After the excitement of the white Christmas I headed down to St Albans to see H and family, got way too merry at the work Christmas party and spent a blissful 3 days in London.
My London days were filled with an ottolenghi breakfast with Carly, the most fabulous afternoon tea at Claridge's with Nicky. Visits to Tate modern with Helen, brunch with the girls at foxlow. My nights filled with a city pub and leadenhall market with the boys, drinks in my hotel with anyone else I hadn’t managed to see. I flew back to Miami with lots of happy memories and a suitcase full of Christmas essentials.
To me this meant bread sauce. Parsnips, stuffing, marmalade, Christmas cake, shortbread - all things somewhat tricky to locate in Miami. My parents joined me a few days later and we settled into the lovely period of time that is holiday season.
We went to a jazz concert in Palm Court, watched Miami heat beat the Dallas Mavericks at the basketball. On Christmas Eve we explored Miami Beach and in the evening drove up to the hard rock stadium for an amazing performance of a new cirque de soleil show.
Christmas Day came - with smoked salmon and champagne spotting manatees from my balcony, a tranquil swim on Miami Beach followed by a turkey Christmas dinner. Perfect.
Boxing Day isn’t a big event here so we had a local one pottering around Brickell. One the 27th we headed up to Fort Lauderdale airport for 3 days in New York ( separate post).
On New Year’s Eve, delighted to be back in above freezing temperatures we headed off to the Biltmore Hotel for Brunch - we arrived with empty stomachs and our lovely waiter Juan explained to us that not only was champagne and mimosas bottomless - they also had Bloody Mary’s and various cocktails all unlimited throughout the day. Blimey! Dad seemed to embrace this the most and immediately came back to the table with very decadent looking Bloody Mary ( is bacon in drinks a thing now?). Mum and I decided to explore the seafood selection. I was determined to get value for money out of this brunch malarkey which is how I justify coming back with 2 types of caviar, 2 oysters, some tuna, 4 stone crab claws, 2 piece of king crab and shit loads of prawns......the brunch was lovely - we slowly worked our way throigh seafood, roast lamb and a vast array of home made desserts. The Biltmore brunch was a massive success.
That evening we welcomed 2018 in watching the Miami Beach fireworks from the Apartment.
New Year’s Day we saw yet more manatees...
I’ve got to say.....Miami sure is growing on me
