Birthday Drama

 To paraphrase Lady Gaga: I was born that day-heyyy

What a WEEK I'm having! I have literally been busier than several hives of bees. Not only have I been moved onto a new exciting but demanding project at work, but I've also been trying to organise moving house (stress central!), advertising for and interviewing several prospective housemates after my original to-be housemate flaked out on me (HONESTLY), organising some kind of activity to celebrate my birthday only to then have my phone stolen that night! So on top of everything else I had to deal with police reports, insurance claims and new phone contracts.

PHEW.

 Oh nana... what's my name?

So I had every intention of blogging last weekend about my birthday, but I think, given all of the above, its understandable why this is a week late!

Even though everything and its mother seems to have come at once (isn't it always the way?!) my birthday was (until the phone incident) a nice calm amidst the storm of activity that has become my life these days.

 Liberty oven gloves. For SHOW ONLY.

I spent a lovely day with my current (but soon to be ex - nooooo!) housemate Holly. We went to old favourite Wahaca for lunch - where they presented me with free birthday churros, complete with candle! Always a pleasure never a chore. Then, I have no idea how we made room, but we wandered over to Gelupo to sample some of their dairy delights. So scrummy.

Later on that night we had another lovely meal at The Real Greek in Hoxton before heading over to The Book Club for drinks and dancing until the wee small hours. It was all going so well until about 2.30am when I realised my phone had been taken from my bag, which put a slight dampener on what had been a brilliant day.

His name is Gerald.

But as is eventually the way with these things, everything seemed to work out in the end - an old friend confirmed he would like to become my new housemate, my phone was due an upgrade anyway before it got stolen so I walked away with a brand new one the very next day (and as it was iPhone to iPhone I lost NO data whatsoever - SCORE!) and I had lots of gorgeous presents to cheer me up from the stress and strife!

Hummingbird and Magnolia books, pretty glassware, exquisite oven gloves and a new stuffed animal friend were amongst my haul this year - I am a very lucky girl!

So basically the moral of this story is, that when the shit hits the fan - it's nothing good friends, good food and a stuffed owl can't remedy.

Bread & Cakes and Time & Space

 Meringues are the new porn

It really is birthday season in my family. Last weekend my cousin had a birthday party, and this weekend it is the turn of my dad, who is 57 years young today!

I invited my parents up to foggy London town for a little birthday weekend break. My dad is really into science and astronomy so I thought it would be nice to take him to Greenwich for the day.

 Bready.

While we were in Greenwich we stumbled upon a Paul Rhodes bakery, which was amazing and everything a bakery should be to me! We are all massive bread and cake fans in my family, and a Paul Rhodes bakery is a real artisan treat. The smell of fresh bread hits you as soon as you walk in and there are delicate homemade cakes for as far as the eye can see.

Bake em away toys.

It's super popular and it's not hard to see why! So we snaffled some of their wares as a birthday treat, my dad went for the pecan tart, my mum for the chocolate cupcake and I came away with one of those sexy meringues. SO good.

Rental units

And boy did we need the treat! We had just walked up and down the epic hill to Greenwich Observatory. It was a really cold and blustery day, and I was complaining about the wind constantly, but actually in reterospect - I really wouldn't want to climb that hill in the height of summer. I'd be an unsightly sweaty mess, and that's never good for anyone.

Hope springs eternal

On the way up, I spied some snowdrops on the hill. I didn't see ANY snowdrops last year so got really excited about these. I'm huge flower fangirl (Top Tip: get me a bunch and I'll do anything) and I always find snowdrops such cheery l'il guys. It means SPRING IS NEAR!! Hope, light, warm is just around the corner, which is just what you need to be reminded of at this time of year. 

Dad-dad-daddio

We spent some time wandering around the exhibits at the Observatory (all free - bargainous!) and paid a small charge to watch one of the shows at the Planetarium, which we all enjoyed, but mainly because the chairs are in a recumbant position so you can watch the ceiling. We've decided this is the way forward for cinema generally.

Greenwich has a really lovely olde worlde villagey feel to it, I'd love to go back again soon and explore the markets and perhaps also the Naval College. Maybe one for the summertime.

But most importantly for me my dad had a happy dappy birthday and that's reason enough for me to scale a mountain and scoff a meringue!