Tuesday in the Park with Max

I wandered up to the Upper West Side this afternoon to drink jasmine tea from Mariages Freres with Lovely Lola, and admire her new infant.

As I have been absent from New York for a few months, and Lola has been in Spain for much of the summer, today was the first time I met little Max. He's six months old now and it seems a long time since I wrote about the baby shower held in his honour back in February.



He is, of course, adorable, and at that perfect age where he can be dandled on a knee and amused with Aunty LLG's jewellery. (He's managing to stuff the DVD remote and two necklaces in his teething mouth in the photograph above.)

We scooped up the dog, popped Max in his buggy, and headed off to Barney's by way of Central Park. I was dog wrangler which, in a park full of saucy squirrels, is no sinecure.

It's been a perfect autumn day, with crispy orange leaves underfoot, and weak sunshine filtering through the trees. I don't make it up to Central Park very often, but every time I'm there I get pole-axed with homesick-ness and a wave of longing for Hampstead Heath & Posetta Baddog.

Still, having a lovely dog in tow helped ameliorate the sadness, and I can't think of a nicer way to spend two hours than with a girlfriend, her infant and a hound strolling through the Park and the Upper East Side.