Sweet Tooth

One of the things I’ve always struggled with (or enjoyed, depends which way you look at it) is my sweet tooth. I am a complete sucker for all things chocolate (except dark chocolate, not a fan!) and can easily finish a ‘family’ bar of chocolate by myself. One of my favourite things to do on a quiet weekend, or on a Friday after work is to run to the local sweet-shop, buy a bag of junk and curl up with a good book or two, a good movie, or just a little while messing around on computer games.

As much as I’ve enjoyed doing this since I was a teenager though, I don’t get to do it as much any more – one, because there’s always something to do in the house (don’t we all know it!) and two, because my fast-burning metabolism has finally caught up with me, and I can’t just eat any crap anymore.

I’m one of those people who either has to have lots of chocolate, or none at all – I really can’t do inbetween. Really, it’s a sign of being greedy and lack of control, which is something which probably started as a young age. My sisters and I often agree that it always felt like we didn’t get enough chocolate as kids – my mum used to ration them out to us each week and we always looked longingly at what we called the ‘sweets cupboard’. I guess as a result, now that we can buy our own, we go a little overboard.

One of the things I’m really enjoying about Ramadan is the idea of not eating more than we need to – there’s so much junk I am not eating because I am focussing on simple, clean, healthy meals which is enough to satisfy my hunger. Plus, there’s limited stomach space, and you don’t want to waste it by filling it with sugar! Usually it’s a huge struggle for me to go cold turkey and cut out chocolate completely (I won’t lie, many a time I have ended up overindulging instead!) but this month I’m keeping it simple, and the usual craving for chocolates has really not hit me.

Must be doing something right, hey?

Plaistow Street Art by Mr Cenzone

I love living in east London, because of all the colourful corners and walls I always come across. I’m a huge fan of street art (as I’m sure you’ve noticed) and can never go past any without stopping to have a good stare.

This is some artwork by Mr Cenz, a London-based street-artist, whose work I found in Plaistow, east London. They were both slightly hidden away and I managed to see both going past by accident (I saw one while was on a bus and came back later after remembering where it was!)

Apparently this one is called ‘The Wish’, and it’s a beautiful dreamy piece which covers the bottom length of a whole building block (took me a while to get the whole piece in one phoyo!). I love the whirls and contouring in this, as well as the black, grey and white tones on top of the colourful, magical background.

Not far from the above piece is this more sultry looking portrait, a beautiful mix of blues, greens and purples on the side of a shop wall. Again, there’s a beautiful mix of shapes on top of colours, with a very dreamy look to the whole piece that I love.

 

I’ll be keeping an eye out for more pieces around east London, especially some from this artist!

You can also check the artist out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Etsy pages.

Hackney Wick Street Art Galore

I recently had to visit Hackney Wick and was delighted to find myself surrounded by walls and walls of street art in the area. I love that there are so many artist’s works in the area, and that there are so many humorous, satirical and beautiful pieces all over the place. So of course I got a little snap-happy and got to know the area. I spent quite a while wandering around and still don’t think I saw all of the pieces, but I did enjoy exploring!

I’ll let the images speak for themselves below – I love that this is such a colourful area, with plenty of art studios and projects nearby, which is perfect inspiration for any artist : )

Tiger in London Street Art by Otto Schade & Dan Kitchener

So this caught my eye while I was out at work a few days ago, and I just had to stop to take some pictures because of how beautiful and vibrant this looked. The artwork looked pretty familiar – and I realised it was a colloboration of Dan Kitchener (whose intense work I’m in love with) and Otto Schade (I have seen a lot of his ‘ribbon effect’ work around Camden).

It was certainly a beautiful highlight of my day to spot this, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for more vibrant pieces like this!

Balmy Evenings at Camden Lock

The hubster and I were wandering around London town a few days ago, and found ourselves in this peaceful spot, the beautiful river bank alongside Camden Lock, with serene floating boats moored at the edge against pretty cafes and restaurants. We managed to make the most of the warm evening and enjoy the gorgeous view for a while (until we got hungry and ran off to have a meal!)

I love finding spots like these around London which don’t feel like London – serene, beautiful spots which take you away from the ordinary moments and give a little peace for the day to think about things : )

Neal’s Yard

My sister and I were making the most of the gorgeous (and long-awaited!) sunshine today and had a wander around Covent Garden, coming across this gorgeous spot hidden away in the alleyways. I love finding places where you can sit and enjoy the surroundings like this, which look much more prettier in life, but I’m sure you can see how vibrant this place looks!

Rainbow buildings, flowers and plenty of sunshine for this weekend!

Weekend Pretty…Easter Sunday Trees

The weather has been slightly more schizo than lately, but we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy the rain (and hailstones!) from inside with this lovely long bank holiday weekend! I’m sure you know I have an obsession with trees (and chocolate) so naturally I took the chance to take a picture of these today when rushing out to the shops to buy snacks for a lazy Sunday!

Enjoy the weekend all!

xxx

Gathering of Small Favourites

As it gets closer to the Christmas break, I’m going through my things and piling together things I love doing – I’ve managed to find my gorgeous colourful pens (i do love my pens), notebooks and paints which I’m hoping to play around with – don’t they look lovely?

Transition

I know, I know, I’ve disappeared a little from blogging, but I’m still around, fear  not! I’ve been immersing myself in classic films and long books to enjoy a little time to myself and it’s nice not to have a little nagging pressure of worrying about cooking, tidying, working or tip-tapping away on my keyboard (until the weekend’s over and it’s back to work!)

Today’s weekly photo challenge is ‘transition’ – be it the general phasing of one thing to another, or a general progression as you learn more to go higher. It made me think of two things, firstly, the beautiful blues and greens of the clear waters in Greece when my husband and I visited in the summer, secondly, about my own journey with writing and the idea of ‘going with the flow’.

I won’t bore you with a philosophical rant (and it probably wouldn’t make sense!) but I’m loving the idea of writing and seeing where I go with it, as well as travelling to new places and seeing where we end up. I’m sure this will always remain an ongoing thing with me, and something to always explore, but it’s also something to interpret and re-interpret – progression, transition and the journey it takes us on.

A Floral Print Rickshaw in London

I saw this recently while wandering around in London, and was ecstatic to find this floral-printed rickshaw (especially as I had heard about these and was keeping an eye out for these). There’s several customised by various well-known designers carefully placed in spots around London (or have been, for the last two months, I’m not sure they’re still there!)

The rickshaws were designers and put forward by the Travels to My Elephant campaign, which works to save and preserve elephants, their habitats and generate awareness. You may remember the Faberge Eggs display a few years ago by the same organisation, this year they opted for lots of colourful elephant statues placed all over London, as well as these rickshaws.

Naturally after taking some pictures I took the chance to sit inside and make my husband pretend to drive the rickshaw like an old Indian Noir film (he refused to pretend to drive or pose, so I just did it by myself).

Did you see any of these around London?