Nelly the elephant.

Ever since seeing Dumbo as a child, I have been fascinated by the elephant!  What amazing creatures and they give off such a regal sense of being - the lion may be King of the Jungle, but the elephant rules in my book!  Back in 2007 I was lucky to spend some time in Kenya and spent some time on safari.  I was spellbound by the elephants as they paraded through the plains - they were just spectacular!  I adore the below photo I took, it takes me back to that feeling of being totally mesmarised by the family infront of me!

Since then anything ele captivates me and when I saw the below cuff on econsciousmarket I knew that I would have to add another piece of beautiful quirky jewellery to my ever growing list of wants and desires!  However, least with this site you have the knowledge that your purchase contributes to a charity of your choice and therefore you can offset the guilt of spending more of the cash that should be saved for rainy days on something more than deserving.

Africa Africa

Boy did I get a little bit giddy this morning when I quickly snuck a peak on ASOS!  I love prints and African ones are right up my street!  I can't put my finger on it, but there is just something about the boldness of the colours and the patterns that I adore.   Whilst on holiday in Kenya 2 years ago, I went crazy buying lots of Kikoys, all with the most fabulous prints and colours.  Of course, I vowed that I would somehow find a use for them in London... however, unfortunately, they are still carefully folded up in a bag in my loft!  But their time will come one day...

The best thing about the ASOS collection though, is that it is designed, sourced and produced in Africa, which is a rare thing in today's world of fast fashion.  With it having such a great ethos behind the collection, I think I can safely say the above jacket had my name written all over it!  The downside... they only had as size 12 left and I'm keeping everything crossed that this size 12 fits my somewhat large boobs!  It should arrive tomorrow... so positive thin thoughts for me and lets hope the fit model for the design was a larger size 12!

London Calling

If you ever get the chance, the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden is a great way to while away an afternoon.  I have always been fascinated by the history of how London's transport network has developed and moved with the times and the museum tells the story in a great way not just with words and pictures but lifesize models of old tubes and buses.  The war period is particulary interesting and shows how important the underground became, not just for the purpose of moving around the city, but also for protecting so many lives.  One of my favourite areas of the museum is where they show so many of the beautiful posters that have graced the tube walls for so many years.  During the 1920s and 30s designing a poster for the underground was considered to be a great honour and the within the museum you can see some of these amazing art deco masterpieces. 

Now, what every great museum needs is a great museum shop, and today museum shops have moved on from the days of purchasing a souvenir rubber or biro to remind you of your day out!  The shop at the London Transport Museum is beautiful and has a whole range of different products to tempt you and you can spend as much time shopping as you did walking through the museum!  There are some great homewares and below are some of my favourites.  For those of you that don't live in London they also have an online shop, so now there is no excuse not to own your own london underground pair of socks!

A hug in a mug

I seem to have developed a habit of breaking mugs!  It may have something to do with the fact my washing machine sits directly underneath my washing up rack and china never seems to agree with the spin cycle!  I spotted these mugs on Rose and Grey, a fabulous homeware website that I stumbled upon today.  The site is full of great little unique pieces that you won't always find on the high street, as well as some beautiful pieces of furniture, some of which is reclaimed.

The mugs have reminded me of a great post that I saw on the fantastic blog littleoldhat this week.  I look forward to the next available free weekend as I would love to try to create my own decals and develop some of my own mugs that I hope will complement my new purchases from Rose and Gray.

Lunch time treats!

So despite the fact I'm on a ration of £7 a day until I get paid next Monday, I thought it would be nice to take a break from the spreadsheets and have a look around the shops! 45 minutes later, I'm skipping back to the office with a carrier bag from warehouse with this stunning top inside it!  This is the danger of working within spitting distance of Oxford Street and all the temptations that are offered within these temples to consumerism! However, I love the top and can't wait for the 1st opportunity to wear it!

Perfect Sunday in London

So the last day of my Christmas break began with my alarm clock going off at 8am... I think O set it to prepare me for tomorrow!  We decided to make the most of the last day of freedom by delving into an area of London I have always wanted to visit but never made it to.  Columbia Road in the East End of London has a fantastic flower market every sunday and the street has a really buzzy vibe with all the flower and plant sellers bustling for business.  Behind the street market lies some beautiful and individual boutiques and O and I had fun rummaging around them all.  O, like me is fascinated by maps and bought an amazing blue, emerald, pink and yellow map from The future Mapping Company, we need to get it framed, but we both think it's going to look great in the spare room/study aka O's Den!  I loved the Supernice store and have the perfect spot above the bed in our bedroom for one of their wall art graphics, I need to measure up the space and will then be back to chose our piece of artwork! 

After chosing some tulips we then headed towards the Asian supermarket we passed on our walk to Columbia Road, my favourite soup in Eat is their Chicken Laksa and I have been searching high and low for some Laksa paste so I can try making the soup at home.  I was in luck, the store was a fantastic find and all being well with the soup, I'll be back there soon to investigate more of the wonderful foods they had on offer.


We were starting to get peckish, so we headed south towards Liverpool Street station to find somewhere to warm up and get some nosh.  I had read in the sunday papers a while back about the Albion Cafe, it is the new Conran and Prescott venture and boy was it good!  We arrived just before the end of breakfast, so we both tucked into a huge full English breakfast and a mugs of steaming hot coffee, a special mention has to go to the freshly made baked beans - they were amazing!  The cafe also has a wonderful shop that specialises in great British food and drink, they also sold their own freshly prepared bread and cakes and it all looked mouth wateringly good!  There is also a restaurant upstairs (the boundary) and it would be great to try it out one evening for a blow out meal!  Fingers crossed...! x

1st shopping trip of 2010

When your boyfriend suggests a shopping trip, you don't turn the opportunity down!  However, it turned out to be one of those shopping trips where I came away with a big bunch of nothing and he returned to the flat weighed down with bags with a considerably lighter wallet!  As we hit the busy West End streets we called into one of my favourite US stores anthropologie.  I've been itching to show O around the UK version of the shop that I spent hours dreaming in, whilst I lived in NY.  The store is one of the most fabulous in terms of visual merchandising in London and has some beautiful and unique pieces including both fashion and homewares. The store reaches across 3 floors and spanning each floor on the left hand side wall is a vertical living garden, which from what I read in the press includes 18,000 plants all ecologically sustained from rainwater collected from the roof above!

The clothes are right up my street, I love the eclectic and vibrant style that the buyers have chosen, unfortunately this style costs money and some of the beautiful dresses were a little of out of my usual price bracket...However, there was a huge sale area in the basement and with my office being only around the corner, I may have to take a lunch break to rummage through the bagains!  I'm led to believe that everything in the store is for sale and my favourite display was the multiple alarm clocks, i'm fascinated by clocks and the display really reminded me of the wall art in one of my favourite bars in Balham - the clarence.  I look forward to returning next week, for more of a dig around the store!