I have lots of childhood memories of wandering through these woods with mum and family friends. Over Easter I went back to Swindon for the weekend and stayed with the wonderful O’Briens. Lots of laughs, walking, good food and even an Easter egg hunt made for a lovely long weekend and lots of photos!
Above are some of the cutest English houses! Thatched roofs! And the pub at the end of the road.
The weather has been absolutely STUNNING this week. I have sun-kissed shoulders, a million more freckles, and a renewed joy for London. Our balcony is turning into a rainforest and the flowers are opening up. It’s been the hottest April in over 30 years and we had the barbeque going all Saturday.
Rachel, Cat and I walked to London Fields up along the canal and back through Hackney. There were HUNDREDS of people about enjoying the sunshine and hanging out at the park. We bought some juice from the wee deli in Broadway Market and lay in the sun on the grass.
And found a farm!!! Kinda. It’s Hackney City Farm and is super cute, but more like a petting zoo with domesticated animals… Lots of little kiddies yelling donkey over and over again. But amazing that in the middle of the urban jungle you can find a little farm life. And this was the biggest pig I have ever seen.
Donkey.
I’m a bad blogger, partly because I haven’t been doing anything interesting enough to blog about (or the photos can stay somewhat less publicly on facebook!) But, on the weekend been I went to Madrid for 6 days, and fell very much head over heels.
I got super cheap flights through Ryanair (40 pounds return, but I’m not sure it’s quite worth it to fly Ryanair) and took a few days off of work to go stay with Reg, my super-awesome flatmate’s super-awesome girlfriend. She has a cute wee apartment in La Latina near the palace (see below.) Her friend Sarah was staying too so we had a mammoth weekend of sangria, Spanish ham, tapas and seafood! And a lot of walking.
The first night we went to a seafood restaurant for a pile of prawns, crab and some kind of sea anemone (the first two of which were YUM) and then ended up in an Australian bar – so-called because it served Fosters. No one drank Fosters, and it was Australian as the me, but great for dancing, meeting several lovely Spanish locals and a few non-Spanish locals. Oh, and this is a flaming bowl of grappa with coffee in. Massively potent, I don’t recommend. Though it was lovely and warm to combat the rather refreshing weather Madrid managed to have for the first time in a while.
Reg cooked dinner for everyone one night at her friends apartment which was a penthouse overlooking Plaza de Espana. The photo on the left is of the Royal Palace.
Spain has really high unemployment at the moment because of the recession. This was somewhat evident as we wandered around. This stunning building on the left was completely empty, and the one on the left had only 6 inhabitants in the apartments.
But Madrid was beautiful. The decor, the buildings, the history of the city, and the parks (lots of trees – so pretty), the cobbled streets, the narrow lanes, the lac of commercialness in unpretentious shops hiding down alley ways, the relaxed, sleepy attitude of locals (siesta anyone?) late nights, fabulous food, small beers and good wine with tapas, LOVE. The Metro which was never crowded and only cost 2 euros, and the fact that I didn’t need English to get around,it was a proper holiday. I can’t wait to get back, and am looking forward to my next trip to Europe! Somewhere with equally cheap tickets a!
Lots of love and kisses to you all – miss you guys!
Alex
P.S. You should read this with The Cure playing in the background, ‘cos that’s what I’m listening to while writing this x
