I’ve been a busy bunny these days, so it feels like I hardly get time to blog. It’s frustrating as heck because I have a few blog posts to write and a few book/food/cupcake/city reviews to write and I keep getting caught up with domesticity!
I’ll do my best to post this weekend, but in the meantime, here’s a beautiful sunset hubby and I caught last week while dining in Canary Wharf. I feel like I don’t see enough of these (either the day is too long or the sky is too grey!), so this was a special one for me – first sunset picture in ages!
I have a few places which I’d call my happy place (a shop with colourful pens, for example!) but one I think are one of my go-to happy places are libraries. I don’t go to libraries as often as I used to since I got my electronic book reader, which I use (when I do get time to myself!) or I end up forgetting I have a pile of books in my room (I currently have five next to my bed) and start reading something else.
I went to a local library yesterday, and loved the fact that although there are many changes to libraries, there’s still that magic of hundreds of books and the potential of a new world to step into. It reminds me of my childhood a little as well, since my sisters and I used to visit the library every week (and take out the maximum number of books allowed) – one of my earliest memories of the library is my dad taking me to the library as a child, and the estatic joy at seeing all the children books – so it’s no wonder that this feeling has stayed with me.
Whenever hubster and I go somewhere new, I always look for a bookstore or library to make myself home. This is a picture of one of my favourite discoveries – a beautifully quirky bookshop we found in the city of Istanbul, which had art, beautiful old books and a big curved staircase which just made the whole thing amazing.
So here’s one of my happy places, being surrounded by books. I just need to find that library which had the huuuuge books in them, so I can stand on top and pretend to be a tiny person lost in Book Land…!
One of my biggest issues with my attempts with art is that I never feel that it’s as good as other people’s masterpieces, or that it’s not quite right, so it needs to be a little better. When I was younger I was convinced that I’d be better as I drew more and learned more about art – used different techniques and mediums and just find my niche. Sadly enough, over the years, even though my enthusiasm still sparks into life when I’m in the arts and craft section and when I read about different styles of drawing, it fizzles out a little when I pick up a pencil (or drawing tablet!) to draw something myself.
I saw this a few days ago and loved the riot of colour in all this – even though it’s framed and placed against other frames, they don’t act as boundaries, there’s patterns within patterns, and beautiful details which overlap and pulls the eye.
I’d love to paint something like this, and it’s when I see beautiful things like this that I feel inspired, it doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. I’m not sure I’m skilled enough to paint with oil paints just yet, but I’d love to try mixing colours and media to see what beautiful colours and patterns I get. So here’s a little colour to brighten up the weekend.
I love boats and I love travelling on water, although it’s not something I get to do much. When my husband and I went to Greece a couple of months ago, we took a cruise around some of the nearby islands and were awed by the beautiful blue of the waters, the cool breeze and the feel of the sea waves under our feet.
These days, we’ll have to settle for the ferry across the River Thames for some water under our feet, but here’s to hoping for another exotic boat ride soon!
Now that it’s getting warmer, I’ve been finding myself wandering around more, partly for work and also partly because of the long hours of daylight in the afternoon and evenings. Its interesting what I find around London – a floral decorated doorway, a food market, street art – there’s something interesting to be seen most days.
So here’s a snapshot of the various things I’ve seen recently, in parks, markets, shops and generally out and about. What have you been doing recently?
After the eventful Day 4, we decided to relax for a few days – it was the weekend and it was also time to make the most of time off work and catch up on sleep! We decided to stay in the local area for the weekend and explore local sights (as well as relax and make the most of the sunbeds!) and saw a lot of things we wouldn’t have noticed if we hadn’t looked around. As with the last few days, the day was a beautiful sunny one, and the breeze from the sea meant that we didn’t feel too scorched from the sun.
We decided to spend some time in the local beach for lunch, before we wandered around the town – I love the fact that there a lot of relics and artwork around the town, admittedly a lot of it for the purpose of tourism, but all adding a flavour to the town which was lovely.
Hubby and I were excited to find and Indian and Thai place, as we wanted to find out if they served halal food. The restaurant we found was called Visanto, on the beach strip along the seafront, and served a variety of dishes to satisfy our Asian tastebuds. Unfortunately, none of these dishes had halal meat, so we had to stick to vegetarian dishes (and chips!)
After lunch we took the opportunity to look at the local sights, which was around the main are of the the beach, and also some roads leading off from there. The St Irini Church was our first stop, the church being named after the Saint Irene (which is what the island Santorini’s name also refers to) – a beautiful big building of white and blue which was tucked away toward the mountains.
We then wandered around the local shops and then decided to stop for gelato at a local ice-cream parlour, which ad some beautifully shaped seating chairs and benches, and some seriously yummy-sounding flavours of ice cream (although we just opted for traditional vanilla with chocolate!)
We then decided to around in the the area towards the green, foresty areas, which had some private houses and closed-hotels dotted around, and lots of winding paths leading us around the area. We also managed to speak to some locals – one businessman, for example, told us he was originally from Athens, and when enquiring where we were from, told us there were a lot of Pakistanis who had settled in Athens when he was growing up, which was really interesting to hear!
It was a really nice relaxing weekend, where we met and spoke to a lot of locals, caught up on sleep (in the hotels and the sunbeds!) and ate at a few restaurants. It also felt a little slower-paced, where we took the opportunity to meander around the town and explore, and also have a lazy weekend!
Santorini Day 1: Hotel Rena, Perissa and Perissa Beach
View from plane window
From the very outset of our arrival, Santorini as an island was beautiful. The weather was completely sunny and clear even while travelling on the aeroplane, and (having the window sea!) the window view was beautiful – clear blue seas, high cliffs, beaches and hundreds of tiny roads. We arrived at a tiny airport in the middle of a lot of greenery, checked out quickly from the airport with our luggage and met a beautiful temperature of 27° C which was perfect.
We took a coach to the hotel’s entrance, which involved a small path off the main road of shops and bars into a private lane, with trees painted white lining the way. This is the entrance of our hotel, which had a swimming pool and bar at the entrance before walking into the lobby:
We arrived very early afternoon (Santorini is only 2 hours ahead of London) so we took a quick nap, changed and went out to explore. Our hotel was located in an area called Perissa, which is more south of the island, and a lot quieter than some of the other areas we visited. We visited in early May, which is early in the tourist season – a lot of restaurateurs and shop-sellers told us that it was quiet for now and would get a lot busier from the end of May until July – which was perfect for me because I hate crowds.
The main thing which struck me about this island was how green it is. It sounds obvious, it’s an island so naturally there’s be plenty of forests and mountains, but none of this is advertised when you Google Santorini – it’s all beaches and blue water. And there’s a mountain on every corner – to get anywhere you must drive around winding roads – our coach took us round and round the roads of a mountain to get to the buildings at the top, and yet from our mountain we could see other ones all over the island.
The mountain facing our hotel
One of the places we’d made a note that we wanted to visit was Perissa Beach, and luckily this was literally around the corner from us – at the end of our hotel’s lane, we’d turn left and see the sea immediately, and a long row of shops, bars and cafes alongside the beach itself.
Perissa Beach is also called the ‘Black Sand Beach’, named for it’s dark sand of volanic origin – there’s a good few places like this all over the island but this is one of the more renowned ones.
TIPS:
If you buy a drink or a meal from one of the restaurants along this strip, you get access to their beach beds and WiFi – make sure you ask about these if you want them.
There’s plenty of restaurants and cafes – don’t just go in the first one, look around and compare prices, a lot of the menus are the same but some are cheaper than others.
There’s enough variety of cuisine all over the island – we found an Indian and Thai restaurant, a burger place, an ice cream/gelato place and some Chinese restaurants!
We stopped for a meal – unfortunately we were unable to find any halal places anywhere, but we both like trying sea food and there’s also plenty of vegetarian options.
We went to a restaurant called Apollon, and ordered grilled swordfish with rice and chips, and a cheese-feast pizza. The fish was amazingly tender and juicy, and the pizza was the same – we could see that the fish was fresh and the portions were pretty big.
After this we decided to relax on the beach beds, enjoy the view and soak up the sun with a cold Coke and a book (in my case) and mobiles (his!) and watch the boats go by. We didn’t go swimming in the sea because we weren’t dressed for it, and we wanted to do this on another day, but we did take the opportunity to shed our sandals and dig our feet into the sand.
After we’d had enough of lazing around, we talk a short walk around the town to explore on our way back to the hotel. We saw a lot of beautifully decorated buildings and roads on the way back, and everywhere we walked there were flowers growing on vines, in plant pots and climbing up walls.
I loved the fact that there were plenty of tiny cafes and restaurants hidden away, which were perfect when we wanted to get snacks, cups of coffee or drinks in the evening.
It was a really nice first day on the island, the heat was lovely without being too intense, and the people we spoke to were really friendly. Most of them were able to speak English fluently and were quite helpful in telling us different places to visit and things to try – it was a fairly relaxing day which was just what we needed after an aeroplane flight!
I’ve been absent for a few days, so apologies for that, but it‘s only because we’ve decided to whisk off to the Greek Islands! I’ve decided to post a sort of travelogue of our time in Santorini, which is the main island we’ve stayed at, since I wanted to show the main things we’ve been up to and also any tips and recommendations for anyone wishing to visit.
To start off with is this glorious view of Thira, the capital of Santorini and one of it’s most busiest places and port. It’s difficult to show the best parts of this island and things we saw and places we went to, so this is one (of many!) photographs I took, which shows the iconic blue-and-white landscape – pure white buildings alongside a beautiful azure blue sea and plenty of boats.
I’ll be posting more very soon, the weather was absolutely beautiful and everything was very vibrant – the sea, the food, the markets and the sunsets – and it was a brilliant (and much needed) break!
Something pretty this weekend, a stained glass window which caught my eye, above a tall building – it’s not exactly symmetrical but close enough, and I loved the bowl of fruit in the middle!
The Harlequin Tea Set 