On Sunday, Emma had tried to plan a surprise brunch / engagement party, but our reservation at Fifteen fell through so we all ended up at The Diner in Kensal Rise, which was equally as awesome.

The hard shakes went down really well. The stress of planning had driven Em to margaritas at breakfast.

My breakfast was a cheesy sweet waffle (odd but nice combination) with hash browns, baked beans and scrambled eggs. Yum!

After we headed back to the Mews for absinthe champagne cocktails and Tiffany box cakes.

I had managed to make them the night before and they tasted really good. Check out the how-to on CO+K.

Our neighbour, Barney popped by with a bottle of champagne.

We spent the rest of the evening playing Buzz, singing karaoke, drinking and planning a trip to Amsterdam (which I really hope happens). Emma brought a huge box of red velvet cupcakes from Hummingbird, which tasted soooooooo good and made up for a lack of dinner.

Last night, Barney came over to drink the champagne with us, while we nibbled on cheese and crackers and listened to records.

If we’d  known being engaged was going to be this much fun, we’d have done it ages ago. Thanks so much to all of our amazing friends, we love you xxx

I woke up to a call from my bank’s fraud squad this morning because someone had stolen my card details and was trying to buy phone top-ups – super scary! I think I must have used a dodgy ATM somewhere.

This weekend was Andrew’s birthday, so we got him a membership to the Prince Charles Cinema, so that he can go to £1.50 movies in his free periods. Afterwards we met up with Emma, a massive dog licked my leg on the tube, Em dropped 5p and it ended up in the bottom of my shoe, and we went for mussels and beer at Belgo.

After dinner, we met up with Andrew and friends at The Cuban in Camden – a bar filled with couples dancing everywhere. Ben and Dave came too and Ben had an awesome skeleton t-shirt, which lights up when you take a photo. We were sat outside under an umbrella and heat fan in the garden and got very cold.

Afterwards we went for a cherry flavoured shisha pipe to warm us up, it was delicious!

Emma, Alex, Ben and Dave came back to the Mews to watch Limmy on YouTube, drink absinthe and have a band slam. Amazingly Em and Alex fell asleep with all the noise and stayed until the morning.

Tom and I went for an amazing last breakfast at Plan 9. I had French Toast.

Followed up with peacan pie, which made us miss Raven.

We went shopping for a little while in town. Carnaby Street has pretty xmas decorations with pink inflatable reindeer.

We had a coffee in the new look Starbucks. They had little individual cubby rooms with sofas downstairs, I quite like it.

I surprised Tom with little wooden London transport blocks, which I had found in Muji (my new favorite shop). He loved the little tube and routemaster.

Afterwards, we crossed horizontally (twice) at the new and improved Oxford Circus. It felt a bit like a game, because everyone bumped in to each other in the middle and got scared when the green man went red.

In the evening, we went through to see Lynz, Claire, Alex, Emma and Andrew in Ealing and had yummy Nepalese food for dinner.

Last night was bonfire night, so we met up with Lynz, Emma, Andrew and Alex and headed on the hunt for fireworks. We started off up in Wilesden, where our path to the park was blocked off by the police, who said there had been a stabbing. Feeling freaked out, we escaped to the safety of Notting Hill and found a bonfire near Ladbroke Grove.

There was a really good firework display which lastest for ages and every time we cheered, thinking it was over, there was another massive encore.

It was nice and hot next to the fire. Afterwards we met up with Ben and Dave in the slowest and cheapest cocktail bar in town (£2.50 for a drink with a half hour wait).

We headed to Goldhawk Road to meet Claire in a much nicer pub, where there was a ska band. Ben brought sparklers, so we had our own little fireworks display outside, which led to burning my lip (there’s always one and it’s usually me!).

Ben and Dave invited us back to their amazing flat in Chiswick. They live above one of Marco Pierre White’s restaurants, which has real grapes growing from the terraces – they tasted quite weird.

Dave let us try his special recipe falafels and Ben made us amazing cocktails all night, including French Martinis, Bob Marley shots and Chocolate Martinis. They were the best hosts ever!

This weekend was Halloween, my favourite time of the year, so we planned a party at the Mews.

Tom did an amazing job with decorations, hanging orange and black streamers across the ceiling with dangly bats, pumpkins and spiders. We also had a spooky doorway, Halloween balloons, fairy lights and candles everywhere. We made super strong jelly eyeball vodka shots and a cauldron of punch, which changed flavour and colour throughout the night. Everyone brought spooky nibbles and lots of booze, so there was sugar overload.

We carved pumpkins. I carved a cat pumpkin, complete with carved ears, which we later sat around in a circle and told scary stories.

I also carved a robot and a spewing pumpkin.

Tom carved a very cute robot pumpkin and Lynsey carved a spewing cat pumpkin.

Oranges also make very good makeshift jack-o-lanterns.

After dressing the Mews, it was time to turn our attention to costumes. I dressed up as Poison Ivy – my hair became more and more green throughout the evening and it was a nightmare to get clean the next day.

Tom dressed up as a drowned sailor, complete with Sailor Jerry transfer tattoos and barnacles glued to his face. Emma and Alex made him an award for the best costume later in the night.

He wouldn’t have won without the help of resident makeup artist, Lynsey.

Emma dressed up as Swine Flu (with piggy tail, ears, flu bag and bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tamiflu), Lynsey was Liza Minnelli in Cabaret, Claire was Judy Garland as Dortohy from the Wizard Of Oz (with tic tac pills to pop), Alex was Sweeny Tod, girl Alex was a sexy pirate, Ben was Wolverine and Andrew was the Invisible Man. I annoyingly didn’t get many photos of costumes during the night.

The evening was filled with bobbing for apples, a spooky Spotify playlist, karaoke, Buzz!, creepy TV shows and spooky stories. I love Halloween.

Today felt like Boxing Day. Emma stayed over, so in the morning we slomped on the sofas under duvets, watched terrible shows and movies on TV and munched on left over candy. In the evening, Alex invited us over to her amazing apartment in Notting Hill for a delicious Sunday roast and we toasted marshmallows over her open fire.

I’ve been super sick with the flu for the past week but I was feeling a little better by the weekend, so I decided to venture out.

On Friday night we were invited to Sarah’s housewarming party in Hackney. Beforehand we met up with Andrew, Gary and friends at a pub in town, where they attempted to cheer Emma up with a lollipop and puppet show. She wasn’t too impressed but it made me happy – I’m quite partial to children’s entertainment and think all friends should have a supply of lollipops and puppets in their pockets!

Emma thought she may have found Raven’s dream man in the underground. We headed to the housewarming and met some nice people, who we arranged to have lunch with on Sunday.

On Saturday, Tom got his hair cut and then we went for free drinks at Grace bar in Piccadilly Circus.

In the evening we went for dinner at Vapiano’s with Tony, Lynsey and Emma. Followed up with drinks at the pub again with Andrew and Gary, and then on to the Trocadero for arcade fun. It was a little more disappointing while sober, but we did see Mr Funland again.

On Sunday, we went for a super wholesome day out with Sarah, Bruno, Dave, Ben and Emma. We started off with lunch on the canal at Little Venice, went to feed the squirrels and peacocks in Holland Park and then went to a pub, just off of High Street Kensington. Tom played piano all night, while we sang along and we had a miniature game of pool.

Last night was Raven’s leaving party, which was very sad but also a lot of fun. Emma and Raven had done an amazing job of tidying up the Mews and lit lots of pretty candles everywhere.

We’re going to miss Raven sooooooo much!

There was cutting of a Hummingbird red velvet cake and we all fell asleep on Emma’s bed (the walk downstairs to our own bed was too much for us) and woke up to the sound of “how do you like your eggs in the morning?” playing very loudly.

Those of us who survived until the next morning went for a yummy brunch at Harlem on Westbourne Grove. We’d been promising to go for ages, so as it was Raven’s last Sunday, the worst hangover in the world wasn’t going to stop us.

Pancakes and a raspberry smoothie hit the spot perfectly!