This weekend has turned in to a bit of a roller coaster, so I’m going to make myself feel better by updating about our awesome week. After a super yummy breakfast last Sunday, it was Notting Hill Carnival time…

We found a sneaky short-cut in to carnival this time, which meant we didn’t get stuck in huge crowds watching the floats.

We stayed for a while before escaping to the calm of Bayswater to do some shopping.

We spent most of Bank Holiday Monday working hard on CO+K (it’s really growing and growing huge) and then we made DIY pizzas to take to the park. Tom’s was like a New Yorker sandwich on a pizza.

On Tuesday, Tom decided he was going to teach me how to play piano, so we grabbed our roll-up piano and headed to the park.

I figured out how to play the scales with both hands at the same time, in both direction, and I’m also learning to read music. Tom’s teaching me in the Nebraska Field Notes notebook that I got for his birthday (we’re hopefully going to do something with Field Notes on CO+K soon).

Remember how Beads Unlimited sent me a box of crafty things to play with a few weeks ago? I came up with a how-to for a fantasy film flower ring, which looks a bit like stained glass.

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!

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.

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!

Martyn was in town today so he joined us for a Plan 9 brunch. It was like a Scottish reunion + Irish Claire!

We got takeout brunch and headed to the park, where we were serenaded by a jazz band while we ate. I love Paddington Rec, it’s a really active part and you’ll find people do every kind of sport, working out with their personal trainers and walking their dogs on any given day. We always feel guilty eating while laying on the grass as people exercise around us.

After lunch, Tom and I headed off on Boris’s rent-a-bikes through St. John’s Wood to Regent’s Park, where I was distracted by baby giraffes at London zoo and almost fell off, and then down to in to town. They were lots of fun to ride and everyone starts conversations with you about them.

We treated ourselves to drinks at Ping Pong. I had a strawberry & vanilla bubble tea and Tom had lemonade with a pour in strawberry puree.

We couldn’t resist ordering some dim sum too and tucked in to some delicious steamed buns and dumplings.

We picked up some more bikes and cycled through the streets of central London and Marylebone. One day I’ll be on a pink Vespa, like this one I spotted.

If you ride the bike for 30 minutes, you can plug it in, wait 5 minutes and then pick up another one without paying extra. We discovered the lovely Padding Street park while waiting to pick up our next bike.

In Paddington, Tom took me to see this building, which is fake on the right hand side. They needed to knock it down for the tube but it’s such a posh street they had to make a replica fake building front, which is empty behind. We picked up our final bikes (the 4th of the day) and cycled home. I’m very very sleepy and worn out now but that was an awesome weekend!

We started our Adventure Saturday yesterday with some chips from Mr Fish in Queen’s Park, which Mitch had told us is the best chip shop in London. They were very good and I managed to nab 20 chip forks so I can make this Tatty Devine necklace.

We picked up an iSpy London book to help us with our adventures. We’re hoping to get it finished by the end of the year but it gave us the idea to make a grown up’s version with fun stuff like: get your photo snapped at Rough Trade or drink bubble tea in China Town.

Fist we jumped on the newly reopened East London Line. I know East is a bit old fashioned but we weren’t expecting people to be dressed like this… hehehe!

We headed down south where we found Railway Avenue…

which had the Brunel Museum on it. The museum was really cute and only cost £2. The Brunel tunnel was the first underwater tunnel beneath the Thames. It first opened as a shopping arcade and they held a banquet in it. Today the tube runs through it.

Tom liked the train bench that was outside.

There was an awesome bridge one too.

We were in luck as it was a special day  at the museum where they were giving people train tours of the tunnel and letting them go down in to the old entrace hall. This was the first time it had been opened in 140 years and we had to squeeze through a little mine entrance and climb down a rickety staircase. It was really cool inside though – here’s a photo to give you a better idea.

Afterwards we went on the hunt for a Cockney cash machine which Ben from Leap had told us about. We found one but they don’t support Cockney as a language option anymore, so we couldn’t withdraw any bangers and mash.

We wandered around East London for a while.

We spotted a weird fish lamp…

and this dragon, which I love!

We decided to head out even further East and got the train past Stratford, where the Olympics was coming together nicely!

Eventually we got to Lakeside shopping centre, where we got to be mallrats and it felt like being back in West Edmonton Mall – my Canadian home away from home as a teenager. They have gumball machines…

and Taco Bell! I think it may be the only one in Britain.

The food was just as good as I remember and just as cheap – a hard shell taco is only 79p.

Just like I would have done in Canada, we went for a snoop around the pet shop after which had super cute bunnies.

The rest of the animals were all snoozing.

This hamster was really cute.

After shopping for a while and Tom not letting me get him an I Heart Omaha t-shirt, we went for dinner at Old Orleans. A restaurant on a fake steam barge which looks similar to the one we actually saw in New Orleans.

The food was really good, we ordered burgers with diced home fries, corn bread and a pitcher of Hurricane (which wasn’t as strong as in Nola). The person next to us ordered food that came out sizzling with a huge cloud of smoke steaming off it.

Afterwards we had more cocktails. I went for a Louisiana Jam which was Southern Comfort, apple juice, sourz, apricot jam and mint served in a jam jar. Jam in drinks is actually really nice. Tom had a Bywater Bramble which came in a glass with a scary face on.

We found a copy of Flair Magazine which has a photo of our bed in it – I was very sleepy by the end of the day and wished I could be back in it.