Springtime in London - Gigs & Sightseeing

 

I was lucky enough to travel up to London twice in the space of a week last month and enjoy some nice dry weather 😶

Trip 1 -

First up was my long-awaited Delilah Bon show. Those of you who read my 2024 In Music blog will remember that I listed her album 'Evil Hate Filled Female' as my favourite album of the year. 

By chance I'd come across an advert for an exhibition about an exhibition at the Warburg Institute Tarot - Origins & Afterlives and since it was free it felt rude not to pop in!

The exhibition was, as you would expect, pretty small but for tarot readers like me (or anyone interested in occult history) it was absolutely fascinating, especially this incredibly old Florentine Tarot (the city not the biscuit sadly) deck -

I was near to the British Museum so it felt rude not to visit. 

As well as finding Eos represented in the Egyptian section and the gift shop

I also found Greek pottery depicting her namesake the Goddess Eos pursuing a young gentleman 😱

I stayed at the Kings Cross Inn which was literally opposite Kings Cross & St Pancras tube stations. 

Taken from the hotel steps

For the gig I wanted to try the 'layered' look. I think a crop top over a mesh top looks so nice but being very much on the larger side I avoided it as I thought the general public didn't deserve that sight! But in the spirit of 'fuck it' I popped my Delilah top over a mesh top and skirt and yes I actually felt cute!

The show was at the London Garage a small club venue (my favourite type!)

I was really looking forward to seeing the support act Eville and they didn't disappoint. 

Anyone who plays in a Hello Kitty bikini top gets my vote!

They give me Bring Me The Horizon backing music with 'brat rock' vocals, I really hope I get to see them again soon!

Delilah was as good as I hoped she would be, her live vocals are amazing. She really is a voice badly needed right now for the LGBT community and women around the world and I hope her music spreads far and wide. 

There are loads more photos and videos on my Instagram page jenraefrancesdeux .

Trip 2 -

A few days later I was back in London to meet up with my friend Bente for the first time since 2018!

A misty morning train ride

*Insert 'Sitting On The Dock' joke here*

We took the boat (yes I got on a boat without being sea sick!) from London Bridge down to Battersea. 

You see so much more from the boat

Clearly the key to not getting sea sick is to travel on boats named after fighter jets!

Although I didn't get sick on HMS Belfast when we went and that's technically on the water!

We had an amazing breakfast at Where The Pancakes Are in Battersea Power Station. 

We worked off our breakfast with a stroll around Battersea Park. I'd only ever been there once about 10 years ago when I went to the Formula E race (Blog here) and hadn't realised how much there was there or how pretty it is. 

We particularly liked this Peace Pagoda built back in the 70s. It was particularly beautiful with the emerging blossom around it. 

It was still pretty chilly so after grabbing a cuppa we went back to Battersea Power Station. I've never been there before or after it was re-generated. 

Such an impressive building (sadly no Pink Floyd-style Flying Pig)

Inside the power station is the coolest bar called Control Room B located (you guessed it) where one of the control rooms was. They've left all the original equipment in there and have themed cocktails. I particularly enjoyed the 'Booster Field' and 'Smokestack'. 

The menu was the building blueprint

The equipment -

A well stocked bar is always a beautiful sight 😉

Enjoying some Prosecco and a Smokestack - 

All too soon it was time to head for home.

Come back soon!!!!!

I had such a lovely couple of days, London never fails to excite me and I've been lucky to have been up 4 times this year already (check out my Emo and Tim Burton blogs). I think my next trip will be for the planned VE Day flypast in May (weather permitting ......). 

Love Jen

XxxX

Is there a feminist way to lose weight?

As some of you my know since the start of the year I’ve been making a real effort to clean up my diet and exercise more. I came to the conclusion that at 30 (now 31 :s) I needed to take better care of myself and was fed up pf feeling fat and lazy when the girls in the office talked about their diet and fitness regimes. So I installed the My Fitness Pal app on my phone set at a 1260 calorie limit a day and bought a cheap 2^nd hand fit bit (cheers Karen). So far I’ve lost 2st8 going from 109K in January to 90.6kg thus far.

The question that’s been bothering me is “Is there a feminist way to lose weight?”. Whilst I initially got started by purely wanting to become healthier after my knees, hips and back started aching whenever I hoisted myself out of my chair. Now I’m also focusing on losing weight to look “thinner and prettier” as is my favourite phrase. It concerns me that it’s against my Body Positive beliefs and also a concern that I’m pandering to society’s strict beauty standards.

I constantly rant about the impossible image that as women we are expected to adhere to, have I unwittingly fallen into the cycle of body fascism? I now want to lose the weight to ‘look good’ rather than look after myself and daydream about becoming as thin as I want back in 2011 (I got down from a size 18/20 in Autumn 2010 to a size 12 but Nov 2011) until I promptly piled it all back on when I changed job …… Thus feeling disgusting.

I think the only thing to do is keep reminding myself that it’s my insides and skeleton that counts rather than trying to look attractive.

Plus I’ll finally be able to get into the dinosaur print dungaree dress that I’ve been lusting after from Minimum Mouse!

Love Jen

XxxX