Tire of London tire of life....

I have had a ridiculous love affair with London since my first trip back when I was 9. Since then I have visited countless times to visit my lovely friend Zoe.  Zoe has lived in various places from New Cross Gate to Muswell Hill to Highbury to Battersea so we have done a bit of exploring over the years and had many an adventure. She now lives in Crystal Palace.

When she text me before this trip and said what do you fancy doing I said "a bit of flea market/vintage hunting please" and we have certainly done that but little did I know that the entire weekend would have a retro vintage vibe. 

We have been to some amazing venues and I wanted to share them with you. 

On Saturday morning we headed to Kings Cross. They are really spending a lot of money rejuvenating the area and a really nice spot is Granary Square. Large old factory buildings being used for various ventures. We went to the Mac Conner illustration exhibition which was lovely to see. Amazing illustrations from the 50s, a very talented man. There are also some really nice places to eat and sit ( if it is sunny ) 

We then headed to Stoke Newington where we went to a vintage fair and then had lunch. Stokey is a lovely London village with lots of little independent shops and cafes. We took a walk up to Dalston  got a little thirsty and needed a refreshment stop! This is where we discovered Farr's School of Dancing which I have since learnt used to be a dance school in the late 30s and now has been transformed into a fab bar. Gorgeous old fixtures, theatre seats, original dance pictures and amazing wallpaper in the toilet...

Our friend Emma said we should go to Forest Hill next to go into Sylvan Post. This is another cool place which used to be the local post office. This is where you can sit in the vaults and have a drink, grab some food and look at all of the old Post Office fixtures which adorn the walls. We stayed in here for ages because it was just so chilled and friendly. Sorry I didn't take more pictures. 

Next stop over the road in Forest Hill was The Dartmouth Arms. Cosy and full of more retro finds

So after quite a heavy night and not to mention an even heavier night on Friday we needed a good breakfast inside us and no better than The Crystal Palace Market. Beautifully styled, great food and tea. What more could you want? Highly recommended. 

Oh and trip to London wouldn't be complete without the obigatory house shot. If this is your house opposite the indoor flea market in Crystal Palace then you are very lucky and I love your house! 

Did I say that I LOVE LONDON?

April Styling the Seasons = Birthdays & Blossom....

April is a really important month for me, not only is it my birthday but it's the birthday month of many of my closest friends too. They say birds of a feather flock together well we certainly have. I have been dying to do this post for days now since #stylingtheseasons announced  the #stylingspringatmine competition. The Theme is 'what does April mean to you' and in my case thats easy - Birthdays and Blossom. 

You see on my 1st birthday my lovely mum and dad decided to buy me a cherry blossom tree and plant it in the garden. That beautiful cherry blossom has now been flowering for 38 years this month and it always waits just until the 27th to completely bloom. This is why my post had to wait as long as possible because I wanted to be able to have some of my special tree in my styled surface. I stole some but its still not happy to blossom fully just yet! I also grabbed some other pink flowers from the garden too. I mean if you can't have frothy pinks and pastels at your birthday when can you?

The other thing is - my mum decided that I would have to pose for a photograph every year next to my tree, believe me this brings back some memories of standing next to a tree in the rain, in the wind and with no blossom on it at all because the sun hadn't shone enough. I went up my mum's today and routed through the attic to find some of these photographs, not easy when there are around 7000 photographs not in albums!!!! I did find some and I have included these on the wall. I do still do this every year by the way, now with my own children in the picture. 

So thank you #stylingspringatmine for making me reminisce and having a lovely afternoon gathering together my favourite April things. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. 

Oh and Happy Birthday to all you April beauties out there xxx

Age 4 & Age 7

Age 10

xxx

De-cluttering Good for the Soul....

The dining room has always been a bit of a nemesis of mine, its been used as a dumping ground, shoe room, bike shed and every now and again we eat in there! Although I love my little house there are times when I look around in despair and wish we could move and wish I could get rid of some of my stuff. There was essentially nothing wrong with the room but I realised yesterday that some of it has been the same for years and it was time for a change. 

I can't believe I have just put this picture on here! I hate mess but I kept thinking it has to get worse before it can get better.... If you keep telling yourself something it must be right yes? So I de cluttered and pretty much everything you can see on the table has now gone to the charity shop, so I did good for others as well as my sanity. 

The other big frustration for me in the room is the amount of brown. As you may have seen on my previous posts I have painted most of my floors in the house white but I left this one because a. its original and b. it matches the dark wood floor in the living room. So the other option was to paint the table and my lovely friend suggested I dip paint it. I had pinned some of these and thought I would give it a go. Here are the results of my hard work on Easter Sunday and not a bunny in sight! 

Pretty chuffed to be honest!