Manhattan does breakfast very well and this morning we went to the City Girl Cafe in Soho.

New Yorkers seem to love nuts just as much as I do.

Afterwards we went to Tarina Tarantino’s shop which was very pretty and to Magnolia Bakery (which is in Sex & The City) to pick up some cupcakes. We walked around the West Village for a while and Tom decided that was the area we want to live in NY.

Tom then took my on a horse and carriage ride around Central Park, which was so pretty in the snow. We huddled under a furry blanket.

This was our horse, which was really cute.

We ate our Magnolia cupcakes and went for a walk around the park.

I love being a tourist sometimes.

There was still lots of snow in the park and melting snowmen.

Tom got a hotdog and I got a pretzel from a vendor.

We walked to the reservoir (as the ladies in Plan 9 suggested) to take in the view of the city.

We then went for Long Island Ice Tea and a bite to eat in the Firehouse on the Upper West side.

We should have known better than to order the gigantic nachos though.

We went down to the shore in the evening to watch the sun set over the Statue Of Liberty.

I took Tom to dinner at Sweetiepie, a super cute restaurant in the West Village, as his Valentine’s day present. I had mac n cheese with a pinkalicious drink and then we had absinthe & champagne cocktails for dessert.

The decor was so pretty and they had a bird cage in the corner. There was a man on a Valentine’s date with two ladies sitting in it tonight.

After dinner we went up the Empire State building which was lit pink and red for Valentine’s day.

If you paid double, you could go up to the very top and we had the place to ourself. I’ll update more later…

Today was amazing, we went to Monkey Park (which my Dad has named monkey farm), which turned out to be the best zoo I’ve ever been too.

We went early, so we had the whole park to ourselves and you were free to walk through the enclosures with all the animals running around you.

We were given mixed bags of food to feed them with, but you had to work out which animals liked which food.

The squirrel monkeys were the friendliest animals in the park.

They liked crawling all over us and standing on our heads.

This one loved my Dad’s iPhone and managed to take a photo.

The lemurs were my favourite, with their super fluffy tails.

There were turtles too and lots of lizards.

There were hundreds of little guinea pigs running around, you had to be careful that you didn’t step on any of the animals when you walked.

Zoos are always so much better in foreign countries because of the lack of health & safety laws.

The park also had chimpanzees, panthers and a lot of parrots. We got to cradle this one like a baby, it was so soft and light.

Today we went to Santa Cruz, which is the main city of the island (Tom sang The Thrills song at me).

It’s crazy seeing the old buildings mixed in with the new.

There was lots of awesome graffiti. We didn’t stay too long, just enough time to grab some lunch and go to a bookshop – I’d finished reading the first Twilight book and needed to get the second.

Afterwards we headed to Icod de los Vinos to see Dracaena draco, the Dragon Tree.

It’s the the largest and oldest tree of it’s kind and it has crazy looking roots and branches.

The locals believe that it bleeds blood because it’s sap is so red and that it’s made up of human bodies (as the poster shows).

There was also a volcanic cave, which was kind of creepy.

There was a mummy inside – very creepy.

Icod de los Vinos is also the main wine town on the island (the name gives it away), so we went to a little shop where we tried lots of different liqueurs.

Dad got us cute cookies.

I befriended a couple of parrots.

This one tried to speak to me but it only knew Spanish.

We then went for churros and hot chocolate, one of my favorite Spanish snacks (I posted a recipe for these ages ago) before heading home.

Tonight someone was singing Duffy’s Warwick Avenue song at the karaoke bar over from our hotel, which made me miss home. Also, worst news ever – Mr Warwick Avenue’s Service Information board has been replaced by an electronic one. How’s he going to write his witty signs now?!

After a super tiring flight (screaming kids and snoring old men – I slept while drowning them out with Bright Eyes), we finally made it to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, just off the west coast of Africa. It’s lovely and hot at this time of year, which makes a pleasant change from rainy London. The island looked quite ominous from the plane, with it’s huge volcano (which my Dad tells me is still active) sticking up through the clouds.

We hired a car and heading for the hotel, which was quite hard to find as they all looked so similar. I crashed out as soon as we got in and slept straight through until the evening.

When I woke up, we headed out to get some dinner. We’re close to San Miguel, so that’s was the obvious beer of choice.

It was only €6.50 for a 3 course meal! I had a tuna salad, fish and creme caramel for dessert. There was a “Gordon Ramsay” restaurant next door, but as they were also serving 3 courses for €6.50, I couldn’t work out if it was for real or if they were just using his name. We’ll have to check it out. I think food is going to play a big part in this holiday.

Right now I’m catching up on my CO+K work with the sound of crickets in the distance and making friends with the locals.

On Saturday we had a Christmas party at the Mews for our friends. We had mulled wine, mince pies, homemade eggnog and gingerbeer (which tasted better than the shop bought bottle that Lynz bought) and presents for everyone wrapped under the tree. I even made some presents…

including a hama bead 3D glasses necklace for Lynsey. I can now post the how-to and it’s here.

Before the party, Tom surprised me with a bag from Vivienne Westwood. My party outfit consisted of a black H&M dress, necklace from Forever 21, sparkly silver eyeshadow, my Vivienne Westwood horns…

and a new pair of Vivienne Westwood skull and crossbone earrings. They’re so sparkly and come in an indestructible box. Tom also got me an hour at Lucky Voice karaoke with up to 15 friends, which will be so much fun.

I gave Tom a whole bunch of geeky presents, including this Come In / Go Away ambigram doormat.

Twitter and Facebook mousepads.

iPhone application coasters.

… and yesterday I sewed him a set of social-networkig cushions. I’m making a pair of matching RSS ones for him today.

Emma gave Tom the best present though, which will be two pet goldfish when we get back from Scotland. We need to start thinking up names… any suggestions?

I also made a couple of squirrel brooches yesterday for the family – I hope they don’t look on here before xmas. Check out the how-to here.

We’d been looking forward to December so that we could open our Lego advent calendar.

It’s pirate themed and each day you get something to build, I’m looking forward to getting the little Lego mermaid.

Don’t worry if you don’t have an advent calendar though, we’ve put together a crafty one for CO+K with a how-to for everyday until Christmas.

On Wednesday night we went to see Twilight. I still can’t make my mind up about the film, so Lynz has lent me her book of it to read. (This lipstick covered tube poster still makes me giggle).

It was an 11.30pm screening, so we had the whole cinema to ourselves, which was the advantage of going so late, but we had to walk home from Finchley Road because we had missed the last bus. It had stopped raining and it was a nice walk, so we didn’t mind.

On Thursday we picked up this year’s Christmas tree from Clifton Nurseries. We thought we had picked a similar size to last year but it turned out to be 2 foot taller and much heavier. Luckily a nice bus driver let us take it home on the bus and dropped us off round the corner next to the Mews. We had to buy a bigger stand to fit it though.

On Friday, Emma moved flat – back in the direction of the Mews and we headed in to town to meet Tom from work. It was Beer O’Clock at the Leap offices, so we were invited in for drinks, organic chocolate and played a game of Jenga, while Malcolm (the boss) was outside with a film crew trying to get passers by to shave off his moustache (which he had grown for Movember) and ended up cycling off in a pedicab while holding up a sign. We didn’t see him again, so we don’t know if he succeeded.

There are two very cute fish who live in the office and now I really want to get some. We met up with Alex and went for dinner afterwards.

Yesterday, we started decorating our tree. We’re going to have a December party and have all our friends come over to help decorate, drink mulled wine, eat mince pies and listen to the Bright Eye’s Christmas album.

New decorations this year include a jumping reindeer and a glass lollipop. In the evening, we headed over to Ealing to hang out with Lynz, Claire and friends.

In other news, I did a nice little interview for Amelia’s magazine and you can read it here.

Today my Mum and I went to Kew Gardens. Kew was a lovely little town filled with coffee shops, organic delis and pumpkins.

The gardens were huge and very picturesque, we had a sushi picnic next to the pond.

The tree top walk was pretty but a little scary when we realised that the entire structure was swaying from little children running around.

It was half term, so there were kids running and screaming everywhere – I wouldn’t think a botanical garden would make for a great kid’s day out.

My favourite part of the gardens were the aquariums, which had adorable little seahorses, turtles and pufferfish.

In the evening, we went pumpkin shopping. It was the 75th birthday of the Maida Vale studios, so there were lots of people and bands kicking around the street. We came home and I carved this kitty pumpkin, which I’m quite proud of.

It’s been another busy weekend. We launched the Horror Issue of Snippets with Amanda Palmer on the cover. I can’t believe we’re already on issue 17!

I ordered some Moo cards for Snippets and they arrived on Saturday. There’s four different colours and I’ve already given out a few.

On Friday, we went for more ice cream from The Icecreamists at Selfridges. We had vouchers for rose ice cream cones, but the nice man let us choose which flavors we wanted and we got to try lots of types, including black licorice Vogue flavor and a really strong espresso. In the evening, Sean invited us to the pub, where a bunch of people from the DiS boards were having a meet-up. We got to meets lots of lovely people, including a band called Internet Forever, and I now vaguely understand the rules of darts.

On Saturday, we had vouchers for free coffee from Central Perk, a pop-up Friend’s cafe in Soho (photo by Nick Burcher). We met up with Lynsey, Claire and Andrew and headed along, but the queue ended up being way too long. It did look quite cool though, so we’ll try again on Wednesday. Amazingly, Tom has never seen Friends, so I’ll have to show him an episode beforehand.

On the way home, we spotted two foxes playing around in the grass at Little Venice. They were really cute and not very timid at all.

Today we went for brunch with Martyn at Plan 9, who’s down visiting for the weekend.

I’m happy because it’s October, which is my favourite month of the year. I love Autumn and Halloween is just around the corner.

After work today, we went for a walk around Holland Park. The leaves were very crunchy.

There was a super cute baby squirrel, which we fed peanuts to. It had a really fluffy tail and kept hopping about.

Afterwards we headed down to High Street Kensington, where I went on a bit of a spending spree and bought two new tops and a skirt.

When we got home, the shoe fairy (aka Raven) paid us a visit. We’d been wanting a pair of Raven designed shoes for ages and today ours arrived.

I got a pair of super cute star shoes, which make me feel like a superhero. They’re really comfy and come in gold too. She was going to make them in red and blue as well, which would have been especially superhero.

Tom got a pair of boots. On one side they have a tiger with wings and on the other a flying shark with guns. I think he understands why girls love shoes so much now.

Raven also designs the boxes, which are so awesome. My one has drawings of all the people who work at F-Troupe on it, Raven is the butterfly in the middle.

I ordered a Lego Poison Ivy to go with Harley and she arrived today. They’re so cute together!

CO+K were invited along to Craft Scotland’s premier of a new cinema ad campaign, called The C Word, at the Curzon Cinema in Soho last night. It was an interesting evening and we got to meet lots of Edinburgh-based crafters, who we gave Moo cards to and have arranged to meet up with when we’re back at xmas. A man asked to take our photo and later appeared with bottles of Vedett beer with our faces on, which was funny!

This morning my Lego Harley Quinn keyring arrived. Tom got it for me to hang up on his Lego keyrack.

After work today, we decided to go for a mini picnic in Holland Park with massiva macaroons from Paul. They were delicious. A lady had lost her son, who was wearing a blue stripy top but most of the children in the park where wearing blue stripy tops. She eventually found him though.

We fed the squirrels.

They were friendly and hungry.

Very very hungry. Afterwards, I bought a new mac, which was about a thousand pounds more affordable than my dream Burberry mac.