Just touched down in london town

You may have noticed by my 100 instagram photos that I've been to London a few times in the last few weeks and I thought I'd wait and tell you about all my trips together! The first was for work and so after travelling down on the train (first class woo), I went for a copywriting workshop in a very fancy building right next to Liverpool street station.

That ended at lunchtime so then the real fun began! I've wanted to go and see leadenhall market for a while now and seeing as I was so close to it, it was the perfect chance. It was so pretty and the architecture was amazing - you can see why it was used as diagon alley in harry potter. I was a bit disappointed though because, as the title suggests, I was expecting a market but it was just a building filled with restaurants and cafes. Because of the nice weather though, I wanted to eat outside so I got the tube down to southbank and had a lovely lunch overlooking the Thames. Now, I'm someone who quite enjoys my own company so lunching alone and being alone in London was no issue for me, until I realised I needed an outfit photo. Of course, I wasn't going to let the small matter of being on my own stop me from getting one so I asked a couple of the Transport for London guys stood next to the river and they were more than happy to take it (although I think it made them laugh being asked). As you can see, I wore bird print culottes with a white shirt tied at the waist and my espadrilles (which are a god-send for any day that requires a lot of walking).

The next time was also for work but for an event set up this time. Again the weather was gorgeous so I wore striped culottes, orange-red top with frilled neckline and my espadrilles. So after another train journey, I walked down to brick lane to find my venue. However, I had to go past the famous bagel (or beigel) shops so I obviously stopped in for the rainbow one! Then after a successful set-up (slightly stressful at first because of courier problems but it all worked out in the end and looked pretty good even if I do say so myself), I headed out to explore shoreditch. It's an area I've never really been to before and although I'm so not edgy enough for it, I thought it was really cool and I loved wandering past all the street art.

Then I headed off in search of some lunch and decided on St Pauls (another area I had yet to go to). The building itself is so gorgeous and paternoster square is really nice, especially in the sunshine. I of course saw the famous first dates restaurant and considered going there but I thought that going to the first dates restaurant on my own was a bit sad? So I ended up at one opposite called The Happenstance and it was lovely! Lots of garden/botanical themed cocktails (I ordered one that was very unlike me but very nice) and so I enjoyed steak and chips on their little terrace area before heading back to St Pancras to get my train.

Then finally it was time for a trip that was all about me, no work involved! Well, not strictly about me. It was actually about my mum, as I was taking her as a treat for her 50th birthday. We started with a fairly stressful journey there (late/no show coach) but it was all forgotten about by the time we arrived at Baker street! We hopped on the tube to tower hill and went for brunch at Coppa club, where I've been wanting to go for ages! Their igloos and pretty terrace are famed and although the igloos were fully booked online, I actually preferred not being in one in the sun because it was essentially like a greenhouse - the people in them looked very hot! I had the eggs benedict and my mum had the berry granola (which were both amazing) and we sat in the sun enjoying people watching and planning our day. Although the weather ended up really hot, it was forecasting rain and storms so outfit planning was a bit tricky! I ended up going with cream trousers, scarf print crop top and espadrilles (with my leather jacket which got shoved in my bag after about 20 minutes).

Based on the saying 'not all those who wander are lost', we decided to cross over tower bridge, walk along the south bank and just see where the wind took us. Well, for starters, we got to see tower bridge going up for a big american cruise liner (I thought it went up and down all the time but apparently it doesn't happen that often so pretty cool we got to see it). Then we stumbled upon the hays galleria (a place where ships used to pass through which has been converted into shops and restaurants) which was very pretty, and then we found ourselves in Borough market, which had loads of cute little food and drink stalls. I've been wanting to see Shakespeare's globe for a while and so we googled how to get there and it ended up taking us through all these residential back streets (we felt like we were walking through someone's back garden or something) but it actually took us past the site of the original globe (before it burned down in 1613) before bringing us to the one that exists today, which was pretty cool! Then mum was bursting for a wee so we went in to the Tate Modern (free entry and free toilet usage) and thought we should have a look at some of the art while we were there. Modern art somewhat goes over my head; a few of the pieces were good but I can't say I really 'get' it? Satisfied we'd absorbed some culture though, we crossed back over to the north bank by walking over the millennium bridge (and feeling like we were on The Apprentice at the same time) to get the tube at Blackfriars for our next stop...

This one we didn't stumble upon, I'd booked it in advance because it's one of my favourite things to do - afternoon tea! The St Ermin's hotel was beautiful and set back a little from the main road in it's location right near St James' Park, but the main thing that made me choose it was their bottomless afternoon tea offer for £35 (which I didn't think was bad for London). We sat out on their terrace and enjoyed as much prosecco as we could manage in 90 minutes, plus this amazing bird-cage-style platter of food - it was basically a work of art. Everything was amazing too; my favourite was the lemon macaron.

The main part of my present to my mum though was a show and I couldn't think of one more perfect than Mamma Mia! We arrived at the Novello theatre in perfect time (about 5-10 minutes before it started) and got our seats on the balcony, and then enjoyed the next 2 hours of singing and clapping along! As theatre shows often are, it was slightly different from the film so I thought they'd missed out some of my favourite songs but they ended up doing them later which I was super happy about!

Then with only a couple of hours left before our return coach, we thought we'd spend the time drinking (time well spent). My cousin and his girlfriend live in London so we'd arranged to meet up with them in a pub in Covent Garden (right near the theatre) and it was really nice to have a catch up and enjoy a few drinks in the sun before heading home. It was an amazing day (as all 3 of my days in London this month have been) and I can't wait until I go back again next time.