Friend: Mum and daughter red wine drinking at Vinopolis

So as I am desperately still clinging to it being Christmas goddamit, I am going to file this under gift ideas, even though regrettably I know most Christmas gifts will already have been given by now. But you know, just in case there is someone out there somewhere who is having a belated Christmas celebration, or indeed you have someone in your life with one of those pesky January birthdays so you have to rack your brain for presents twice in one month. Or indeed your family are still in town, then this could be a thought if you need something to do with your days which isn't playing charades and eating stilton (though why anyone would want to stop doing that I don't know).

If you know me or have read Loner. Lover. Friend before, you'll know I am a big fan of the experience present - taking someone somewhere wonderful, giving them a nice memory to keep, rather than a gift.

Normally, I am quite good at thinking of things people will enjoy, if I do say so myself, (very hard for me not to break into Jay Z Drunk in Love rapping here FYI) but when it came to my Mum's birthday at the end of September I had a little trouble.

Previously I've taken my mum to Afternoon teas, and silent cinemas and had some good, albeit generic, ideas. But I was all out, and although I can think of loads of weird and wonderful things a lot of people in my life might like I realised I didn't for my mum. My lovely mum. What did my mum like doing? It sounds really awful, but I was a bit stuck. I think my mum, as a mother, has spent so much of my life doing what the rest of the family wants to do that I have no idea what she likes doing? How terrible of me. How tricky to buy her a nice experience gift.

And then I suddenly thought, I know what my mum really loves, a full bodied French merlot. Or indeed any red wine really.

Hello Vinopolis London. Vinopolis is a "wine tasting" experience, where you can wander around and take your pick from trying over 100 different wines, including champagnes and then some spirits.

Strolling around under the arches (it's built beneath the trains), it sort of feels like a weird wine theme park. Or at least a fairground. You get a card topped up with the tokens you've bought, and you mooch around with your special tasting glass, choosing wines kept at their correct temperature in a fabulous wine tasting vending machine, paying for it on your card. How good it would be if they had one of them next to the coca cola one in my office.

Depending on the rareity and retail price of the wine, depends on how many tokens you can use, but most of them just take 1 or 2. Mum and I mainly tried the 1 token wines, but we saved them up and tried a 6 token wine at the end, so that was nice, and exciting to lift a £50+ wine to my lips.

Now I am not gonna lie, I wouldn't say I came out of Vinopolis a wine expert, but you do a little bit of learning about how to taste a wine, I got a bit more of an understanding about how different wines grow in different climates (like I've never thought about it before but there is a northern strip x above the equator which is good for wine eg - Southern France, California, Italy etc, and a southern strip x below the equator which is a good climate too - Argentina, South Africa, Northern Australia etc) and I learnt about which type of wine I like - via both a lot of wine tasting, but also these cute little interactive games like those you get at the science museum, but about wine.

Learning we are well bodied red girls. As if we needed a game to tell us...

The drawback with Vinopolis might be the cost. It is £27 for the wine tasting experience which includes the lesson and 7 tokens - so 7 lots of the lowest price wine, but this is not 7 glasses, this is 7 shots (each of the measurments from the machine is 25ml, ie a shot) and for £4 a shot, I'd expect to get a jaeger bomb. For another fiver you can get another 5 shots of wine, so a much better deal (less than £3) a shot, and makes it worth trying maybe one of the whites before moving on to red red red.

However, I think one of the best ways to experience Vinopolis, especially if you are buying it for an experience gift and want to make it all last a little longer. Vinopolis have a range of experiences on their site - from Burns' nights to chocolate tasting to nights with Oz Clarke, the wine man of the nineties.

I took my Mum to Vinopolis Sundays, which for £35 per person includes a two course roast lunch, a bloody mary, and 7 tokens for wine tasting. We then topped up those 7 with another, 4 tokens, which you can buy for £5 when you get there.

You eat in Vinopolis' restaurant, Cantina, which is actually pretty lovely. It is no Michelin starred silver service, but it is nice, more than Harvester nice, more than pizza express nice even, and actually a bloody good roast. (With bloody good salted caramel sticky toffee pudding for dessert).

Cantina, Vinopolis' restaurant

I don't mean to keep waffeling on, but also it is nice going on a Sunday as a) you don't have to queue for the clever wine vending machines like on a Saturday and b) it's totally respectable on a Sunday evening to go home and fall into a red wine induced slumber at 8:45pm.

So yeah, Vinopolis: wine and fun vending machines and finding out my mum and I both like "well bodied full reds". In the genes I guess.

My beautiful Mum, pleased as punch cos she is off to have a lot of red wine...

You can book on Vinopolis Sundays or any of their events here, and right now it is "buy one get one half price" on their wine tasting experiences, so more shots of wine per £.

Got something for your Mum, but need an idea for your Dad? I've taken him on a walking tour and a food tour and he was happy as larry, check out my post on them here: Friend: Go on a walking tour right where you live

Lover: A date at York Hall - Championship Boxing and Facials

So I had ideally wanted to make my blog somewhere that was teaming with Christmas spirit and general yuletide merriment, but this post isn't actually a very Christmassy one, sorry. However, I am on my 19th quality street today as I type this, plus my third mulled wine and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is on in the background so there's that. As it is the 27th so definitely still Christmas everyone. No time for January blues just yet.

When Will and I first started going out, as I am sure many new couples do, we took it in turns to suggest date places and used to go to a fair bit of effort into finding something special and different, making lots of use of some of the fantastic blogs and online websites around (I particularly like the Nudge, and I know this great little place). It was so lovely discovering all these new and exciting places together, and sharing some weird and wonderful and delicious and drunken experiences as we fell in love. Just threw up a bit, sorry. How the heck do you say "fell in love" without it sounding cheesy and puke inducing?

Anyhoo, fast forward three or so years, and Will and I still make an effort to go out for dinner and drinks, and do some fun things, but often it is the same spots - the pub just round the corner, the Italian just down the road, we might treat ourselves to expensive steak but we pop into the nice steakhouse near work. I am way more lazy about how many tube stops I am happy to take to go on a date night, and Will to be honest was probably only going to pop up screenings of Miracle on 34th Street and wotnot to woo me. Now he has, there is no reason for him to go on pretending his ideal date night doesn't begin with red meat served somewhere less than 5 minutes away, and end with a bottle of red wine on the sofa whilst I watch him play GTA...

I wanted to bring back the fun date, and win back my power into talking Will into going to places that didn't sound like his cup of tea on the tin (too many idioms there, sorry). So I suggested, and he agreed, that every month one of us would plan a fabulous surprise date for the other, and we would take it in turns. The person who planned the date would also pay for it, ensuring that the worst case scenario if the other person didn't like the date was a couple of hours wasted, it wouldn't cost them a penny.

The first month, Will just suggested, as the bill arrived at our usual steak house, that he pay, and it be "his date". Totally missing the point, but the bill was a fair bit, and there were some over the knee boots I was eyeing up in Topshop, so I allowed it.

The second month, therefore, was mine for the choosing. I was pretty tempted to just take him to a musical in the west end, as that is like my perfect date, and I know I would probably be better off asking Will whether he wanted to come and get a pedicure with me, than if he wanted to book tickets to Matilda if he had any choice in the matter. (Although, actually come to think of it, he may well like a pedicure, he does care a fair bit about foot hygeine.) But I didn't want to kill the scheme before it properly had begun, so instead I had a think. Where would I love going, but Will wouldn't mind, and where would Will love going and I wouldn't mind?

For the I love going, and Will wouldn't mind, the obvious choice seemed to be a spa. He took me to an amazing spa for my birthday, and I know although he would never properly admit it, he had a lovely time, padding around in a gown, drinking prosecco in the hot tub, getting "a guy's facial".

For the Will would love going, and I wouldn't mind, the obvious choice seemed to be some sort of sport. As boys like sports right, and I don't mind live ones as it is a good excuse to drink lots of beer and eat hot dogs and wotnot.

And because I live in east London, the home to many a weird and wonderful establishment like breakfast places that only serve cereal, and cafes where you get to eat with cats, there is also a place which both hosts a spa and championship boxing matches (which has been around for more than 50 times as long as the cat and cereal cafe have been around put together).

Enter York Hall -  a Better Gym, spa.London, and an event space. It seemed to me the perfect date. We could spend a few hours padding around the steam rooms and saunas in spa.London before heading upstairs for a drink or two and a night of watching boxing.

Ok, granted it didn't work out quite perfectly. The spa that day was women's only for the steam room and saunas so I booked Will and I in for a facial - which was fabulous, but Will was none too happy as apparently he only has facials on holiday. Who knew.

The surprise highlight was actually the boxing. It started at 4:30 and ended at half 10, but somehow it kept my attention the whole way, and I wasn't even drunk. Here are some reasons boxing actually weirdly makes a great date, even for the most squeamish and unsporty of girls:

1. York Hall itself - built in 1929 it was such a special venue. Sure you can't bring your beer up to your seats with you (sad face) but if you hold yourself over the balcony, squint and ignore the spearmint rhinos girls holding up the "round 2.." signs, you could be back in the infamous east end of the 60s, watching the boxing before drinking some babychams and going to a dance.

How amazeballs is this grand room in York hall being used as a swimming pool? (The swimming pool today isn't like this one!)

2. The audience - ok, so I am 26, I wear a lot of topshop and quite a bit of vintage clothing, I like eyeliner and red lipstick, I drink craft beer and I write a blog, arguably I am a teeny bit of an east end hipster so what I am about to say is a bit hypocritical. But the east end is slowly becoming taken over by hipsters, which is not all bad, and provides us with lots of nice cocktail bars and a wider selection of finest cheese in tesco's, but I guess it is a bit sad that the east end is losing a bit of what made it the east end. At York Hall, you meet the proper east enders, groups of blokes who look like they have been coming to Saturday night boxing every night since 1968, and girls glammed up to the nines in platform heels and bodycon dresses. It's nice to know it is still there, behind the hipster layer of faux fur and ginormous man beards.

3. How nice the boxers are too each other - I guess if as they say football is a gentleman's game played by ruffians (no offence anyone) and rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentleman, then boxing must be a cold hearted criminal's game played by well... really nice blokes. Of course people are fighting and can do a lot of damage (one man got knocked out cold, he was ok in the end) and they look really terrifying when fighting. But actually - bar one man who I am sure tried to bite his contestant - they are so gentlemanly and such good winners and losers. Great sportsman really. As soon as the bell goes they break into a smile and give each other a hug, regardless  of whether they think they are winning or losing. It is really heart warming.

4. How nice the boxers look - so boxing definitely plays up to its reputation as a boy's thing, by having these women in thongs parading around.

Whatever. They are missing a trick, as the boxers show way more than the girls and they are muscly in a whole new way, there are muscles bulging in places I didn't even know people could have muscles. Even the really tiny ones, who weigh eight stone something (who weighs eight stones something??) but are super tonk. Which actually is really nice, because I guess boxing can be a thing for all boys - even if they are short and little, they can train and make it as a super lightweight boxer, so it is a nice inclusive sport in that way.

5. The length of the match - as I mentioned, I was there for 5 hours, which I am not going to lie, was a little too long. However, each of the matches are either 4 or 6 rounds of 3 minutes (less if someone gets knocked out) meaning it is really easy for it to keep your attention and you don't get bored as you see the sport in short little bursts.

Probs not making it as a sports photographer in the near future.

6. The music - each boxer gets to choose what song they come on to, and some of them make some excellent choices. I basically chose who I wanted to win each match on song choice alone - my two favourites were "Return of the Man" and Jennifer Hudson's "Spotlight". How the boxer empathised with the lyrics, "Are you a man who loves and cherishes and cares for me? Or are you a guard in a prison of maximum security?" I do not know, but I am so glad he did.

So how much will it cost you for a date in York Hall?

Spa. London has a range of treatments available, starting with a 3 hours spa experience (going around the steam, sauna and relaxation rooms) at £25. The Elemis Clarity facial is £38, and you can check out spa.London at it's various locations by visiting here.

You can book tickets for Championship boxing on Ticketmaster here.

For more date ideas, check out my lover page. 

Friend: Go on a walking tour right where you live

When my friends and I moved into our first flat in London, my friend’s parents were a little concerned on 2 counts.

Firstly, that I was living, in what I lovingly call “the den”. Ie, a double bed and a half sized cubby hole behind the bannisters on the landing, enclosed with walls only ¾ of the way round and no door.

And secondly the area. If you don’t know Bethnal Green or indeed East London, it is an odd place. A kind person might describe it as gritty, a more honest one might acknowledge it is impoverished in parts, but yet it is trendy, where 2 bedroom apartments regularly are sold for around a million pounds. My friend Steve describes it as “50% upper middle class white families, 50% ruthless gangsters” which gives you an idea, but actually Bethnal Green is much more of a fruit salad of cultures and bank balances than that. Even though our flat was super swish and modern, with big floor to ceiling windows, oak floors and all white and spotlights, search the postcode and marked on the map is "Kray twins lived here" (the 50s and 60s notorious east London gangsters) and "red light district" both about 100 yards from where we lived.  Whilst looking out the kitchen window you are treated to a view of the London skyline – the gherkin, Heron tower, later the Shard - look out the living room window and you can see into what is literally a crack den, with a burnt out roof. Walk 200 yards to the pub down the road to pay for your £5 “craft beer” pint, and you’ll pass a couple of prostitutes sipping on Sainsbury's basic lager on the way. 

But my Dad - or Popster, as I like to call him, to give him props for the Tu Pac listening to, anorak wearing, mathematician gangster that he is – truly is one in a million, and loved my new set up.

Firstly, he was very encouraging about the den, and agreed with me that paying £430 including bills a month for it was a bargain I couldn’t turn down. (And err FYI it totally was, look at all this fabulous sound and eye proofing - a screen, blackout curtains and a sari - which made it like a marvellous little cave bedroom: )

Of course, when Will wanted to stand up in the den we had to open the sky light, but for 5 foot 3 of me, it was fine!

But my Dad also bloomin loved the area. “I love this area” he announced once he had finished heaving my suitcase full to the brim of books up the four flights of stairs. “This is the real London, I would love to go on a walking tour around here”. So I thought: Ok Dad, walking tour ey, say hello to your Christmas and Birthday presents for the next 10 years. 

Now if you’ve read some of my posts before, you might remember I do quite enjoy an “experience” gift. I am a fan of when I give someone a present, manoeuvring the situation, so that I too get to stuff my face with cream cakes/ go to a spa/ go see a show etc too. Part of it is probably quite selfish, I basically can’t get someone else a present without buying myself one.  Part of it is maybe tinged with narcissism, in like a “ and for Christmas I am giving you the best gift of all, quality time with me!” sort of way. But actually, I do try and get experience gifts to be nice, and to share a really memorable extraordinary time with someone else, doing something they might not have even thought existed or would never bought tickets to themselves, but really love. And with my parents I think experience gifts are an especially a good idea: so many of the best, most interesting, most unique and most fun experiences in my life they have paid for me to have, and thought of and been with me for. So now that I live in London, and am constantly doing things they wouldn’t know to book, it is time for me to repay the favour.

I actually went on both of the walking tours I review here 2 years ago, and 7 months ago respectively, but as Christmas is coming up, I thought I’d dip back into my old photos and route around in the dustiest corners of my memory as I think, if you haven’t thought of something to get your one in a million Dad, or Mum, or brother, sister, boyfriend, Grandpa, then a walking tour is quite a neat little gift. 

The first walking tour has changed slightly, but I've found the same guide on a new website - East London Walking Tours, and the tour provider  London Walks has one that looks pretty similar.

Dad's Christmas present 2011 - Not another Jack the Ripper tour: an East London walking tour - taken October 2012

As someone who comes from a village that was a field 50 years ago, one of my favourite things about London is how when you walk down her streets, you can imagine the hundreds and thousands of people who have walked down those same streets – maybe without the same concrete slabbing and double yellow lines – but same streets just the same - literally hundreds of years ago. It makes you feel gloriously little and yet significant at the same time, like looking at the sea and stars. For me, I get this much more in the fairytale world of Chelsea and Mayfair than in east London where I live, in Kensington I can almost envisage bumping into J. M Barrie around the next corner. 

I wanted to get that same feeling right where I live, as, after all, the east end has some pretty wonderful history and some pretty incredible people who have lived there too, and walked those streets in the past. 

Hit horribly by the Blitz in World War 2, you might not be so steeped in old architecture in the east end as much as the west end, but people very much lived here. The infamous Jack the Ripper in the Victorian times and the infamous Krays after the war, are just the tip of the iceberg, the east end has always been teaming with life and a history worth knowing.

My Great Uncle Bernard, one of the funniest men I've ever met and who used to drive to from Brighton to Bethnal Green every day to work, has some great stories about the east end, including his own story about how the pub his office was above rigged a up a pipe so he could enjoy beer fresh from the pump at his desk. That is what being in East London was all about. 

For "not another Jack the Ripper" walking tour we met outside Whitechapel station, on a crisp and sunny October Sunday morning. Our tour guide David's grandmother was one of the Jewish immigrants from the Tsarist Russian empire who came to the east end at the beginning of the twentieth century, so he really knew, loved and in lived in the area. He didn’t just want to talk about Jack the Ripper, or the Krays, but every edge and every curve (yes I’ve quoted John Legend on purpose) the east end had to offer. 

I don’t want to give you a run down of everything in the walking tour, as you should just bloomin go on it, plus I don’t want to get sued or told off for giving away David's secrets. Plus, from a little routing around on the internet, it looks like the exact tour I went on, which was from London Walks has disappeared, but David's got his own company doing a range of east London walks the aptly named  "east London walks" so I am confident you can find one very similar, if not exactly the same. But here are some pictures, and some of the special stops David talks more about on the tour. (This is probably about 10% of the sites that are covered, I wouldn’t say these are the highlights by no means, but they are probably the best pictures!)

Marx wrote some of the Communist manifesto in the library above Aldgate East Station. This isn't the only spot of communism and revolution you come across on the tour.

The Blind Beggar where Ronnie Kray shot and killed George Cornell in 1966. David remarked it had changed quite a bit since then, except for the toilets, which maybe hadn't been cleaned since.

The place of St Mary's - "the White chapel" for which the area was named. The chapel was destroyed in the blitz, but a few remains still clonk around Altab Ali park, named after the Bangladeshi clothing worker, murdered on his way home from work in 1978.

The East London Mosque is one of the biggest in all of Europe - 35,000 people attend to worship here every week.

I thought this walking tour was great, and amazing value for money, and I wholeheartedly recommend both this tour if you live or are ever in the east end of London, but also more generally I recommend doing a walking tour of where you live. Part of the reason I probably remember this tour so well, is because I am reminded every time I pass these sites of how special they are and how lucky I am to live in such a wonderful place that has housed so many amazing people before me, and will house many more when I am gone.

You can book a tour with David on East London Walks here.

Or you can book a walking tour of the east end and other spots in London on London Walks here.

Dad's Christmas Present 2013 - Eat Your Way Around Brixton by Fox and Squirrel - enjoyed in March 2014

I love Brixton. It is where I first ate deep friend macaroni and cheese, a food which would definitely be part of my last meal, if I ever committed a serious crime in a country where they weirdly think it is ok to punish someone by killing them. (They serve it at Chicken Liquor (formerly Wishbone), alongside fantastic fried chicken). It is also where I received my first (and last) blackberry messenger, from a boy called Lavon, who I met in McDonalds and used the chat up line, “do princesses eat Big Macs?” (Yes Lavon, they do.) It is also where Hootananny’s is, where you can spend an evening eating burritos, shotting tequila slammers and dancing to live reggae, so that says it all really. And I figured, if my Dad like the east end for it’s “real Londoness” he would love Brixton. Enter last Christmas’ Christmas present.

Fox and Squirrel’s food walking tour really takes you to all the corners of Brixton. I’ve always associated it with Jamaican cuisine, as I know Brixton is damn good at that, and although Fox and Squirrel do take you for your share of ackee saltfish and goat roti (at Fish, Wings and Tings – one of the best) they also take you to all the places you didn’t realise even were in Brixton, and it makes you realise how much of a fabulous multicultural neck of the woods it really is. 

On my tour with Fox and Squirrel we enjoyed everything from Ethiopian in what appeared to be a kebab shop, to Lechona (a whole pig which is stuffed with rice, herbs and lots of delicious pork) at the back of a Columbian food market to self brewing Brixton beer.

The tour begins at an Ethiopian coffee ceremony in a covered market stall

Brixton's breweries beers are named after the area such as Effra Ale (named after the river which used to flow through Brixton) and Electric IPA (after Electric Avenue)

I am about to be a massive, unpleasable fuss monger, for which, Fox and Squirrel, I am sorry. The great thing about Fox and Squirrel is that they took you into places you would never normally go because you didn’t want that thing where everyone in the restaurants goes silent and looks at you to happen, and because some of the restaurants (tables at the back of supermarkets etc) didn’t look that good – there were plastic tables, plastic forks, in the Ethiopian shop for example there was a man passed out on the table next to us. (And not from eating too much). You get it, I am a bit of a snob and they weren’t places you would take someone on a first date, unless you wanted to come across super quirky. But my snobbery isn’t exactly the problem, as I really didn’t care that they weren’t that nice, as for all of my home counties up bringing I've spent enough time in a dirty student house and backpacking around Asia to be ok with that sort of thing.

The problem was for the cost of the ticket, the food and the places we were eating, to me personally, didn’t seem that great a value. My feeling is it is totally ok to take someone to a Columbian supermarket to try something weird, but don’t charge everyone £70 for it. Obviously a lot of the expense is Fox and Squirrel’s expertise, but I think I have been spoilt by a food tour in Rome for where the cost of 40 euros, and I was given more food to eat than I normally would in a week. And a fair bit of wine. And it was all delicious.

(If you are ever in Rome by the way, you should go on "eat like the Romans do".  I had coffee, canolo, caprese salad, melon and parma ham, 5 different cheeses, 3 slices of pizza, mozzarella parmagiana, 3 bowls of different pasta in a sit down restaurant that was nice, gelato and approx. a bottle of wine. Bargain).

So I guess my complaint, as someone who can be a tight arse about everything but glittery nail varnish, for me personally, Fox and Squirrel wasn’t the best value of money. But if you are visiting London, or new to the area, and you want to see a side of London you would normally never see then it will be a great food walking tour to go on. You can book here.

If you like old London buildings and things, then you should go for dinner up the St. Pancras clock tower. Read all about it in my post "How you can have the most magical and wonderful time up a clock tower, for £85 all in, which is actually a bargain honest"

Friend: Homemade London...We up all night to get crafty

Sometimes I like to compare London to a very expensive gym. London is like the Virgin Active Classic Collection or David Lloyd of places to live. And, in my opinion, if you just go to your super duper expensive and exclusive gym and just go on the treadmill once in a while, it probs isn't worth you paying £100+ monthly membership when you could just be going to the council gym down the road. You want to be going regularly and having fun in the steam rooms, and going to the gravity free yoga classes and using that weird vibrating plate thingy. (You might be able to tell I don't personally have an expensive gym membership). Similarly with London if you are not using the facilities - you aren't trying out the new pop up restaurant, or drinking cocktails in bars accessed by walking through a fridge, or aren't setting foot in the museums and galleries which are some of the most amazing in the world and yet free - heck if you don't walk over Millennium Bridge and become overwhelmed with the feeling you live in the most fabulous place in the world - you probably shouldn't bother paying hundreds of pounds a month above the average cost of living to live here specifically. 

Having said that, one of the best things about London is when it get's too much and you just want to pretend for a moment that you live in maybe a tiny village in Yorkshire and you spend your evening relaxing on gingham print cushions, drinking raspberry lemonade and doing crafts you flippin can. 

Which is in part how I ended up at Homemade London making my own stamped notebook. As I've mentioned before, I bloomin love an "experience" birthday present (because then the giver and receiver both get a treat), and my friend Lynsey bloomin loves crafts (well quite likes them) so for her birthday present I booked us on to one of Homemade London's "Mystery Craft Workshops". Lynsey and I first became friends when she joined my school in year 3 as the new girl. And cos she was the cool new girl I obviously wanted her to be my new best friend. Which she became, and now 19 years later, we spent yet another weeknight evening together drinking lemonade and making stuff, which hasn't been a very regular occurence since we turned 11 really. We then went and had Arancini and £8 glasses of red wine afterwards at Vinoteca next door, which we definitely wouldn't have done aged 7, but that is all part of the fun of being 26.

I was a bit annoying on the day Lynsey and I went to Homemade London, as I had woken up in a bit of an anxious mood which only got worse as the day went on, so poor Lynsey had to swap her birthday present for a 2 hour counselling session. Having said that, as anxious as I was feeling, sitting in Homemade London's gorgeous and quaint white interior making my own notebook, it was hard to feel stressed. 

I chose the Mystery Craft Workshop, mainly because I am cheap and it was a lot less than the other craft workshops. Also, having not tried Homemade before, I didn't want to sink £100+ into an evening for Lynsey and I not knowing how good it would be. Having done the Mystery Craft Workshop, I think I was right to go for it first and it is excellent value for money - £12 per person for an hour of craft class, where you are making something you can use or keep and all equipment provided. With unlimited raspberry lemonade too to further sweeten the deal. (Get it? Sweeten the deal! Sorry).

However, I was really convinced by Homemade London and I would like to try another class - very tempted to drink prosecco and make my own Bauble (£30+ per person, 2 hours long) or go for afternoon tea and make my own perfume (£60 per person, 2 hours). They've also got more classic craft options - a complete guide to sewing machines (£125, 7 hours) or paper cutting (£30+, 2.5 hours).

Our notebook making class involved folding paper, sewing it to make it into a notebook and then making our own stamp out of a craft knife, sticky back foam and cardboard. Lynsey made a lovely vintage plane looking stamp and placed it on her neatly sewn notebook, to give to her boyfriend Harvey to take with him on his travels, and took the full hour making it perfect. I, not the natural crafty person, as you might have been able to tell by my Victorian butterfly collection post, took 20 minutes to complete my slightly shabby notebook, which I offered up to Will but he declined, sort of politely. I didn't really think about where to place the stamp, and as such I've had to make my notebook a bit of a funny shape, but in my opinion there are just not enough squarish notebooks in the world so hey.

Book mystery craft workshops, Baubles and Bubbles, Perfume making and lots of other classes here.

Do you like crafts and things? Then you might enjoy "Loner: Craftiness - Make a little twist on Victorian Butterfly Collections you can hang in your home"


I was too weird and anxious to take many good photos that day, woopsy daisy, so I nicked the one that wasn't of my hands and that notebook from homemade.com

Friend: a silent disco with a view and 43 thoughts you will have up there

For my friend Siobhan's birthday last year, we took her to Kew Little Pigs and I had a bit of a revelation. Google "buy a micro pig" (totally haven't done that a 148 times before according to my browser history) and you'll probably see something like the following array of adorable piglets: 

Adorable

ADORABLE

ADORABLE!!!

The man holding the piglet to his nose like a new born baby/ a Big Mac is a bit weird, but you get the gist. Tiny tiny adorable piglets. Yes. Of course google imaging micro pigs, also brings up pictures of fools who have accidentally bought a humongous standard pig instead of the micro version, and now have their whole sofa taken up by a farting mammal growing fatter by the day (not their boyfriend or husband.) But as it turns out, they are not the fools, the person who coined the term "micro pigs" for this specimen are:

  

No wonder the man in the diagram looks perplexed. There is nothing micro about a pig as tall and fatter than a labrador. The piglets we visited last year for Siobhan's bday were not labrador sized, but they certainly were not quite the pig in my pocket I had hoped for, and basically the day was less us playing around putting piglets in tiny wellies, or teacups and just more taking Shiv back to the day when she was a "young farmer" (apparently that is a thing). Turns out micro pigs are not micro, and maybe I shouldn't buy one for my one bedroom London flat with no garden.

So this year Lucy and I wanted to get her something less weird, that wouldn't result in people posting comments on our facebook pages asking if we had slaughtered a pig. (For the record we hadn't. He has just closed his eyes because he was enjoying the bliss of having his hair stroked, so there.)

So we took her to the silent disco at Altitude. We'd originally hoped to go to the Silent disco at the View from the Shard, but  we were slow coaches deciding dates and then it all sold out. Sad face. (However it is now available again, as they've added more dates - go here).  Alititude is basically a poor man's Shard silent disco - £14.50 per person (with Time Out's offer here) instead of £37.50 for the silent disco at the Shard. However, with the £23 we'd saved per person to be only 29 floors up instead of 69, we had enough for 2 bottles of prosecco, 6 tequila shots, 3 pints of beer and an uber both ways. Excellent. And so Shiv's birthday present once again resulted in me having a revelation. Well I say revelation, but really it is something I probably learnt when I shotted tequila at my friend Beth's birthday in 2011 and ended up being sick out of my mouth and my nose. Predrinks of rum and coke + 2 bottles of prosecco + 6 tequila shots +3 pints divided by 3 girls = 2 people being sick the next day and 1 bout of hungover cystitis and 3 girls spending their Saturdays in bed. But it was bloody worth it.

I was going to try and describe the bar and venue, but it was getting boring, so I have "summarised" my 43 most notable thoughts of the night, which you would definitely have if you went to the Silent Disco at Altitude. Definitely the exact same ones. And I've added some pictures. 

1. Oooo this is is lovely being in this part of town at night. Look at Big Ben! And the London Eye. Oh gawsh I live in such a wonderful city. Why don't I come to proper central London more often?

2. Is it here? In this weird 80s office block? I can not imagine people walking in here without a briefcase and a "car phone" and it being 1986.

3. This is swish. Well not the Shard swish, but y'know, that security guard properly thoroughly checked my handbag, that's how you know you are in a nice place. (Or I guess it could be a very un-nice place where drug use was frequent and they had to check thoroughly, but I think this one is the first kind).

4. Shit floor 29. I hope this lift does not get stuck. When did I last go to the loo?

5. Probs shouldn't have bought my friend who is scared of lifts, basically a trip up a long lift for her bday. (Ok so you are unlikely to have that specific thought).

6. It's only 10pm now now? I can't dance til 2am in a silent disco if it is only 10, I am not 21 anymore. 4 hours of dancing is too long on my feet...even though I am wearing flats...let's go to the bar first

7. This bar is eerily empty (Skyloft, the bar under Altitude is only really used for special events, it is not the kind of place you would casually go to on a Tuesday for pornstar martinis, but that does mean you get a seat by the window so that is nice)

8. Prosecco is £30 you say? That is not that bad, we can treat ourselves to 1 bottle

9. Oooooo view

10. Let's instagram this shizzle

11. Aaarg either I use flash and my friends are lit up people in front of some window which is reflecting me taking a photo, or I don't use it and my friends could be anyone or anything, just some dark blur in front of a beautiful view of a London skyline

12. Damn you instagram and your square photo format! Now I have to choose whether I want to have Big Ben or the Shard in my photo!

13. Prosecco is £30 you say? A second bottle please

14. Oh my goodness it is midnight?? But we only just got here! Better go to the night we actually paid for and stop just drinking prosecco in this bar

If you squint you can just see Westminster and Big Ben in the middle, and the London eye behind Lucy's head. Expert photo taker.

15. It is very sweaty and steamy in here, so you can't see the view

16. But I don't care because they are playing Man in the Mirror

17. Hey! Listen to the red channel too, they are playing Man in the Mirror

18. If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the....chaaaaange. Nananaaaa nananaaaa na na na na naa.

19. Yes tequila shots! Great plan!

20. This is so good that these headphones light up so I know that we are both listening to the same thing, why do not all silent discos have this? (This really is a great pro. Really. I think I have previously underestimated how much fun gets sucked out of a silent disco by all the energy spent trying to act out that you are listening to Amy Winehouse's version of Valerie and they should switch over)

21. I need a beer to wet my whistle after that tequila shot, otherwise I am worried I will be sick.

22. This is weird they are playing Pure Imagination from Charlie and the Chocolate factory, but I like it. I want to dance like I am in a ballet.

23. Peculiar that ballet dancing feels more acceptable in a silent disco, where only 1/3 of the people are listening to the same song as you, so you probably look even more odd than if you were ballet dancing in a club

24. Tequila shots again? Really?

25. This floor is very slippy

26. Oh crap my friend is very drunk

27. Oh crap my friend has slipped and fallen on the floor

28. Oh crap I am on the floor

29. Let's instagram this shizzle! We will get so many likes tomorrow when people have seen we have fallen on the floor!! In light up headphones!!

On da floor.

30. Blink 182!! SAY IT AIN'T SO I WILL NOT GO TURN THE LIGHTS OFF CARRY ME HOME

31. NANANANANANA NA NA NA NA NANANANANANA NA NA NA NA. Music was so much better in 1999, what has happened to the pop rock genre now huh?

32. Is Justin Bieber technically under the umbrella of pop-rock? Is Justin Bieber the new Blink 182? 

33. No.

34. It is 1:30am you say? Let's book an uber, I can't be in here when the lights turn on, I am sweating like a pig on pig tablets. 

35. Hello McDonalds

36. Feck it. I am going to have a hamburger and chicken nuggets and mozzarella dippers #bignight

37. Do I really think in #s now? Oh I am a sheep of social media

38. How do they make this hamburger sauce so incredible - the balance of diced onions, mustard, ketchup, gherkin. It is a science. Perfection. I don't think I've had a better burger

39. I can't finish it, I am going to be sick.

40. Nope it's passed. Just a burp. I can eat it.

41. Hello bed. Hello boyfriend. 

42. No boyfriend I am not drunk

43. No I can sleep in my clothes...zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So to get those 43 thoughts, and to have a marvellous time at Altitude silent disco, book your tickets here.

It will cost you:

PS. I realise actually it cost us £12 more to have all those drinks than straight Shard tickets, but we were drunk and our Maths was not the best...oh and Pure Imagination in case you want to listen to that now. I definitely do.

Like drinking prosecco with your pals? Then you might like Friend: My favourite London afternoon teas

Lover: Butler's Wharf Blackout Dinner

Is there anything more romantic in the world than sitting on Butler's Wharf, overlooking the river Thames and Tower Bridge, when all the lights and chatter of the surrounding restaurants and tourist institutions have been dimmed and muted, sharing a table lit only by candlelight with your lover... oh and 40 other people?

Probably. 

But as experiences go, the Butler's Wharf Blackout, which visits London once a year for the Thames Festival is a pretty unique one, with 4 of the big normally competing restaurants on Butler's Wharf - Le Pont de la Tour, The Butler's Wharf Chophouse, Blueprint Cafe and Cantina del Ponte - joining forces to create an event that's a little bit different and turning all their lights out, giving you a view of the river unlike one you've seen before.

I went last year, when the set up was one massive banquet table underneath a transparent marquee (as it was raining - pfff typical London) on the terrace overlooking the Thames and Tower Bridge. We paid £37.50 and got a 3 course meal and a gin and tonic in a little sandwich bag. The gin and tonic in the bag, not the 3 course meal.  Quirky. 

Did take these photos however - from light....

To dark....

Last year the menu changed every day, but every day used ingredients sourced from the Thames. I get the thought pattern - it's Thames Festival and all, let’s eat food from the Thames by the Thames - but actually in practice looking down at a floating dead seagull, a pile of rubbish and some weird bubbly crap in the Thames below you and knowing that your food came from somewhere connected to that  same water where all that grossness floats ruins your appetite a bit. Someone somewhere must have thought the same, as this year they are scrapping the big banquet table in front of the 4 restaurants and each are taking it in turn to host the blackout for one week in September. So now you can pick your blackout venue based on the food you fancy – steak, Italian, French – whatever you want (well bar any cuisine not based in Europe, so not anything precisely) and no dead seagull infested food in sight. Excellent. Book here: 

Don't have a lover atm or have a boyfriend who complains his fries don’t taste as good if there is not enough lighting to tell they are the skin on ones? That sentence sounded dodgier than intended, sorry. Anyhoo, the point is however fussy your fella, or if you don't have one, I think this would be lovely to do with a friend or group of friends too.

Other things I’d quite like to check out at the Thames Festival this year:1.     Fire Garden by Carabosse – 5^th and 6^th September, 6:30 – 10pm

Again not my photo - haven't been yet copyright Angella.

I was not speedy enough on Time Out to get a ticket, but depending on how hungover I am feeling Saturday, I might try my luck at the one in one out system it is going to adopt on the night. Being surrounded by fire is going to make a great instagram pic no? And hopefully not bring back any terrifying flashbacks of when this happened to me…(and when I say happened to me, I mean when I got pissed on a beach in Thailand and made dangerous decisions)

Note to self: don't go through a flaming slide if you have naturally wide hips. Makes it even more terrifying as you might get stuck.

2.    More London Film Festival – starts with Raiders of the Lost Ark on Wednesday 3^rd,  on every day until Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on Friday September 26^th.
Like all those other amazing outdoor festival that fabulously pop all over London, but free. And showing ET. But get there early because you can’t book seats.

3.    ImperialWharf Jazz Festival - 12th and 13th September, 7pm - 10pm and 1pm -10pm.
A bit of easy listening which doesn’t hurt your bank balance, cos it is absolutely free.

Browse the whole calendar of events here.

So how much will it realistically cost for 2 people to dine out during the blackout this year? It depends on which restaurant you go to, but as today is my first day back on My Fitness Pal and therefore I am craving cheesy creamy carbs I would go with Cantina del Ponte where it is £35 per person for 3 courses and a drink. The most expensive is Le Pont de la Tour, where this same deal will cost you £45. 


Vicky x

                                                      

The copyright of the top photo is Thames Festival.