Yesterday was our 6 year anniversary, so we headed over to Edinburgh to celebrate. We decided to go to the Jekyll & Hyde pub and sample some of their seven deadly sin cocktails.
Tom had made reservations at Vittoria so we enjoyed a bottle of wine and very filling 3 course meal of muscles, pasta and ice cream, yum!
We caught the train up to Scotland yesterday. We went first class thanks to mr t. booking early and sat with a lovely older couple who told us all kinds of stories about London when they were young.
Today we went to Edinburgh to finish off our present shopping. We hadn’t slept for two days, so we had crashed out pretty early the previous evening, meaning that we woke up in the early hours and decided to go out for breakfast. It’s weird being away from London, everything seems so small - the shops, other people’s houses and there’s so much waiting for buses and trains.
Have a lovely Christmas everyone!
Tonight is our last night in London so we’ve been tying up all of the loose ends before we leave for Christmas. As part of the CO+K office party, we drank loads of baileys and made these ornaments for the tree from a Brini Maxwell kit that we were sent. They were super fiddly but I think they turned out okay.
Last night I managed to crash two “office” Christmas parties. The first was at DiS, where I picked up Tom, and the second was with Clare, a writer who’s been with Snippets for ages. In between the two, we managed to get stuck in a lift at Edgware Road Underground. “It’s just like the movies”, claimed one man, “all these different characters in one lift with stories to tell”. Another man calmed everyone down with the information that he had two bottles of wine in his bag.
It’s so nice meeting people from Cut Out + Keep in real life, and they’re all so much cooler than you would expect. Clare, her girlfriend Jo and all of their friends were lovely. The hold a Stitch N Bitch in South London every Wednesday, which we plan to attend.
My desk has looked a lot more like a post office / gift wrapping station than an actual office over the past week. We posted a massive pile of cards and parcels this morning, which makes me wonder how many extra postman calories we’ve burned off?!
As we’re not going to be around in London for Christmas, Tom and I had a mini Christmas of our own, under the tree in the mew with presents. My first was a huge bottle of Vivienne Westwood Sin Garden and a matching notebook (My little computer genius had managed to buy a big bottle for the same price as a small one thanks to an error on the website).
He also got me a Miso Funky treat kit which has loads of yummy treats including sake soap.
A Dumpling Dynasty shoe shine kit for sprucing up my mary jane’s.
A Cath Kidston sewing box, which is huge and actually holds all of my sewing equipment, and a cassette tape dispenser.
I got him a Vivienne Westwood scarf, a midi pedal for his guitar and a cushion made from some of fabric from the underground trains.
Tom’s not so good at keeping presents a secret until Christmas, so he gets excited and gives me them early. Today he gave me this awesome Harley Quinn / Batman Lego set. I’ve not played with Lego in years and I love Harley Quinn sooooo much.
We also got a huge box of red decorations to put on our tree - it’s looking rather full now.
I saw my first piece of Knitta action today and I was so excited. Today was spent at Bust Magazine’s Craftacular in Euston. It was a big craft fair / party, filled with vendors, djs and things to make and do.
I got to meet Amy Lame in person finally. She is going to be the cover star for the next issue of Snippets. She was really lovely and gave me all kinds of yarn balls for making pom poms. I also got to meet the lovely Zoe, from Love From Hetty & Dave, who will also be in the new issue.
The most awesome thing that happened was learning to cross stitch again. I’d learn to do it as a child but had forgotten just how relaxing and fun it is. A lovely, and very drunk, Irish guy taught me how to do it again, he also gave me a hoop and everything I need. I’m addicted. He runs a night called Cocktails, Cupcakes & Cross Stitch, which I can’t wait to go to next year.
I also got to have a really good chat with Laurie Henzel, who is one of the other main people at Bust. I’ve chatted to Debbie before, so it’s nice to collect the set. I’m looking forward to working more with Bust in the future.
Today I completed one of my major, long-time to-do’s and finally joined a Stitch N Bitch. I’d been using the excuse that I needed to wait until I had an awesome project to work on and now that I’m knitting my silky pocket scarf, I had to face the music. We met up at the Museum of London, where they were having a special late night for Christmas, with a craft fair, wine and music. Everyone was really nice and I even managed to help a beginner fix her mistakes. I will be going back.
I’ve been feeling super crafty at the moment and last night I made this chicken brooch, as a Christmas present, for Tom’s mum. I’ll post instructions on Cut Out shortly.
Clifton Nurseries looks like a winter wonderland at the moment. It’s all lit up with fairy lights, so we went to buy some decorations for our tree.
The first was this pretty star. It’s really sparkly.
The second was a squirrel, it reminds me of the ones from Holland Park.
My Dad got me this ruby red shoe ornament from the Andy Warhol exhibition that I took my mum to at the South Bank.
This is a chain of gingerbread men and women with little charms attached to the bottom. They look good enough to eat.
And as horrible and corporate as Starbucks is, I couldn’t resist getting us a little coffee cup ornament. We’ve been drinking these all winter so they are very fitting.
The other night we went to see Dylan Moran at the O2, he was miserable and very funny as always, though it’s strange not to see him smoking on stage anymore.
