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.

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…

I’ve been so busy this week that I didn’t have a chance to blog about my last few days in Scotland.

On Sunday, Tom came over to watch the F1 with my Dad, so my Mum and I took my Nana out for a coffee. There’s a nice little cafe in Burntisland called Potter About, where you can paint your own ceramics over a cup of coffee and cake. They have a little craft store and I was tempted by their union jack cushions.

In the evening my Dad took us through to Chop Chop in Edinburgh, a restaurant they had seen on Gordon Ramsay’s show and everyone has been raving about since.

They specialize in dumplings, so I tried the steamed and fried prawn ones and some peanut & mustard noodles.

They even had dessert dumplings, I tried the peanut butter with raisins ones, which were really nice.

We went for a drink near the bridges afterwards and then I went back to Tom’s house and Duncan and Grant came round for a catch up.

We spent Monday with T’s Mum, sitting in their lovely garden. I somehow managed to get sunburn (in Scotland!) and now have an uneven tan down one arm.

We had a tasty lunch of pita bread stuffed with roast vegetables.

The train back to London was really busy, so we snuggled up and watched the One Of My Kind documentary about Conor Oberst and Monsters Of Folk, which wasn’t great but made us want to take a trip to Mexico.

Tom’s parents gave us this really pretty cake stand as an engagement present.

I can’t wait to have a tea party and show it off.

After waking up at Miquette’s yesterday morning, we headed to the Roseleaf in Leith for brunch with all of our parents.

It’s such a kitschy cute cafe, I’m jealous that it’s not in London. They serve cocktails in teapots and I want to try almost everything on the menu.

My Dad giggled at the Canadian salt & pepper shakers.

I went for the waffles with bananas and toffee sauce again, which were the best waffles I’ve ever had and the best UK brunch (2nd only to Clinton Street Bakery in NY).

Afterwards we went to Portobello. It was sunny, though a little cold, but that wasn’t stopping lots of people from having BBQs on the beach.

I couldn’t resist collecting some pretty shells from the sand.

We went to Funpa (with a missing “rk”). Somehow I don’t believe this sign – I find it hard to believe that the amusements are open any day but Saturday.

Tom found a new vocation as a London tour bus driver. We dropped some coins in to the penny falls and tried to win an Alexander or Sergei meerkat plushie from the grabby machines.

After, we went for a coffee at the Beach House but my Dad was determined to think it was summer and had an ice cream.

In the evening, we headed home and my Nana came over for dinner. (She wore the Squirrel brooch I made her for Christmas).

We had barley risotto with mushrooms and a tofu chocolate pudding for dessert. My Mum’s such a good cook, so I had her post the recipe on CO+K.

It’s my Dad’s birthday next week, so I got to give him his birthday presents early –  a cool notebook and a terrorist teapot from Suck UK!

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 headed up to the top of the volcano. It looked like a different planet.

You’re so high up that you’re above the clouds, which makes the roads even eerier.

We stopped for soup before the top. It was onion soup which had a fried egg and bits of bread in it.

The volcano looked like a desert but it was really cold.

There was a jogger who kept managing to overtake us every time we stopped, he must have been very fast. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel and went swimming.

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?!

Today we decided to escape the tourism of the resort by driving up the mountain to Masca, a lovely little hilltown that was once overrun by pirates.

I don’t think the pirates would have stopped for tea and cake like we did though.

There was the most amazing sink made from driftwood in the cafe’s bar, I really want someone to make me one.

We walked around the town for a bit, it can get a lot colder up the mountain.

And then we had Canarian potatoes, one of the traditional dishes. There are hundreds of different dips that they serve them with and it depends on which part of the island you’re on as to which one you get.

The roads are so windy and scary up in the mountains, they’re even worse when it’s dark.

We spotted this odd couple sitting on stones by the side of the road. They were doing exactly the same pose as each other and had the same movements. We thought they looked like gnomes and Tom said they thought they were on a train, tee hee!