It's beginning to look a lot like christmas

As is now tradition, me and Laura have just got back from our 6 monthly trip down to London. We normally go for a weekend but couldn't find a date that worked for both of us so instead we squeezed as much as humanly possible in to a day trip! 

We started off with breakfast at a restaurant in Knightsbridge (opposite Harrods) that we've been to before and loved - it's called Caffe Concerto and not only do they do amazing food, but they also have an incredible patisserie selection. Then we pretended we were already living the life that we both plan to have one day, by swanning around Harrods looking at designer bags and couture dresses. My personal favourites are Valentino, Elie Saab and Ralph & Russo; the detail that goes in to the dresses is just insane. And after falling in love with way too many pieces that cost more than my monthly salary, I am now recruiting for the position of a rich husband. Please send applications, photos and bank balances to my email in order to be considered.

Then after we had a little look around some other (way less expensive) shops in Knightsbridge like Zara and Topshop, we headed to covent garden for afternoon tea. There's something so magical about London at Christmas time but I think that the Covent Garden mistletoe christmas lights were my favourites. We went to a place called B Bakery which is so cute and everything comes served on floral china; I can never decide if I prefer the chic simplistic hotel-style of afternoon tea or the more vintage quintessential style of afternoon tea. Whichever it is, it's still my favourite meal of the day! Plus this one was christmas themed and it was so good! It was massive though so I couldn't manage it all - I had to take my scone with me in a little box.

Then we headed to Southbank to be typical tourists photographing the London Eye. Well actually, we went there for the Christmas market which was a really cute one and had some really nice gifts like hand crafted candles in the shape of roses and photographs of every day things made to look like letters. Although we did get stopped by two guys who thought our faux fur coats were real and thought it necessary to tell us how cruel to animals we were. It's a good job we hadn't just bought a burger or something from one of the stands!

And of course you can't go to London around Christmas time and not visit Winter Wonderland. Although we had such a nightmare getting there because there were loads of signs saying to get off the tube at Green park instead of Hyde park so we did and it was a really long walk (we should've just got off at Hyde park) and then when we got to the gate, a man working there said we could go down the fast track queue because we had tickets for the ice bar. The "fast track queue" turned out to just be walking around the whole of Hyde park to the other entrance. It's safe to say we burned off the calories from our afternoon tea doing that. But once we finally got in to the ice bar I was a lot more impressed than I thought I would be. I've been to a few now; the permanent london one, the Amsterdam one and now the winter wonderland one and although you only got 1 drink in this one where you normally get 2, the actual place was much bigger and more open than either of the other 2. And they didn't seem to have any kind of regulated time slots like the others so we could've stayed in there as long as we wanted really. You were meant to leave after 20 minutes but we stayed for about 35 before we started to lose feeling in our fingers and decided we'd had enough. Then after a little look around the market, we headed back to Victoria to catch our coach home!

But the festivities didn't end with my London trip. On Friday I also had my work Christmas do. I've really been loving my job the past couple of months and this week has made me realise that I literally could not have started at a better time. Although I've been working there as a temp since the end of October, my official contract only just started in December so I've only technically been working there for like 2 weeks and yet I got loads of Christmas treats! A wine hamper with a bottle of white, a bottle of red and bottle of prosecco; a food hamper with loads of treats in it including a big box of Thorntons chocolates, cheeses, mulled wine and christmas cake; plus a £55 M&S gift card! And if all that wasn't enough, my Christmas do was completely free and included a 3 course lunch at the Crowne plaza with an open bar. I think it's safe to say all that makes up for the dodgy couple of months I had career wise this year. And I had so much fun on Friday! We'd also hired a magician who was amazing - my mind is still a little blown about how he managed the tricks now. And then we went on to loads of different bars and pubs afterwards - by the time I was heading home I was convinced it was about 4am but it was actually only 10pm! In fairness we had been out drinking since 12 and I think it's safe to say I made the most of the free wine.

Then following suit with not having to pay for stuff, I went out for my annual family Christmas meal on Saturday, which reminds me every Christmas how crazy my family is and how I wouldn't change them for the world. My cousins are all older than me and have moved out so everyone is dotted around the country and it's pretty rare that we all get together but it's so much fun when we do and we had the most amazing dinner too. And despite the fact that people say there's "no such thing as a free lunch", I managed to get 2 in 2 days!