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!

We’re back in Scotland! It was T’s Dad’s birthday on Thursday so we went for a lovely Italian to celebrate. On Friday, Jack gave us a lift through to Edinburgh. He drives a yellow car, so it was fun watching out the window to see if anyone hit each other.

I had a Power Breakfast smoothie which was yogurt, orange, banana, strawberry, honey and muesli blended together. It tasted really good, so I’d recommend crushed up muesli in drinks. We were going to go to Chocolate Soup but the staff seemed so rude when we were ordering that we decided not to bother.

We walked up Calton hill to take in the view, I haven’t been up there in years but it use to be a favorite hangout of mine.

It started raining, so we took shelter with coffee and whoopie pies (a little birdie tells me that they are the new cupcakes).

When the rain stopped, we headed down to see Joey D but he wasn’t in his store. I sent him an email, as he promised to open a London store if we got engaged.

We then met up with friends Siren & Shell, who have been working on an exciting online magazine about Japanese culture. We went to a cosy little pub called the Wally Dug (just off Dundas Street) which had Trashy Blonde on tap. This motivated me to send off a few emails and now we have an interview with Brew Dog lined up for Snippets!

Miquette invited us over for dinner and to stay over. She’s 12 weeks pregnant, so she was really hungry and loved the cupcakes that I had brought her.

Her house is like an extension of her website, with cute things everywhere and new things to discover in every corner. We made Frazer and Tom look cute with bows and a tulip hat.

Calum came over too and I asked him to pick me up a deep fried Mars Bar. I’ve never had one before and, being Scottish, felt I must give it a try. I only managed a couple of bites before passing it off to the rest of the room, who also struggled with it.

We got back to London to discover this amazing portairt of Emma, Tom, Me and Raven, which Raven had painted for us as a Christmas present. It’s based on this photo and she’s captured all the little details, like the necklace we gave her as her leaving present. It’s only 6 weeks until we see her in New Orleans for Mardis Gras.

Our last day in Scotland was spent in Edinburgh with my family. We went to an amazing little cafe called the Roseleaf down in Leith. It’s full of quirky little touches, such as menus binding inside copies of National Geographic and hardback books, candles in teacups and mismatched tableware.

The food was delicious too. We had waffles, pilled with caramelised bananas and sampled the applewood mac n cheese.

We’re back in London now. Last night we spent new year’s eve with friends in Ealing and woke up feeling oddly refreshed to catch a bit of the new year’s parade in town.

Selfridges has an amazing Vivienne Westwood window display.

I want it all, especially the Westwood baubles for our xmas tree.

My new year’s resolutions are to be super organized, craft lots, be proactive, think positive, jog everyday, travel more and catch up with old friends. What are your resolutions?

Jenny was back from Japan, so we met up with her in Edinbrugh for a day of fun and cock-of-tails. She told us lots of stories about Japan, which has convinced us to go and visit at some point next year. Our first stop of the day was our favorite pub, the Jekyll & Hyde.

Jenny was impressed by the toilets, which are hidden behind a bookcase. The only problem is that they’re not marked with Male or Female, so it’s a pot-luck to which you end up in. For your records: Male to the right, Female to the left!

Jenny brought us loads of goodies from Japan including crazy flavoured KitKats (ginger ale, sweet potato pie, caramel pudding & royal milk tea), koala bear cookie bath bombs, packets of odd sushi, a keyring, a shinkansen (bullet train) Christmas card and a little train girl figurine (who Jenny translated for us was trying her best at her job and is a female station employee). I gave her the awesome Crazy Wacky Theme Restaurants: Tokyo book, because she can go and see them all.

We worked our way through the sin cocktail menu and the barman was impressed with the amount we had drank for 1 o’clock in the day time. Calum and Harriet joined us briefly for a drink and it was nice to see them.

Continuing the theme pub crawl, we headed to Frankenstein’s bar, where Rob and his friend met us.

Jenny gave me one of her belly dancing belts (which has lots of jingly coins on it and made me sound like a reindeer) and told me to look up the moves on YouTube. She had went to a shop earlier and they had given her 3 outfits for free. She’s going to be doing a show in Japan soon, so we were trying to help her think up stage names – Jangly Jenny, Jenny Ba Ba and Jenny from the loch were the best we could think of.

Afterwards we decided to grab a couple of slice of pizza and ended up ordering the largest thing on the menu.

In the evening we headed to the Cameo bar to meet up with Irish Johnny (who we hadn’t seen since we’d started Uni), Miquette and Alistair and girlfriend, Jess. Miq was super happy with her milk carton handwarmer that I gave her for xmas. We all chatted for several hours over kahluas on the rocks (a super yummy drink that Jenny introduced me to).

Yesterday was also my 7th year anniversary with Tom, it sounds like forever but it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.

Yesterday we headed through to a very snowy and cold Edinburgh.

We went to see Joey D in his shop and took him some mince pies. He was very sweet and told us lots of stories about his wedding, fashion week and said that we’d convinced him to open a store in London and that he’d come and visit us.

Tom got an amazing Irish policeman’s jacket which is made from super soft moleskin and has a leather collar and back. They had some amazing skirts and wellies that I want to go back and try on. I’m tempted to ask him to make me a dress out of neckties.

Afterwards we went for a meal at our favourite Italian restaurant, Vittoria on Leith Walk. It has become a Christmas Eve tradition to go their after we finish our xmas shopping.

We went down to Alistair’s house to give him his Christmas present, which is a Worn Again wallet made from recycled Eurostar uniforms. I got one for Tom too.

In the evening Grant, Nathan, David and Duncan joined us at Tom’s house for drinks before we headed back to my house in the early hours of the morning. It’s a Canadian tradition to open a present the night before Christmas, so my Mum and Dad gave me a book by Debrett’s I was wanting about Correct Form – I’m such a geek for etiquette.

Today Tom and I went on a very surreal trip to Portobello Beach. The town is right out of the past and still bustling with gamblers, sun bathers and sightseers.

First we found an amazing old sweet shop, which sells all kinds of sweets by the quarter and has candy from the past. They even have penny sweet pic n’ mixes. We bought a quarter of toasted tea cakes and jelly buttons before heading down to the beach. We gambled away our money in the punk park and won big, before gambling our 2p winnings away again. Afterwards we bought some Portobello rock, but left the shop to discover it was Holiday Rock with a sticker saying Portobello Beach on the packaging, we got scammed. I did manage to buy a mini water pistol to fill with vodka!

After our adventure, we headed back to Edinburgh, to the Cameo cinema, where we bumped in to Justin from design duo, Colin & Justin in the bar and went to see Son Of Rambo. After the film, we met up with Calum for drinks – Happy Birthday, Mr Leslie! I really want to go back to Portobello beach now.

Hurrah! We’ve reached 5000 members on CO+K, not bad for just over 4 months.

Last night Tom and I celebrated with a bottle of Pink Champagne and mussels. We also watched Hallam Foe, which is an awesome movie, set on the rooftops of Edinburgh – I miss that place :*(

For Valentine’s day, Tom and I went through to Edinburgh. He surprised me by booking us First Class on the train, which meant that we got a yummy breakfast.

We wandered all over, went to see Joey D and then our bus broke down in the Meadows.

We headed down to Stockbridge and found a cool pub called Hector’s. It’s very nicely decorated inside.

I spent the day Christmas shopping in Edinburgh.

We went to the Christmas market and Mum and I shared a bowl of the yummy porridge like they were selling at Connect festival.