The North Downs Way - Guildford to Gomshall

Well....Me and Mr Plum headed off to the start of the North Downs Way on Saturday and walked from Farnham to Guildford! The North Downs are beautiful ... mile after mile of beautiful rolling English countryside. We stopped off in Seale for a lovely cup of tea and piece of cake. This leg of the walk was 10 miles ... by the time we reached our B&B we were absolutely shattered! We managed to eat and then collapsed! I actually slept for 11 hours! Ha Ha Ha! But that's not all ... on Sunday we headed into Guildford for a yummy Full English breakfast at House Of Fraser and then started on the next leg of the walk ... 8 miles to Gomshall!! As you can imagine, we are both feeling a bit sore today!

I hope that you have all had lovely Bank Holiday Weekends!!

A Double Wedding!!

There is nothing more exciting than a wedding! Especially when it is one of your oldest friends ... and she is having a Jane Austen style double wedding with her younger sister!! The grooms are best friends which made it even more lovely! The sun was shining, the grooms were dashing and the brides were beautiful!

After the church, we strolled along the country lane back to the Brides' family home for a marquee reception in their (very large!) garden. The couples arrived at the reception by boat - fantastic!!

Here are the three sisters, and their dog - aren't they all gorgeous?

We had such a good time ... this was definitely the second best (after my own, of course!) wedding I have been to. It was a perfect day!

South Croydon Allotments Open Day

Today the South Croydon Allotments had an open day!

There is currently a 4 year long waiting list - and we are at the bottom! But we thought that we would sign up for a half plot.

Hopefully in four years time we will have left South London - but, just in case we are still here - we have an allotment to look forward too!

Just look at these lovely apples!

Some of the plots would have been worthy of a RHS flower show award!!!

Here is Mr Plum next to a huge Sunflower!

Out and about in London on a random Tuesday afternoon!

I had a half days holiday today ... me and a friend had decided to take one of our "random half days for doing something splendid". What a lovely afternoon we had!

Today we headed to The Women's Library to see the "Between The Covers" exhibition about women's magazines and their readers. It was very good (and most importantly - free!). I have done some research on 18th century women's magazines at University ... so it was good to revisit this topic. I would definitely recommend it if you find yourself in London with a spare hour to kill.

After the exhibition we headed towards Carnaby Street so that I could introduce my friend to "All The Fun Of The Fair" which was full of lovely little bits and pieces ... but I didn't get anything. It was thirsty work though, so treated ourselves with a cup of tea and a lovely cupcake in C'est Ici in Kingly Court ... very tasty.

We wondered around the lovely vintage shops and felt a little depressed that everything was so expensive ... and decided to start walking towards Victoria Station...via Piccadilly - a wander around Fortnum and Masons and a couple of delicious macaroons at Laduree!

Beer and Aubergines!

Another Sunday evening ... feeling worn out after a busy weekend! I wish that the weekends could stretch out for a bit longer .... anyway! Let me tell you what me and Mr Plum have been up to this weekend!

On Friday night we headed up to the Great British Beer Festival at Earl's Court. You may remember me telling you about last year's festival (have a look here)...this year's was just as fun! There was a gang of us - friends from University and work ... and we tried lots of beers. A year on from last year and I am a bit more of an experienced ale drinker!! I quite often join Mr Plum in a nice pint of ale after a long walk ... so I didn't just stick to the pale ales and fruit beers. My favourite beer this year was "Hooky Gold" brewed by the Hook Norton Brewery - Hook Norton Brewery is quite near where my parents live - I think that we will have to organise a tour of the brewery soon!

WOW! Look at this wonderful aubergine! It is so big! I have four more growing too! It is currently being roasted in balsamic vinegar and will be used on a pizza tomorrow night!

Today we have just been pottering about ... and doing what is becoming a bit of a Sunday evening tradition in the Plum household ... sticking on an MGM musical, making a pot of tea and getting out my knitting.

And a new series of "Jam and Jerusalem" with crumpets and cheese ... a perfect way to end the weekend!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway in the post below! I should have told you what my favourite tipple was! I love a nice cup of Yorkshire tea ... or a cool glass of prosecco ... or champagne ... or a lovely cosmopolitan ...........

Random things to do on a Wednesday lunchtime when you find yourself near Waterloo station and my first blogiversary giveaway!

On a muggy Wednesday lunchtime, I happened to find myself near Lower Marsh Street, near Waterloo ... what a find this little street is! Of course, there is the wonderful shop calledfull to the brim with beautiful yarns and this lovely book which I stood drooling over for a good few minutes ... what a lovely Christmas pressie this would make (Mr Plum?)

It is called "A Stitch In Time" and is full of beautiful knitting patterns from 1920-1949.

There were also lovely vegetarian cafes, pretty gift shops and a wonderful looking deli ... I hope that I find myself around Lower Marsh street again! Apparently there is a very good market, but it looked like it was packing away for the day. What a gem!

Otherwise this week has been rather quiet! I had a red spider mite scare on Monday ... and spent an hour spraying my lovely aubergines with soapy water to get rid of the blighters. I did try to take some pictures, but it wouldn't work ... but have a look at this wonderful blog which helped me solve the problem. I think the aubergines will survive. I have moved them out of the greenhouse and they are now living on the garden table .. in the pouring rain ... hmmm

Tomorrow me and Mr Plum are off to the Great British Beer Festival! We went last year and had a great time! I will blog about that later ... but to celebrate my first bloggiversary which was yesterday I am inviting all my readers to enter into a giveaway! Not sure what I will be giving away, but please leave a comment telling me what your favourite tipple is! I will pull a name out of a cake tin next Friday!

Weekend antics in rainy London town

I love the weekends!!

Friday, 5pm and I managed to escape work and head home for a lovely weekend!

On Saturday morning we headed into town to visit the J.W Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy. I love Waterhouse. Especially "The Lady Of Shallot" - so was keen to see this exhibition. I wasn't disappointed! There were so many beautiful paintings that I hadn't seen before. I think that I would have like to have been one of Waterhouse's mythical heroine's!

Next we headed up to John Lewis as I needed to visit the haberdashery department! While there I got completed distracted by the Kim Hargreaves book "Thrown Together". A wondrous collection of 16 vintagey pieces ... I'm going to have a go at knitting this cardigan! What do you reckon? Overly ambitious? Oh well ... I need to move on from baby clothes!


We finished off the day by meeting friends for a trip to The Proms! Fantastic! Proms 22 was the MGM Musical Prom and featured vocals by Curtis Stiger and Seth MacFarlane! Yes ... Seth Macfarlane from Family Guy! He even did a Stewie impression in the finale! I love musicals (and am sat here watching "High Society" while typing away!) - to this was a perfect evening! You can listen to last night's concert on the iplayer ... I would definitely recommend it! Follow this link for MGM musical delights!

The weekend did not stop there! This morning we headed off to visit a friend of Mr Plum's ... who's cat has just given birth to eight of these ...

awwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!

In four (or so) weeks ... we will be coming home with these two cuties!!!!

We have names the ginger kitty "Marmalade" (original, I know) and the tabby "Crumpet" ... this may be subject to change! I wanted to call the tabby "Sparkle" - but Mr Plum insisted on a breakfast theme!!

Here's a gratuitous cat shot to finish off this post! We are about to tuck into Blackberry Crumble (with berries picked from our garden, of course!)

I hope that you have all had lovely weekends!