Sunday Coffee

Happy Sunday Coffee lovers (and tea drinkers too, I suppose)!

It’s been quite a past two weeks, so I have a little bit too much to catch you up on. I mistakenly thought it was springtime, but no. London’s been cold lately. Too cold.

I can feel my bones and I can feel the desperate need for a warm holiday creeping in. So naturally, we booked a trip to Bruges last weekend to continue to freeze. Silly us.

I’ve got quite a bit to run through, so let’s do this!

Here’s your Sunday Coffee…

1. The British Museum

In our efforts to try and squeeze a bit of culture in when people come to visit, we took my Dad to the British Museum. We had a good wander around for a Monday morning, complete with all the kids on school trips! Learning is fun you guys.

2. Homeslice

So despite the fact that I wrote a pretty kick ass piece for Time Out on where to find the best slices in London, I had yet to try the delights of Homeslice. In the name of journalistic integrity, I kind of had to go in and try it out. For the record, it’s a winner and the 20inch pizzas are a must.

3. Kensington Roof Gardens

Before my dad left, we took him out for a birthday meal at the Kensington Roof Gardens. A bit of a fancy way to end the trip. The food is always so good here and the roof offers totally new views of London. I’d recommend it if you’re heading west!

4. Bruges

Basically, I’m not a last minute person. I generally like to prepare for situations and last minute travel terrifies me. But I’m working on it. I want to be a more adventurous person. I’m desperate to travel more around Europe and throughout the world. In a baby step move, Joe booked a trip to Bruges via the Eurostar at 5pm on a Friday. Our train left at 7:30pm. Cue the madness of me rushing home from work around 6pm, throwing random things in a bag and caution to the wind. Sometimes you just need to say ‘This is happening. Let’s live!’

5. Nighttime Bruges

After switching trains in Brussels, we got to Bruges at 12am local time. We chucked our bags in the room and ventured out for food because we were ravenous. Except, it’s not really a foodie place at 12am. You know, it’s kind of a beer place… We found the Bar des Amis, where we’ve been before and grabbed a few pints and a random plate of cheese and sausage with mustard. We were kind of desperate.

6. Desperation fries

The cheese and sausages were OK for 12am snacks. But we definitely needed to upgrade our eating before we ventured back to the hotel. It’s not the sort of place you’d find room service 24 hours. We went to a little stand, stood in the freezing cold and bought these chips. And I am not even remotely sorry about it. We also saw a drunk girl fall over and roll around in the square. Nothing like being the sober people buying fries at 2am.

7. Worth it

It was 100% worth the madness that it took to get there. We’ve been to Bruges before for the afternoon, and it’s so much better having time to leisurely take it all in. We sat outside in the square and sipped on Belgian beers in the sun. We managed to convince ourselves it was warmish, and it truly felt like a holiday.

8. I’m on a boat

Yep. We even managed to get suuuuper touristy (which I love doing by the way) and took a boat ride. When in Bruges, am I right?

9. Waffles and Coffee

The thing is, the last time we were in Bruges we sort of failed at indulging in the things that Belgium is famed for. We had the beer situ down, obviously. But we didn’t try the waffles. When we went to breakfast, Joe made sure to get his then.

10. Work Snacks

Ummm. So our new work office is amazing and I’m loving the space. It takes me a total of 20 minutes to get there, door to door. I take the bus and I’m basically the happiest person ever. AND days are made even better when these babies are made in the office for photoshoots. Boozy chocolatey goodness in a glass.

11. Polly in London!

YAY. This past week my Mom arrived in London. I took off Thursday and surprised her at the airport. So the past few days have been spent shopping and drinking wine… which naturally, continues today. A serious post visit detox has already been decided on.

12. Why I’m kind of over social media

I wrote a post this week about why I’m feeling blah about the whole social media thing. Sometimes I LOVE it, but sometimes, it’s discouraging and doesn’t feel real enough. We worry about perfect backgrounds, and forget that life can be messy and imperfect. And that’s OK. I’m making a conscious effort to get past this and live in the ‘real’ moments. So my feed might get a little more personal now. That said, I do love my Adobe Lightroom… so we’ll see.

13. This. Keeps. Happening.

I’d like to add this disclaimer. I never shop anymore. I rarely buy myself things. I’m usually selling my life away on eBay so that I can buy food from Whole Foods (priorities). When I get together with my mom… we go for it. When I was home over the holidays, we shopped. Before that, I shopped when she visited in August. Every couple of months, it gets pretty serious. This visit is no exception to the rule. We’ve got another few days of shopping coming up… Stay tuned.

And that’s kind of it for the Sunday Coffee this week.

A little bit of bonus material from my week off from writing it. Lately, I’ve been struggling to feel motivated to write at all, so I’m enjoying the random inspiration this morning.

The rest of the day is going to be spent around Knightsbridge. Potentially Harrods and Harvey Nichols. This is the kind of culture happening today.

How have your week’s been? Busy? Relaxing?

Tell me all about it!

Kelly xx