Blog Every Day in May: Bank Holiday Fun

I love bank holiday weekends.  Turns out a three day weekend is a thing of genius!  Here it has been a weekend of catching up with friends, visiting pop up shops, haircuts, dinner, reading, cats and silliness.

a. Last night Matthew got home from his break.  It's so lovely to have him home for a good long while now.  And the occasion certainly merited cake and prosecco!
b. Some beautiful work on display at the pop-up shop my Vixie is running.
c. Miss Paws has been in a really cute mood this weekend, which has been lovely to see.  She'd been having a bit of a shy, hide-y phase, so it's lovely to see her more chilled again.
d. Friday was Mexican food at Wahaca with Eileen.  It was great to catch up on all her wedding chat!  I can't believe that it's less than a month till her and Rory's big day.  Eeeeee!
e. Katzen awaiting Matthew's return.
f. The view on my walk across to Eileen's on Friday.  Love the city.
g. On Sunday Kaz and Hannah popped over for coffee....and left at eleven after wine, pizza, and chat.  Love an impromptu girls' night!
h. I popped across town for a haircut Sunday lunchtime.  My stylist, Harry, is awesome and cracked me up with his 'pre wedding hair attack plan'.  I know very little about hair, so am more than happy to play along.  Basically, we're growing the life out of it, so next year, when it's decision time and I have a dress etc we can choose any kind of style.
i. James and Phil at the pop up shop on Saturday.
j.  Vixie (and a very yummy cupcake, trust me) at her pop up shop. If you're in East London you should definitely pop in - loads of cute stuff!
k. Amazing display of items by my talented friend Emily.
l. Balloons made by Vixie - I bought the love hearts one.  Love a cute brooch.
m. Speaking of cute brooches :)

All in all, a lovely weekend.

And a whole other day to enjoy now - house stuff, chilling with Matthew, and dinner with Dan and Brigitte.  Lord bless Bank Holiday weekends!

PS  If you love Emily and Vixie's items, their etsy stores are here and here.  Vixie's also on not on the high street. I bought most of my birthday gifts for the next few months at the pop up shop - way to combine, friends, shopping and getting it done, right? :)

View Post

More IRL than URL

I've been reading Rose's blog for a fair old time now (the girl is wicked stylish and concocts soooooo many marvellous recipes!), so when she announced a blogger meet up right here in London, of course I made plans to go along!  So this afternoon I joined a plethora of Londoner fans for pizza, cocktails and chat.  It was such fun!

Rose is even more beautiful in person (as was her fabulous handbag) and it was so cool to meet so many other bloggers in person - sometimes it can feel rather isolated, tap-tap-tapping away, so it's always great to connect with other people.  I've really enjoyed all the other blogger events I've been to recently (London Bloggers Meetup and the Nuffnang Bloggers Tea both spring to mind), and was especially pleased that this time I remembered to take a few pictures too.  Lord bless Instagram!

The woman of the hour!

Lovely Christine, who I first bumped into at the Nuffnang event, and James, one of the Cool Bars for Uncool People boys.

Christine and Bryony - they were kind enough to let me hang with them!  Turning up at these things solo is always a bit nervewracking!

Bryony and the other two CoolBarUncool boys - we had lots of fun chats about myriad random topics.  The best kind of conversation!

All in all, super fun, and a very nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  This evening is all about PJs, hanging with M, kittens and reading (I'm a third of the way through my book club book....and book club is on Thursday!).  Tomorrow is work, working out, and Bodeans.  What does the rest of your weekend hold?

View Post

A lovely birthday picnic!

The beautiful Emily has a special birthday coming up, and so on Saturday a bunch of us got together to celebrate our girl.  Such fun!  I instagrammed it up (is instagram a verb as well as a noun?) a storm - here are a few of my pics from the day!

The birthday girl opening a gift.

 

 Adam finding his present a *little* bit harder!

 Bringing the cheese!

 Hadn't seen Dave in ages!  It was lovely to catch up with him and the lovely Charlotte!

 Wilf on parade.

 Scones and clotted cream - such a lovely summer treat!

 The promised storm never arrived, but clouds moved rapidly in the brisk wind!

 Ems is the *queen* of bunting!

 Pretty, pretty Lou.

 Lou and Siobhán kindly bought me a badger mask, which they brought along to the party to give to me.  I love it!

 Badger!

 Me and my favourite boy <3.

Such a lovely, chilled, fun afternoon.  Good food, great company, and a chance to fete a wonderful lady.  Love you bunches, Emily - I'm so very glad we are friends!

View Post

Three day weekends....

....kind of rock.

TV and reading and unpacking and planning and many, many cups of tea with good friends = perfection.  and now, a four day week.

I believe the phrase is "winning".

House ownership continues to be lovely - having so much space is a real luxury and I have to keep pinching myself and remembering it's ours! :-)

Right - book and bath and bed are calling so I'll sign off this brief missive.  Night, all!

View Post

A good day

Today has been a good day.

A day of helping and meeting new people.

Making plans and thinking ahead.

Subway sandwiches and red velvet cake.

Bouncing ideas around with a dear friend.

Playing on twitter and watching silly TV.

Introducing Eileen to the wonder that is 30 Rock...

...and joining Eileen in keeping a straight face when the boutique owner told us the dress in the window cost £10,000.

Ten. Thousand. Pounds.

And now it's a little after ten, and I'm snuggled up with a sleepytime tea and a magazine, tapping this in on my iPhone...because I resolved to blog 366 times this year and my computer has been off all evening.

Rock and roll?

Heavens, no.

Delicious?

Oh yes!

I hope you have all had (or indeed, are having) a similarly super Saturday, and that the rest of your weekend is lovely too.

View Post

All the leaves are brown....

....well, almost.



London certainly feels autumnal today, or maybe that's because I am sat here looking out over the darkening sky, trusty cup of tea and balsam tissues to hand as I fight the first cold of the year, haha!

It is chillier today than it's been for weeks, a fresh northern breeze whispering through the trees, hinting at the cold to come. I love it - this season has long been a favourite, and whilst this term can be a slog it is always one I enjoy - the drop from summer to autumn; back to school; the changing of the leaves; then Hallowe'en, Bonfire Night, Thanksgiving; and then December and the joy of Christmas.

Brilliant.

It's been a fun, if lowkey (for the most part), weekend here. Friday I'd been a little feverish and full of cold, so I forwent the Friday night drinks and instead toddled home for coffee and bad TV. Yesterday was my first full day event with the Junior League. Everyone is *so* nice, and so motivated. I am excited for the whole new members programme. We did some meetings, signed up for a few things, and did some volunteering (painting and work with kids), then went to the pub. After that it was back to the homestead, where Lou, Matthew and I drank tea, ate fish and chips, and watched old school episodes of 'Quantum Leap'. Just what the doctor ordered.

Today dawned sunny and bright (this has since passed!). After Lou headed home we just settled in for a chilled, pootly afternoon - tea, reading, chores and suchlike. The cold's almost gone (yay!), and I am looking forward to Downton Abbey later. Ultimate guilty pleasure telly.

Good weekend.

How was yours?

View Post

Woo! Friday!

Two posts in a day.

My goodness.



Heh.

But seriously, below is an actual videoblog.

I think my favourite part is where I discuss strikes and beating children at a party....without having previously mentioned that it was a BOWLING party.

I told you I was tired.



That screengrab ^^^^^? Hawt. Heh.

View Post

Weekend!

So here we are, Sunday morning of the weekend. It seems that nowadays each and every weekend is a little different. Last weekend the theme was definitely 'rest' - I barely moved from the flat, was just exhausted after an epic week. This weekend has been very lowkey too, but has involved a lot of working out - as I type I am considering rubbing ibuprofen into my legs to prevent further ouchiness... At least with two months to go the Moonwalk training* is going well - next month it will move up another notch as we are on break for most of April. Hello, gym and training!

The next two weekends will be different again....next weekend the lovely Shona is coming to stay and it will be theatre and tea at the Ritz and catching up. The weekend after that the lovely Christy arrives and it will be time for silliness and blog chats and general London fun.

It's all in the mix, right? Enjoy the rest of your weekend, lovelies!

* If you would like to sponsor me for the Moonwalk (pretty pretty please and thank you, please donate here. Huge thanks in advance!)

View Post