I turn 40 at the end of November. I’m not phased by the prospect of it, but instead of my usual birthday request of taking the day off and doing nothing except watching my favourite films and eating my favourite food I wanted to do something special to actually acknowledge it.
Category Archives: London
A Weekend in London Part 2
It was my birthday last week and my sister, her boyfriend and The Bloke took me to London for the weekend to celebrate. On the first day The Bloke and I explored Westminster Abbey and the Great Hall at the Natural History Museum, followed by a Wagamama.
The focus of the trip was the Tutankhamun Exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery – 150 artefacts from the tomb of Egypt’s most famous King are on display there until May as part of the final World Tour – which could potentially be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see them. Our tickets were booked for 10.00am, and so we joined the queue in the rain a few minutes before.
I’ve always been interested in Egyptian ancient history and culture, so this collection of items was a real privilege to be able to see in person, 100 years after their discovery by Howard Carter. Continue reading
A Birthday Weekend in London: Part 1
It’s my birthday soon and my sister, her boyfriend and The Bloke took me to London for the weekend to celebrate.
The focus of the trip was initially the Tutankhamun Exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery – 150 artefacts from the tomb of Egypt’s most famous King are on display there until May as part of the final World Tour – which could potentially be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see them. We ended up planning a long weekend around it, arriving on Friday and leaving on Sunday, with the plan to find other interesting things to do while we were there.
We were booked into a Premier Inn Hub hotel near Westminster Abbey, which is something that we haven’t tried before. We’ve always been fans of Premier Inn hotels, but after an unpleasant stay in the Tower Hill branch earlier in the year (mouldy bathroom, no TV signal etc) and the ever-increasing prices that are now becoming out of our budget we opted for the much cheaper option of the Hub. Continue reading
An Incredible Street Art Tour of Shoreditch, London
At the weekend I experienced a street art tour of Shoreditch with Tiffany, the creator of A Girl and Her Passport in London.
She was back in the UK for a little while, and it was the perfect opportunity to catch up as it’s been over a year since she was last here. I still find it amazing that I get these sorts of opportunities – we connected via the blogging community a few years ago – and she is someone I would never have met otherwise as at the time she lived in Qatar and is from Texas.
She booked the tour through an Airbnb experience and it was something I had been really looking forward to – I’ve seen some of the street art in the Shoreditch area before when The Bloke and I had an inexpensive trip down to London – but I was really interested to find out a little more about the artists and see some of the things I had missed. Continue reading
An Egg Sandwich and Train Hell
I’ve been lucky enough to have just spent another few days down in London, this time meeting up with several bloggy friends, experiencing a street art tour, Crystal Palace Park and slowly working my way round the awesome bakeries that the city has to offer (which of course, was breakfast). It was only a few days after The Bloke and I got back from his 50th birthday Wicked and Harry Potter extravaganza, and it felt like I had just about unpacked before I had to pack again so I could get a train back down south at ridiculous o’clock. Continue reading
London, Airbnb and Wicked
It’s been a surprisingly beautiful day and The Bloke and I have just been on a train to London. We were really lucky with the seats, it was quiet and we had a really nice chat with a Ugandan-Canadian girl who is studying at uni here. It’s always interesting to meet new people – she told us about her education in Uganda and her plans to go into robotics, used words like ‘hella’ and ‘legit’ and told me I had a baby face.
Bonus points for her then… Continue reading
Blog Friends, the Cutty Sark and a New Obsession
It’s been a busy few days that have involved blog meet-ups, a jaunt around London and my new favourite thing… WASHI TAPE.
My American blog friend, Tiffany from A Girl and Her Passport is currently in London after resigning from her job in Qatar so she can travel around Europe… as you do. After talking through our posts and online for years, it was the perfect opportunity to finally meet up, so I found myself on a train at 6.10am on Saturday morning (yes, I genuinely love travelling at that time as there is nobody else around). As I was going to be ‘in town’ as such, I also took the chance to meet another blogging friend, Donna from JottoJot for breakfast as she is in the second trimester of her pregnancy. Continue reading
A Day in South Kensington
The other week The Bloke and I attempted to take advantage of a ticket sale from a train company. It went a little wrong, but we still decided to use the offer and have a day out in London, as we haven’t done that for a while.
We decided to spend the majority of the day around South Kensington – it’s a beautiful (and very expensive) area with several museums and it’s one of the few places in the city that we haven’t explored as much as we would like. We were on the train at ridiculous o’clock, as usual, and by the time we arrived at Euston the weather was fairly clear and sunny, so we took advantage of the early morning to get there before the madness of tube travel at the weekends began. On the way there I discovered an image on Pinterest of a ‘thin house’ on Thurloe Square, opposite the Victoria and Albert museum, so this was our starting point. We found it and then spent some time just wandering around the streets, admiring the private parks and the beautiful town houses and flats, along with the statue of Bartok, followed by breakfast in a local Pret a Manger (where I’m CERTAIN that we were sitting across from Julian Lloyd-Webber, although I didn’t have the nerve to go and say anything to him). Continue reading
Attack in Westminster, London
For most people getting home, they’ll be hearing the news of the attack in London this afternoon. With four people dead (including the attacker and a policeman) and twenty injured, my thoughts are with the people involved, their families and friends and the city of London. It’s a beautiful, diverse and incredible city and as always I have nothing but the upmost respect and admiration for our police force, fire and ambulance services, and for everyone who rushed to help the victims without any thought for their own safety…
London, Rent and Anthony Rapp
If there is such a thing as a perfect weekend, then this was it.
Those of you who follow the blog regularly will know of my mini-obsession with RENT, the musical. Admittedly, I only really discovered it properly this year, despite learning lots of the songs in my teens at college, but after seeing it live in a local theatre this summer, I’ve become a huge fan…
For my birthday last month, The Bloke surprised me with tickets to the 20th Anniversary tour in London, along with a night in a hotel and train tickets, so I’ve been not-so-quietly looking forward to it for ages.
It also happened to coincide with the end of term (The Bloke works in a school), so he left a few hours earlier than everyone else and by 1.30pm we were on a train (complete with reserved seats, a power point and a table – he had thought of everything, bless him). I was grateful – the train was predictably rammed and ridiculously warm – so while we sat in our seats and talked nonsense at each other, everyone else was fighting for spaces. Continue reading
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