On Saturday we headed over to Camden for breakfast…

where we had nitrogen-oxide ice cream from Chin Chin Laboratorists.

You pick the flavour of cream you want, they mix it with nitrogen oxide (his thermometer showed -22 degrees) and it turns in to ice cream.

We got to have two toppings because he’d seen us in Camden the night before, when they’d closed.

We had chocolate ice cream, with salted caramel sauce, peanut brittle and candy floss sugar candy (which looked like shards of glass) and it was the best ice cream we’ve had in ages!

They even had swings to swing on while nomming your ice cream.

We wandered around Camden for a little while, where Mountain Dew were giving out bottles of their new energy drink, so everyone was florescent.

Then we headed to Cake Britain…

an exhibition of cakes!

The burger cakes were the coolest.

They were going to let all the visitors eat the cakes the next day – great if you have a sweet tooth!

Afterwards we went for a snoop around Orbital Comics, which is an awesome shop.

I wish the Harajuku vending machine wasn’t empty though – I’ll have to go back.

Afterwards I petted a horse…

and we had sushi in the park. Then we went for a look around John Soane’s museum, which is a hoarder’s paradise. No photo allowed in there though

Tom took me for a drink in an awesome pub he’d found a few years ago and thought he might never find again.

Then we headed to the South Bank for more noms.

I couldn’t resist making Big Ben look mini for a photo. I love my new camera sooooo much! Tom wanted to have a look around Namco but it wasn’t as good as the Trocadero.

Then we met up with Metaxa and Lynsey in town.

Metaxa took us to a theatre pub, which had lots of crazy things on the wall and singing coming from the room next door.

On a side note, I found proper purikura machines in China Town… so Tom and I are going to get some snapped on an exciting date that’s coming up in the near future!

This week has felt like an extension of my birthday. On Monday, I received a box of awesome treats from Medusa’s Make-Up and then my purple heart-shaped Daisy Rock bass, and then on Tuesday Sarah sent a package of awesome birthday treats, including a super cute Momiji doll with a really sweet note inside.

I love love love my bass. It’s looks even prettier in real life and it’s really easy to play because it’s designed for girls fingers. Tom and I have been playing Desaparecidos, McClusky and Paramore… hehe!

This week’s work included making Make-Up tutorials for Medusa’s Make-Up.

This is the first one I’ve made, so I hope I described everything properly.

I got a lot of purple things for my birthday, including this awesome Canon camera from Tom. It has a wide-angle lense, so all my photos will be 16:9 and it’ll look like I’m in a movie.

I couldn’t resist taking minature-style photos of Camden.

It looks so cute, like a toy-set complete with miniature drug dealers and punks.

Ross invited us along to their party in a really cool pub up in Belsize Park.

His band, Mars Patrol were using half the room to shoot a music video. We were too scared to go in it but there were break dancers, sumo wrestlers, dogs and lots of crazy people.

Today, we’re off on the hunt for weird ice cream. Last week I made some lemon sorbet, which was sooo easy and really tasty!

Tom was very disappointed with his sweet chilli noodles from Wetherspoons

We were back in London for Saturday so we headed over east.

Our first stop was the Geffrye Museum, which is an exhibition of 17 living rooms from across the decades.

I love snooping around rooms, so this was the perfect museum for me.

The 90′s room was my favourite, with it’s cool upstairs bedroom. That chair may be ugly but it’s the comfiest thing I’ve ever sat in.

There was quite a cool photo exhibition downstairs.

I love photos of messy rooms!

We then headed south of the river… which can get a bit scary.

There was a very cool mirror shop.

Eventually we got to the Thames Barrier flood defence. Because we got there quite late, we got to look around the visitor centre for free!

The Tate & Lyle sugar factory was on the other bank.

Afterwards we caught the DLR to Canary Wharf…

and went for dinner at Wagamama. The food was soooooooo good, I can’t believe we’ve never been before. They also give you free green tea with your food and I got a minty, yogurt drink which looked exactly like a sample of Thames water they had at the barrier centre.

After waking up in Bristol on Friday, we caught the train to Bath. The train had TVs on the back of the seats, so I got to watch 5 minutes of the Powerpuff Girls.

My parents went for a tour of the Roman baths, while Tom and I went off to explore the town. Instead of the painted elephants they use to have in London, Bath had it’s own version with painted lions. The one on the left was designed by Cath Kidston and the one on the right had this funny sign next to it.

There were lots of lions in Bath actually!

I love love love these mixers… wish I did enough baking to justify buying one!

We then hunted out Royal Crescent, the street that the one in Holland Park (where Richard Branson lives) is based on. It was designed by a Mason, so from the above, the streets make masonic symbols.

Nearby we found the Hansel & Gretel strudel cafe which sold a strange mix of knitting yarn, Christmas decorations and strudel… but there were only 3 tables which were full, so no strudel for us

Instead, we found a nice little deli, where posh people were arguing about the price of cheese…

and we had Rose Lemonade, which tasted like liquid turkish delight and Ubuntu Cola (which is some computer geek joke that only Tom and Tony got!)

Afterwards we found my parents and went for a pint of Bath’s only beer Bellringer in Bath’s smallest pub.

For dinner, we ate at Porters Vegetarian Pub, where I ordered a super meaty looking pie. It was awesome getting to try a little of everyone else’s food without the fear of accidentally eating meat

Bath was pretty at night, so we walked along the waterfront before heading home.

Bath was filled with kitschy shops, lions, good veggie food and funny signs.

It was my birthday on Thursday, so my parents took us on a mini holiday to Bristol. Tom surprised me with a box of macaroons on the train, so we munched them on the way as breakfast. After arriving at the very fancy Brunel-designed train station…

we caught a ferry to the city center. They also do booze cruises, which sound like fun!

Bristol is famous for it’s pirates (can you tell by the accent?)…

and graffiti, though we failed to spot any Banksy

Knitten Kitten Jenny told us to check out the awesome exhibition at the City Art Gallery.

I love this display of books. We told my Mum to pitch the idea to her library when she gets back.

Tom liked the robots.

I liked the cupcakes.

There was an awesome gypsy caravan, I’ve been trying to win one in my boxes of muesli

We wandered around Clifton afterwards and went for a coffee at the Boston Tea Party – a cute coffee chain, which I’ve only seen in Bristol.

Tom spotted an awesome train tea pot in a shop window. If anyone’s in Bristol and could do me a favour, send me a message!

We spent the rest of the day exploring, then my parents treated us to dinner at Carluccio’s. It was raining too heavy in the evening to do anything, so we snuggled up in the cinema and watched Salt.

Bristol was only 2 hours away by train, so I’m sure we can nip back anytime for another visit.

It was Tom’s birthday on Wednesday, so I surprised him after work with a trip to the Absolut Ice Bar.

It was very very cold…

but they dress you in a big warm cloak and gloves.

The glasses were made of ice too and the cocktails glowed under the UV lights. The menu was a compass and you picked the cocktail you wanted by the direction.

The bar was covered with various ice art and sculptures.

I liked dressing up as an eskimo and wish I could have a furry hood all the time.

It was nice to get outside in the warmth after.

I treated Tom to dinner at the Diner, where he got to open some of his presents (including this very pretty one from Raven).

Then we had time to kill in an empty St Pancras while waiting for my parent’s train to arrive…

so we played pop-up ping pong, which was so much fun!

Instead  of nursing a hangover, after our party, on Sunday we went cycling around Hyde Park, which was lots of fun and I didn’t even fall off.

Then we went for dinner at Itsu in Brompton Square.

It was like an upper class and healthier Yo Sushi, promising butterfly light dishes.

We tried a bunch of different plates. The salads and fresh fish were amazing.

The drinks were good too!

For dessert, then even had my favourite… creme brulee – not what I’d associate with sushi.

Yesterday I bought myself the Daisy Rock heart-shaped purple bass guitar I’d been drooling over – it’ll be here in one week! It’s Tom’s birthday today, so I have a surprise in store for him after work…

It was our birthday party last night, so I went for a makeover at MAC beforehand.

Last time I let the artist take full control and she went a bit crazy but this time I knew what I wanted, so I loved the end result so much more. Ellie, the makeup artist asked if I was a beauty journalist, because I came in prepared with a notebook of looks I wanted to try out. She also gave me a huge list of websites to check for CO+K and places to go in Bristol next weekend.

She even let me take photos as we went along, so I could put it on CO+K and thought that was a really good idea everyone should do.

I left with a big bag of makeup and then went shopping for a new outfit too.

We headed home and it was party time! I think we’d picked the worst day of the summer to have our party, as everyone was away but we can’t do any other weekends. It was lots of fun anyway!

We made Hurricane Cocktails like we had in New Orleans and brought out the Mardis Gras beads.

I baked a chocolate absinthe cake…

which we set on fire and was much cooler than birthday candles. We served it with Lego-shaped vodka jelly and even King Charles enjoyed his slice! Other party food included enough candy to kill someone, delicious homemade pizza from Raz & Anna and questionable chocolates from Dave.

Mel sent a video message from Toronto!

Lynz gave me an awesome pair of scissors earrings (very CO+K) and Tony gave me a download of the Dr Horrible Sing-A-Long-Blog (I don’t know what it is yet – we’ll watch it at bedtime).

Dave played us a little gig when everyone left and warned us about the impending mid-twenties crisis which may, or may not be waiting around the corner for us… 4 more days until I’m 25, eep!

We have just launched Snippets 20, the Happiness issue!

This issue has musician Sia on the cover, Tom’s interview with his favourite beer company BrewDog, a feature on one of my heros and the happiest person ever Mr Warwick Avenue and an interview with The Oskar, who we met at Newark Station on our way to New York.

I had to pull in all the reinforcements for this issue, including Barbie for another modelling photo shoot with my ring.

I can’t believe we’re already on issue 20! Tom got the covers printed out and I didn’t realise there would be so many of them. My favourites are the the Emily Strange, Trashy Life, Amy Lame and Tarina Tarantino covers, but I like the new one a lot too!

We put them all on the wall. Not sure what to do when we get past issue 21…

On Tuesday, Tommi and his lovely new wife Julia came to visit on their holiday away from Canada. We haven’t seen Tommi in over a year and a half, so it was great catching up and reminiscing about our Dundee days.

They even brought us three cutesie wooden turtles.

It’s our birthday party tomorrow morning, so I made myself a bunting necklace to wear. I’ve also been baking all night and have successfully made a three-tiered absinthe chocolate cake!