A Weekend of Peace & Rain

Apologies for the late blog post this week (I generally try and conform to the idea of posting something at least once or twice a week).  Last weekend, I made it all about me.  On the Saturday I bought a ticket to the Mind Body Spirit festival which was being held at the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre.  The festival was spectacular, and had many different stalls and free stuff available.  I had my aura read, my personality regarding my horoscope was explained, I decided to join in on the dance walking, then I listened to Ruby Wax speak about her new book, I munched on some raw vegan peanut butter brownies and drank some non-alcoholic vegan pina colada’s and I attempted/was encouraged to do many more things.  The end result?  I had an absolute ball (which means, I came home with a heap of freebies - SCORE)!  Sunday and Monday (public holiday) were lazy days where I did all of my washing, cleaning, TV show watching and other small things that needed doing.  So the weekend really was a me weekend, and I’m happy it was!

 

Fortunately (or unfortunately, however you like to see it), the weather has been perfectly rainy and not too cold which has been simply delightful.

Punting, Walking and Napping in Cambridge

A view of The Backs in Cambridge.



The famous view of King's College
from the comfort of a punting boat.



Sneak peak at the Virginia Creeper on the back of one of the college's in Cambridge. 



Madz and I enjoying the sunshine!



A spectacular view of Corpus Cristi College. 

We named a duck Arnold and fed him scrumptious food.
I think he was a little happy to have friends.

 

A spontaneous trip to Cambridge can never go wrong… or can it?  Our Sunday trip to Cambridge ended up consisting of closed colleges and cancelled tours (a.k.a we couldn’t climb the steeple of Great St Mary’s like we wanted to).  We did however arrive in Cambridge and head straight for Market Square where we bought ourselves some beautiful button friendship bracelets.  After wandering around Market Square for a good half hour we headed on over to Great St Mary’s Church and King’s College, where we were eventually influenced to join a punting tour at 11am.  We hopped on board the punting boat with 10 other people and saw the many beautiful sights of Cambridge along The Backs.  We then strolled through the town taking in the sights of the many different gardens, parks and shops.  

All in all the highlights of the day included napping in Jesus Green, eating salted caramel fudge while punting through The Backs, watching all of the locals ride their bikes through town (I swear Cambridge is very much like a smaller version of Amsterdam - in terms of bike riding), watching someone tight roping in the middle of a park and viewing the various historical buildings which is what makes Cambridge, Cambridge.

Heavyhearted and Homesick

No one tells you what it’s going to be like when you’re stuck with yourself and there’s 16 516km between you and the one’s you love most.  No one teaches you that feeling.  I mean, people try and tell you what it will be like but no one really explains the positively distraught feeling you feel when things go wrong and there’s no one to turn to that you love.  There’s nothing quite like a father’s hug, a sister’s piece of advice or a best friend’s “screw this” attitude; but you’re stuck because you can’t get those things immediately, especially when time zones are involved.

I apologise for the random, off-beat blog post but I really am quite homesick at the moment and writing it down seemed like the best idea.  It may or may not have anything to do with the fact that it’s my little sister’s 18th birthday.  I hope you had the most perfect day Halz, and I can’t wait to head home and drink bottles upon bottles of endless wine with you.

Seas of Sardines

I’ve come to know London as the second busiest city I’ve ever been to in my life, with New York coming in at first position (by quite a lot).  The only reason I have come to this conclusion is due to the fact that London actually has an extraordinary public transport system, however it still seems to get extremely overloaded almost every day of the week.  So, here’s a snap of one of the rarest things you could possibly see in London - an empty station that, two minutes later, brought in an empty tube.  One last rare thing before I finish up this blog post… I was stopped in my tracks by a man name Jermaine.  He said, and I quote, "Excuse me, I’m sorry but I glanced over at you on the train and I just want to say that you’re possibly the most beautiful person I’ve seen.  Really, you’re just beautiful and I hope you have a wonderful day.  You’re beautiful."

All in all, my day was made by a perfect stranger simply being a kind human being.

Markets, Sunflowers and Beetroot

Camden Lock Market bridge!

Eating some freshly made vanilla ice cream with delicious brownie cookies.

My roommate brought home a sunflower... just because she wanted to.

I've finally had my fix of beetroot since being in London.

A beautiful market stall at the Camden Lock Markets.



Well let’s add another day of random adventures to the list of things done while living in London.  Today I found myself headed once again for the Camden Lock markets in order to find something delicious to eat and have a look at some wonderful market stores.  We ended up heading to an ice cream store where the ice cream is made fresh in store with nitro freeze gadgets and other cool stuff.  Both myself and Maddie picked the Brown-Wich from the menu, which was essentially a mouthwatering piece of deliciousness that you couldn’t possibly find anywhere else in the world (in other words, it was perfectly made vanilla ice cream surrounded by two fresh, crunchy but gooey brownie cookies).  Once we had satisfied our ice cream cravings we came across a beautiful light store in the heart of the markets.  I had a strong urge to buy one as it would have served as the perfect present for my sister-in-law however, I had to resist due to my funds being chewed up on groceries alone.  Once we finished staring at all of the lights, Maddie headed off to work and I took the bus to a two storey Tesco Extra store to finish off the last of my grocery shopping.  After a good half an hour of grocery shopping I realised that there is one particular food item that’s hard to come by in London… beetroot.  For those that know me, they would know that I love beetroot like no one would ever believe and for London to be sufficiently low on this food, devastates me completely.  In the end, I hunted down some beetroot and used it in my home made lamb burgers for dinner this evening - YUM!

I forgot to mention that my roommate, Maddie, bought a sunflower just for the sake of having something to care for while we live here.

Can’t Complain If There’s Rain

A soothing walk home in the rain.

Thankfully I wore boots to work this morning,
otherwise I would've ended up with wet feet.

My delicious chicken and rice dish that I made for dinner tonight (oh, and
some leftovers for tomorrow because it's Friday and I need something exciting

 

Another generally average day today; wake up, eat, commute, work, eat, work, commute, eat and soon I’ll sleep.  I can’t complain though, because for the first time in quite a while, it rained!  I’ve been waiting for this day simply because I love the rain, which is pretty much down to the fact that it makes me feel all childish and happy.  So to all of those people back at home who were and are teasing me about London being such a miserable, rainy place - well please STOP because this is the first time it has rained, well… properly, since I’ve moved here.  On a side note to the rain, my room mate received flowers from Kate Moss herself a couple of nights ago and although it’s not my story to tell it’s pretty damn COOL if you ask me (I’m not going to go on about it though).

Oh also, have a picture of my dinner and lunch for tomorrow.  Just thought I would pop that one in there because, well y’know it’s delish.