Martyn was in town today so he joined us for a Plan 9 brunch. It was like a Scottish reunion + Irish Claire!

We got takeout brunch and headed to the park, where we were serenaded by a jazz band while we ate. I love Paddington Rec, it’s a really active part and you’ll find people do every kind of sport, working out with their personal trainers and walking their dogs on any given day. We always feel guilty eating while laying on the grass as people exercise around us.

After lunch, Tom and I headed off on Boris’s rent-a-bikes through St. John’s Wood to Regent’s Park, where I was distracted by baby giraffes at London zoo and almost fell off, and then down to in to town. They were lots of fun to ride and everyone starts conversations with you about them.

We treated ourselves to drinks at Ping Pong. I had a strawberry & vanilla bubble tea and Tom had lemonade with a pour in strawberry puree.

We couldn’t resist ordering some dim sum too and tucked in to some delicious steamed buns and dumplings.

We picked up some more bikes and cycled through the streets of central London and Marylebone. One day I’ll be on a pink Vespa, like this one I spotted.

If you ride the bike for 30 minutes, you can plug it in, wait 5 minutes and then pick up another one without paying extra. We discovered the lovely Padding Street park while waiting to pick up our next bike.

In Paddington, Tom took me to see this building, which is fake on the right hand side. They needed to knock it down for the tube but it’s such a posh street they had to make a replica fake building front, which is empty behind. We picked up our final bikes (the 4th of the day) and cycled home. I’m very very sleepy and worn out now but that was an awesome weekend!

We started our Adventure Saturday yesterday with some chips from Mr Fish in Queen’s Park, which Mitch had told us is the best chip shop in London. They were very good and I managed to nab 20 chip forks so I can make this Tatty Devine necklace.

We picked up an iSpy London book to help us with our adventures. We’re hoping to get it finished by the end of the year but it gave us the idea to make a grown up’s version with fun stuff like: get your photo snapped at Rough Trade or drink bubble tea in China Town.

Fist we jumped on the newly reopened East London Line. I know East is a bit old fashioned but we weren’t expecting people to be dressed like this… hehehe!

We headed down south where we found Railway Avenue…

which had the Brunel Museum on it. The museum was really cute and only cost £2. The Brunel tunnel was the first underwater tunnel beneath the Thames. It first opened as a shopping arcade and they held a banquet in it. Today the tube runs through it.

Tom liked the train bench that was outside.

There was an awesome bridge one too.

We were in luck as it was a special day  at the museum where they were giving people train tours of the tunnel and letting them go down in to the old entrace hall. This was the first time it had been opened in 140 years and we had to squeeze through a little mine entrance and climb down a rickety staircase. It was really cool inside though – here’s a photo to give you a better idea.

Afterwards we went on the hunt for a Cockney cash machine which Ben from Leap had told us about. We found one but they don’t support Cockney as a language option anymore, so we couldn’t withdraw any bangers and mash.

We wandered around East London for a while.

We spotted a weird fish lamp…

and this dragon, which I love!

We decided to head out even further East and got the train past Stratford, where the Olympics was coming together nicely!

Eventually we got to Lakeside shopping centre, where we got to be mallrats and it felt like being back in West Edmonton Mall – my Canadian home away from home as a teenager. They have gumball machines…

and Taco Bell! I think it may be the only one in Britain.

The food was just as good as I remember and just as cheap – a hard shell taco is only 79p.

Just like I would have done in Canada, we went for a snoop around the pet shop after which had super cute bunnies.

The rest of the animals were all snoozing.

This hamster was really cute.

After shopping for a while and Tom not letting me get him an I Heart Omaha t-shirt, we went for dinner at Old Orleans. A restaurant on a fake steam barge which looks similar to the one we actually saw in New Orleans.

The food was really good, we ordered burgers with diced home fries, corn bread and a pitcher of Hurricane (which wasn’t as strong as in Nola). The person next to us ordered food that came out sizzling with a huge cloud of smoke steaming off it.

Afterwards we had more cocktails. I went for a Louisiana Jam which was Southern Comfort, apple juice, sourz, apricot jam and mint served in a jam jar. Jam in drinks is actually really nice. Tom had a Bywater Bramble which came in a glass with a scary face on.

We found a copy of Flair Magazine which has a photo of our bed in it – I was very sleepy by the end of the day and wished I could be back in it.

I sewed some owl cushions. I’ve decided that I don’t want any cushions I haven’t sewn myself (apart from the awesome tube fabric one). The owls were made out of two tweed skirts and pieces of Liberty print fabric – I’ll post a how-to on CO+K soon.

We’ve been doing lots of de-cluttering in the mews and I finally organized my shoes with DIY polaroid photos. I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do that for.

Because polaroid film is so expensive, I came up with a super cheap DIY solution and you can see how to make your own on CO+K.

The exciting news in my life at the moment is that I’ve learnt how to play guitar. I’ve been terrible at it for years but after being taught how to play bass, I picked up the guitar and magically knew how to play it. Tom’s decided I’m getting an electro-acoustic Daisy Rock guitar for my birthday… we’re just torn between the sparkly pink (which is amazing) and the purple (which is a bit more me!). We want to get a heart shaped bass too, so I can play along with T’s music. I also got a 4-track app for my iPhone and I’ve been having so much fun with it!

I’ve done a few interviews recently and there’s one in the latest issue of Alt Fashion Magazine and another one on the Bead Army blog. We have a meeting with our publicist Sally after work today, so hopefully we’ll be doing a few more *fingers crossed*.

Bead’s Unlimited sent me a box of beads and links to play around with, I need to get my crafting hat on and see what I can make with them.

In other news, I’ve been doing DIY The Look guides for various stars on the CO+K blog. So far, we’ve had Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Kristen Stewart. Any ideas on who to feature next? Also, Knitten Kitten Jenny came to stay on Monday night. I love that her hair is a different colour everytime I see her (last time pink, this time bright purple).

On Saturday we headed out to St. Albans. My Dad loves history so it was on his list of places to see.

There wasn’t too much to the town but the park was lovely.

We had a picnic.

And I made friends with the ladybirds.

We also went to the “oldest pub in England”, where Tom wanted to steal a decoupage picture of dogs playing snooker from the wall.

There were lots of weird dog portraits.

On Sunday we went for brunch at the Alice House in West Hampstead. Tom had amazingly fluffy pancakes and I had eggs royale.

The restaurant was really pretty with brick walls, big light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, candles in birdcages and big loungy sofas. They’re opening a new one just up the street from us in Queen’s Park.

We shared a pistachio brownie afterwards which made Tom really want to start a new website.

We went for a walk and I spotted a pink Vespa that I want. Tom likes the baby blue one you can see behind it.

We then went for a wander around West Hampstead cemetery.

There were lots of pretty angels…

including this huge one, which was on top of a massive grave. Very impressive!

We walked up Monument yesterday. It’s as tall as the distance from where the great fire of London started. I took a tall photo of it too!

There were 311 steps…

which made you feel dizzy by the time you got to the top but they give you a certificate.

The views were worth the dizziness. On one side you could see all over the city from St. Paul’s to the Gherkin.

The other side has views over the river and Tower Bridge.

Afterwards we tried out Boris’s new bike hire scheme. I hadn’t been on a bike since I was little, so I was a little unsteady but hopefully it’ll all come back to me soon… what’s that saying?

Next up we headed to Chiswick, where we spotted this Charles & Diana wall, which must have been painted a very long time ago. I also got Nigella Lawson’s Domestic Goddess book super cheap in a bookstore – I’ve always wanted it.

Then went for a tour of Fuller’s Brewery where they make London Pride.

We got to wear super fashionable orange vests.

It was fun learning about how the beer is made and getting to smell all the different malts – cara malt and chocolate malt were the nicest, so I tried to decipher them the beers after.

The best part of the tour was when they took us in to the cellar and let us try all of the beers.

We tried a bit of each beer but my favourites were Discovery, a light biscuity beer, and London Porter, which tasted like coffee and chocolate.

It was the last tour of the day and our nice tour guide let us stay in the bar until everyone had drank as much beer as they could manage. We all left drunk and the tour is awesome, so go on it if you get a chance!

Tom put fairy lights behind his bus blind and it looks even more amazing than it did before – he can be so crafty sometimes!

My parents came down to visit today so I took them to my favorite new lunch spot, Gail’s Bread in Queen’s Park.

They make the most amazing inside out chocolate chip cookies, which have melty white chocolate chips. We really need to get them to share recipes on CO+K.

There’s a really good bookstore in Queen’s Park with a big comic book section. They had Dame Darcy’s Meatcake comic, so I was impressed!

I bought some mini purple moleskins to carry around in my bag because they’re as light as a feather.

On the subject of feathers, we went back to the petting zoo, where they have chickens that are so fluffy and look like the inside of Ugg boots.

There were two really cute rabbits who’s ears would flop around and get stuck sticking up.

We headed in to town afterwards to do a bit of shopping at Wholefoods and went to the amazing Camellia tearoom in Kingly Court.

They have so many flavours of tea and you get to smell them all before picking which one you like best. They had teas to help with everything from tummy cramps and sleeping problems to sore throats and making your skin beautiful!

On the way home I spotted this window display on Oxford Street. I’ve been wanting to take polaroids for my shoe boxes for a while and this gave me an idea for a super easy way to do it, so more on that soon…

Ahoy! I finally finished my sailor dress. This is the second dress that I’ve made and now I have the hang of it, I’m going to make lots more.

I’ve started a new fashion scrapbook to keep all my ideas in, so I’ve been drawing coquette’s (which I will do a how-to for soon) and cutting out pictures and fabric patches. The fabric I used for this dress was a striped linen, which cost £5 a meter.

It has big bulky pockets at either side (I love pockets on dresses), metal buttons down the front and a wide collar.

I’m going to style it with a sailor hat, anchor necklace from Forever 21, the Vivienne Westwood pirate boots I wish I had and a bottle of rum!

It’s been another fun and crazy busy week. On Tuesday we went for a picnic in Holland Park with Sarah & Bruno, saw Inception on Wednesday and on Thursday, I was invited on the first ever Leap office night out, which included lots of cocktails, Moroccan food and shisha.

Tom made a frame for his bus blind, painted it black and put it on the wall. The blind is from a real bus and has hundreds of stops on it, including School Bus, Partial Route etc, so he put a curtain chain on it and you can twist it round. We’re going to get some LED fairy lights to put behind it so that it lights up at night.

Tom’s parents have been in Italy so came for a visit on their way back. They brought us two cute wooden animal cocktail stick holders.

On Saturday we went for lunch at Gail’s Bread up in Queen’s Park.

They make amazing salads and it feels like you’re having an indoor picnic.

I love their metal lightbulbs.

We jumped in the car and went for tiramisu at Cake Boy in Battersea.

They gave us a sneak peak at a tea party cake they’d just made. It had a little boy and girl with all their imaginary friends sitting around it. We really want an icing Annabelle & Baby (our two favourite teddies) on top of our wedding cake!

We then went for a drive through Richmond park, where we were lucky to find a huge herd of deer right next to the road. This one was really sleepy, so didn’t mind us sitting next to him. I joked that he must have had a late stag night… hehe!

I think they had hay fever because they kept sneezing (you can hear a couple of sneezes in this video).

Next up, we then went to Hampton Court and had a look around the gardens.

The roses were really pretty…

and there was a cute little dog hiding in them.

We went through the maze and followed Tom…

who walked straight through to the middle in about 3 minutes, without getting lost. He didn’t even use Google maps.

They had cute button seats. I wish we had a garden… and a maze.

In the evening we had dinner at Carluccio’s in Bayswater, where I had a voucher for a free bottle of wine. I had sorbet afterwards which was soooo tasty, I’m going to learn how to make it this week.

• Tatty Devine’s Chipfork Necklace on CO+K (I need to raid the chip shop and make one!).
• New series of True Blood, although it’s weirder than it use to be.
• Whoopie Pies & Peanut Butter Pretzels.
• Pencil VS. Camera.
• Amy’s Bread - they sent me the cookbook and it makes me miss NY so much .
• Country Living Magazine – another guilty pleasure.
• Union Jacks but especially this scarf from Liberty (which I could never afford).
• Liberty print fabric.
• Super scary shower curtains.
• Audrey Kitchen’s awesome DIY projects on CO+K.
• The difference between how losers and winners think (via Audrey’s blog)
• Super cute ribbon painted nails.
• Fabric wedge boots by Irregular Choice, which I’m going to make for myself very soon

For our Saturday adventure this week we headed to Oxford, which felt a lot like St. Andrews but was overrun with groups of Italian school children.

I loved the windy cobbled streets and old buildings, which make it feel like you’re in Harry Potter.

There were animals everywhere!

There was also an Alice In Wonderland shop filled with all things Alice. I was tempted by a pocket watch.

It turns out Dave wasn’t lying about having a magazine in Oxford and we found a huge pile of Ocelot issues in a pub. He’s not lying about having a fiance in Canada either .

We had lunch in a church which had been converted in to a bar and then went for a walk along the canal. On the way we saw a man jump over a wall while being chased by the police.

The baby ducks were really friendly and came out of the water to see us.

There were also cats living on the canal boats, which they didn’t seem too happy about.

We explored the city for most of the day and concluded… Oxford has lots of windy streets, Italian tourists, animals and the Oxford tube is a lie!

We then headed to Reading, where we were disappointed to find out that the exciting sounding Oracle was just a shopping centre.

We went for a drink in a pub which brews it’s on beer on site before heading back to London. So where to next week?