Alice In Wonderland Bunting

These are the bunting flags I've drawn for my Mad Hatters Tea Party I'm having next weekend.

I'm so excited to be getting back into drawing as I find it incredibly relaxing.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on O2

London Calling

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." — Samuel Johnson I couldn't agree more with the above statement, I love London, I love it's energy, the sights & sounds and it's energy. So as you can imagine I'd been looking forward to my trip to London with Helen & Rach for months and it certainly didn't disappoint!  Here are a few of the highlights -  Sunday -   Firstly & most importantly was visiting our favorite shops Cath Kidston & Collectif!   Next on the agenda was making the most of the beautiful weather with a walk to St James' Park. The flowers were all out and looked stunning! We also met this cheeky fella!   It always amazes me how much of a variety of wildlife there is in the London parks like this heron -  Of course being a plane geek I couldn't pass up the opportunity to snap this passing Airbus A380 ......  We continued our walk along to Westminster -    After returning to the hotel to freshen up we headed out to dinner and for a post dinner walk around Leicester Square & Covent Garden   Panoramic Trafalgar Square  The Seven Dials of Covent Garden  Monday - We were up bright & early to meet our friend Rach at the station-  First stop of the day was Camden Market.      Camden is my favourite place in the world, I love the fantastic goth &  punk  shops, the quirky stalls selling all sorts of different goods. There are loads of cool pubs and gig venues like KoKo where I met 30 Seconds To Mars for the first time back in Nov 2009. So whenever I head up to Camden my "Nice Shirt" (Long story) makes the pilgrimage too ...... One of the cool, new discoveries I made on this visit was the graffitti table where I left this little doodle -  After a good poke around the market we went up to the zoo!  Me & Rach monkeying around One of the Komodo Dragons from Skyfall  Lions Anyone for flamingo croquet? I loved the Butterfly tunnel!  Posing penguin! Meeting the Monkeys!   Giraffes! In the evening we got to do one of my favourite things which is walking around the city at night. I have a love of cities at night, they're totally transformed and London always puts on a fantastic show.   Chinatown  Out for dinner  There was a brief trip to M&M world ................ Then a quick hop along to Piccadilly Circus     Eros I also took a few 'arty' black & white photos -  London Eye   St James' Park by night Tuesday - What a beautiful morning in Covent Garden! After a final walk around Covent Garden it was back to Westminster to hop on a riverboat tour   Here we are rocking the nautical look!

A few pics from the tour -

 St Paul's Cathedral

 HMS Belfast

 The Tower Of London

 Tower Bridge

We alighted at Greenwich - 

 The original maritime hospital, now part of the Maritime Museum

We found a gorgeous riverside cafe to eat at called Byron's which I highly recommend,  great food & fantastic service. If you're in the area then check it out!

Rach & Helen awaiting fed

View from Byron's

 Cutty Sark

Greenwich Market

It was an absolutely amazing few days in London and I came back re-energised and inspired. I'm now dreaming of my own stall selling my jewellery & bits n bobs in either Camden or Greenwich Markets!

Thanks so much to Helen & Rach for a fantastic few days.

Love Jen

xxxxxxx

Ps here are a few recommendations if you're planning a visit to London-

Where we stayed - Travelodge Covent Garden really good value and helpful staff, just round the corner from Covent Garden market,  a 5 minute walk from Leicester Square & a 10 minute walk from the British Museum. In fact we like it so much we're going back to stay over August Bank Holiday weekend!

Where we ate - as I mentioned above I can't speak more highly of Byron's they have branches all over the UK too. 

River Cruise - We used Thames River Services amusing and knowledgeable guides and if you have a valid Oyster Card or Travel Card for the day then wave it at the ticket office to get a 30% Discount. 

Attraction Tickets - If you're passing through Victoria on your way to London Zoo or other busy attractions then buy your entry tickets at the Oyster Card counter. It will work out a little more expensive than the 2For1 train offer but when we arrived at the zoo instead of joining the end of the 2 and a half hour queue we were ushered to the front and were in the zoo within 5 minutes!

Getting about - If you can then walk as much as possible (weather permitting - this is the UK after all!). The Underground & bus service is fantastic but there is little as pleasurable as walking around London and seeing all it's stunning architecture. A lot of the famous attractions are closer together than you realize - for example we discovered Chinatown was literally tucked behind Leicester Square!