Festival of Light at Longleat

Utterly beautiful and gloriously festive and fun. Even the light up singing Christmas tree was magical and I was expecting to find it ridiculous. It was over the top wonderful and fantastic. Thank you Longleat folks and thank you to my parents for taking me.

Stranger that Fiction - Joan Fontcuberta - Science Museum

Ok. Favourite exhibition of the year. I LOVE this! Never heard of him before but YES. If I had time (there's not long left before this show ends) I would go again.

Fontcuberta creates stories with photography and plays with the trust we put into photographs and the things we see in a museum setting. (And it works - Stu got really confused at first thinking it seemed so real but couldn't be real but was it real?)

My favourite bit is the Fauna part at the beginning which shows the research of a fictional professor who was researching unusual animals and there are photographs and taxidermy and sound recordings and observations of wonderful animals. I particularly like what I call the Turtfluff. It has a turtle-y head and a fluffy body and when threatened it puts its fluffy tail in the air and it's head in the ground and pretends to be a bush.

Other animals included a clamshell with an arm, a baboon-centaur, a winged deer, a mousething with a snake for a tail, a unicorn winged monkey, a tortoise bird, a snake with legs.....I loved it and it was so convincing.

Other bodys of work showed fossilized mermaids, constellations that were really windscreen bugs, landscapes created by computers reading famous paintings, made up plants and miracles.

It's only on till 9 Nov - quick, quick go now!

Joan Fontcuberta - Science Museum

Books about town: Greenwich and Riverside Trails

Baskerville's Tea Room - Palmers Green

I used to live in Palmers Green and it's always nice to go visit - especially when I find plenty of books I want in the very excellent and plentiful charity shops there AND discover a large tea room has opened and it is very pretty and has a garden and a huge tea selection (I had a refreshing green tea with ginger and lemongrass) and banana cake with peanut butter frosting. Banana cake is my favourite and I love peanut butter. Yesssss.

Boyhood

Drinking Prosecco while waiting for Stu to make cheese toasties before we set off to see Boyhood. Happy.

Books about town - City & Bloomsbury Trails

I love a charity art hunt and the big egg hunt was very disappointing this year - rows of eggs in Covent Garden is not an egg hunt!

Hello, books about town! These are benches that look like a big book, each illustrated by a different artist to convey a different book and all to promote literacy. Come October, the benches will be auctioned and the proceeds will go to the National Literacy Trust.

It's a really fun way to explore London, support a charity and see some free art. And I love books! Yay! Yay!

They even provide maps, tick lists and quizzes on the website. My love of ticking off lists loves this!

Noughts & Crosses - Malorie Blackman - City Trail

Tick List!

Cricketers Almanack - City Trail

The Lion, the witch & the wardrobe - CS Lewis - Bloomsbury Trail

JM Barrie - Bloomsbury Trail

James Bond & Agatha Christie - Bloomsbury Trail

Next stops: Riverside trail and Greenwich trail!

Links:

Books about town

Porthcurno Beach (Cornwall) Swan Boats (Ally Pally London) Arthur's Seat (Edinburgh)

I've been doing too much gallivanting to post much this month.

A few days in lovely Cornwall and I'm in love with this beautiful beautiful beach. Perfection.

Back in London, I finally rode a swan boat at Ally Pally Very relaxing and calm...apart from when I pedalled us over a large stick and I think it went inside the underneath of the boat as there were disturbing clunking sounds for a good while after!

Afternoon tea at Biscuiteers - tasty and adorable. I think the biscuits look better than they taste though - I'd rather have a bourbon! I wouldn't pay full price either (£40 for 2 people to eat one sandwich cut into 4 and some mini cakes each! what!?) I had a 2 for 1 voucher so it was £20 and it was a treat for my little sister's birthday. It was lovely though. The raspberry jam in the battenberg and the icing on the cupcakes were especially good. 

Then up to Edinburgh for a fantastic Easter wedding and a walk up to Arthur's Seat which is a glorious walk. Lucky, lucky people who live in Edinburgh!

All in all I had an amazing break :)

Kew Gardens

Had the loveliest day at Kew a couple of weeks ago with my parents. Such a nice park its worth the 2 hour journey to get there! And I still haven't seen it all.

Love the galleries there too. One is the Marianne North Gallery and exhibits the work of Marianne North, an adventurous lady who travelled the world and painted the natural world. So epic.

There's a gallery that exhibits botanical drawings/paintings too. Particularly liked the work of Regine Hagedorn. This is her painting of Mermaid Rose Stamens:

There are also some fun giant woven sculptures of different types of mushrooms by Tom Hare :)

Saw so many inspiring plants this visit. Made me want to draw. It's been so long I'm not sure I can draw anymore! I need to practise!

Walking from Howick Hall Gardens along the coast to Craster

One of my favourite walks, it's so beautiful. I'm somewhat in love with Northumberland and have visited every year for the past 3 years. Currently wondering if I can go twice this year...

Also, Howick Hall was the home of Earl Grey (as in the tea!) and the gardens are definitely my favourite gardens I can think of. So natural and sprawling yet considered. And also there's a tea room and one table has a window seat in front of a bird table so you can drink tea and look at birds up close!

Thames Walk/Albert Bridge

A beautiful evening walk along the Thames from Chelsea Harbour to Vauxhall. I'd never walked that bit of the Thames before. I liked Albert Bridge lots, all lit up and pink!

Big Egg Hunt Zone 12: Canary Wharf

Found all but one in this area! I struggle with the indoor eggs :( Click here to see the rest of my egg finds.

Big Egg Hunt Zone 8: Carnaby Street

Egg hunting is so fun! Click here for the rest of my finds...

Big Egg Hunt Zone 4: Green Park

Click here for the rest :)

Big Egg Hunt Zone 6: Piccadilly

Started hunting eggs! Today we found 12! These are my favourite 2, if you're interested in the rest, click here.

Big Egg Hunt

Really excited about this! Over 200 beautiful artist painted eggs hidden around London to raise money for charity. When you find an egg you can text in and the money goes to Action for Children and Elephant Family. I have found only 4 so far without looking...I want to look in earnest now...only got till April 3rd!

http://www.thebigegghunt.co.uk/