight and the place was packed! I managed to find my friends and we hung out with them the rest of the night. By 2am I couldn’t take the pain any more and took my shoes off. I knew that putting the back on would be hell but by then I didn’t care! I left at about 2.30 with my neighbours and we came home…

I got out of bed on Saturday at about noon. All I wanted to do was sleep. And have a foot massage. I did neither. But I did spend the day in my pajamas, which was perfect!

I love my life.

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