I took my Mum to London a couple of times late last year for hospital appointments. We decided both times to make a day of it as the appointments were over by 11.30am. She suggested a walk by Tower Bridge. It’s not somewhere I go often, and I was struck by the architecture both old and new.
A glimpse of the poppies at the Tower – only a glimpse as the crowds were beyond belief.
A jaunt to Greenwich with my parents for Dad’s birthday, led us to stumbling across two amazing shops side by side. Retrobates Vintage and Casbah Records share frontage, and all three of us were drawn to the windows.
On venturing in, Dad turned left to the records, and was soon engrossed in conversation with the owner about 60s music and his own collection. Mum wandered through the arch and found kindred spirits in the girl with 60s hair, selling a green minidress she wore when she very first knew Dad.
While they chatted, I mooched with my camera…
Note the wallpaper, and the leopard print faux fur ceiling. I didn’t think they made shops like this any more – I’ve not been into even a vintage shop with so much personality for a long time – and with both records and clothing reasonably priced (especially for London), I shall be back… probably with Louise Contrariety Rose in tow!
Tomorrow… honestly, where has an entire year gone?! I remember Annastasia and I booking our tickets in a fit of excitement just after the last one, when all my feeds and timelines were flooded with people squeaking excitedly over it.
And now it’s our turn!
For the uninitiated, Cybher is a blogger’s conference held annually in London. Which means I get to spend an entire day surrounded by likeminded women who are as geeky, quirky and off-the-wall as me! (Yes, I can see you quaking with fear at the very thought…)
I have no idea what to wear yet, but I suspect polka dots will be involved. I have a list as long as my arm – charge camera, install apps on tablet, make sure I have business cards, remember to take pens…
There is an incredible schedule, but the thing I’m looking forward to most, as always, is getting to know people – it’s fabulous to read blogs, but unspeakably lovely to meet people in real life – especially when those people don’t react to the word “blog” as though you’ve said something in alien speak 🙂
See you there, ladies!
Following the Night Circus (and a very entertaining impromptu photoshoot in the car park, pics to follow), I fell into bed and dreamed of fire breathers and running away to the circus.
Saturday morning saw me fairly leap out of bed and head for the station (London three times in a week, it felt most odd after six months of barely seeing the inside of a train!) to meet the lovely Hannah for lunch and (squeee, squeee, SQUEEEEE…) Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty.
Look how close to the stage we were!!
As you’ll know if you’re a regular reader, I love all types of dance, but ballet has always held a special place in my heart… and when I rediscovered the fact that I can in fact stand en pointe I nearly melted with excitement.
So when Hannah told me she’d managed to secure tickets, I squealed out loud! Pity whoever was in hearing distance at the time – H was clever enough to break the news via text!
So off we went – we had tickets in the stalls for the matinee, which started at 2.30, giving us time for a gentle amble around Wimbledon first. Only I was too excited to focus on anything (even TK Maxx… lol) so we had lunch and then went in.
Here’s the trailer, to give you an idea of the gorgeousness of it all…
I don’t really have words for how magical it was – Kate said it was ‘astonishing’ and that she had tears of joy… and I think that’s probably the best description I’ve heard. I just adored every single second… and didn’t want to step out of the theatre and back into real life.*
After tea and cake…
…we then made our way to Southbank in the rain and had dinner at Strada, before heading our separate ways home (after walking in entirely the wrong direction to Waterloo – yippee, I’m officially a tourist again, with no sense of direction!) and lovely Hannah is coming to stay for a bit later this week. So we can wax lyrical about the ballet all over again.
It was her first ballet – I can’t decide if I’m wildly envious that her first experience was a Bourne, or whether it’ll make future ballets seem, not dull, but perhaps less colourful, by comparison…
And of course, a duck came with me, as one does everywhere… he was eyeing up the teapots, and then I told him that three really was quite enough…
Oh, and just to top off my excitement, Matthew Bourne favourited one of my tweets about it!
*Disclaimer – It must be said that I absolutely love my real life at the moment, but the weekend was host to two of the most magical events of my life so far. So you’ll forgive me for wanting to stay in them. Expect similar behaviour after the Fling – it happens every time!
When you have to spend a day in London to get your passport done in a hurry, you can’t stray too far from the Passport Office. So Rainbow here decided that the best thing to do would be to avoid the rain and eat as much as possible during the day 🙂
Breakfast before we went in search of the Passport Office. Looking confused at needing codes for the loos, but delighted at the tiny pot of ketchup | The Merchant, Liverpool Street Station
Reminding ourselves of where we are… | Giraffe, Victoria
Gammon and sweet potato chips – boring for some, but just how I like it | Giraffe, Victoria
Tucking into chocolate mousse crunch. Well, the day’s not complete without dessert, is it?! | Giraffe, Victoria
We pinched the Diet Coke bottle for an upcoming photoshoot, too 🙂
As a completely fabulous, proper weekend draws to a close, I’m once again pensive. In a good way. For the first time in I genuinely can’t remember how long, I am excited for Monday. The first week of the new job mostly involved meeting people, familiarising myself with the uni’s website and eating cake. But I am looking forward to being there, to the challenge of the first tasks I have, of getting to know my (perfectly lovely!) new colleagues, of discovering the campus and the surrounding areas, of spending the evenings of this week eating good food and making stock for fairs and the fabulous Tea & Sympathy boutique.
This weekend has comprised seeing the Ruby Slippers at the V&A, eating a ridiculous amount of food, catching up with fabulous friends, catching up with fabulous family and walking around in a state of wonder that I can be this happy in normal, everyday life. Read on for more…
I’ve had such a mad few weeks, I haven’t done a Happy Thursdays post for AGES. However I have been keeping my eyes open for small things that make me smile during the long and sometimes relentless weeks. Here are a few:
Perfect cupcakes before the Hurly Burly show, with Wendy. Gorgeous Sunday – cake, burlesque and one of my best friends, what more could a girl want?!
A truly spectacular moment on the way to the pub after rollerskating with Caroline, and planning our cabaret performances, her website, her new house and my future. It was glorious, and felt like a proper summer evening.
Lunch at the Folly with Lou. Full review coming soon (possibly on Project Pin Up) but I loved that they gave us our bill in a seed packet. It was fabulously quirky, suited us down to the ground AND there was a fashion shoot going on at the same time we were there.
Spotting an old but rather beautiful Maserati outside my parents’ new house. Sadly not theirs.
Deckchairs and screens provided in the middle of the City for workers to watch the Olympics and Paralympics on. Lovely, no? 
There are more, but I’ll leave you with those for now. I am off to get some sleep, finish recovering from this horrible virus I’ve had, and hope with all my heart that Poppy sails through her service and MOT tomorrow – it makes me unreasonably nervous!
Today was just another day at work… only it wasn’t at all, it turned out to be a glorious extravaganza of a day. The morning was quite average, apart from a delivery of a box of feather boas for burlesque class, which massively entertained my colleagues. My desk now looks like a very pink chicken has had a fight near it.
Then lunchtime approached and my two lovely friends Naomi and Wendy, who had been up to Liberty to meet the incomparable Dita Von Teese, came to have cake with me. I met them at St Pauls station and we popped across to Bea’s of Bloomsbury…
Wendy and I had red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and homemade lemonade:
Naomi had the most beautiful (and scrumptious) triple chocolate cake, with tea (of course!):
Having cooed over their Dita perfume and signed photographs and pictures with her, and had a thoroughly good gossip, we stopped to take a photo of these wonderful cake plates on the way:
and then they went off to the station and I went back to work. And shortly after that, I headed off to Bonhams to set up a work event. I was taking marketing materials with me so had a taxi drive me there, and spotted this little tailor’s shop, which I really think is straight out of Harry Potter and hopefully not visible to Muggles, halfway there…
Then on the way home from setting up I got this rather moody but lovely glimpse of the back of Harrods (which is in an area of London I usually avoid because it’s so busy!)
Finished off the day with a lovely long chat with Lou – and my first slice of bread for almost six weeks! (It was amazing – but I gave the rest of the loaf to my neighbour to avoid temptation, hehe!)
‘delivering zero emission cheese to London’. Don’t know quite why that made me giggle, but it did!
I'm Carla, a quirky thirtysomething with a penchant for unicorns and glitter. I believe in magic and make-believe, and the gorgeous rebellion of making your life absolutely your own. And I'm a proud multipod!
I am a photographer and catalyst for small business owners, and a real life mermaid. I photograph people as they truly are, help women see and step into their brightest and best selves, add a sprinkling of magic to the mundane, and am a happy ambassador for stationery and slow living.
Proud to be both girly and geeky, when I’m not writing, photographing or daydreaming, you can find me dancing burlesque, riding my bicycle Bluebell, growing herbs and collecting typewriters.