Taking time out in #London & the Art of Planning

I realise I can sometimes spend too much time planning, once I get sucked into researching something I often end up with little planned but 10 times more ideas of things to plan!

I recently had a friend to stay – my favourite excuse to go into London, see a show, visit the markets, Harrods food hall and have some afternoon tea! This time we saw The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe at the Kensington ThreeSixty theatre – an amazing and quite magical experience. This in itself requires planning through, to make sure lots is done and seen in the short space of a weekend.

My #SEgirlsMeetup adventures continue, bringing together a really nice mix of people and a great way to try new cafes or lunch spots. We have some new summer events planned across SE London and Kent.

I’m also planning a move to Kent, due to my job. I find myself justifying this move, firstly to myself and then to other who don’t seem to understand a young couple wanting to move out of London into the suburbs. However I just can’t face London prices, I want some more space and feel I’m at a point in my life where I really should start saving (for a house, a wedding, a car, a holiday… traveling the world… anything and everything really). Plus I grew up in the countryside so as long as I’m a train journey from the big city I’m happy 🙂 Yet more planning to come here I feel…

Talking of growing up – I went home recently and think the farm shop/garden centre I visited is worth a mention – Lanchester Garden Centre. A nice peaceful place to have a coffee of bite of lunch and the owls outside where definitely a hit with me!

I do believe planning is essential to be efficient in a busy life, there’s so much I want to do but find it too easy to be lazy with out a plan. Yet I think I need to be more focused when doing so, less distracted and then I’ll have more time for the actual doing!

My achievements recently are some hand-made fathers day cards and mastering a lemon drizzle cake, the recipe I followed is >;here it went down well at work. Top Tip: add more sugar then stated to the drizzle.

How to Keep Calm and Carry on! #Jubilee aftermath and #backtowork

I hope all you Brits out there have had a chance to celebrate the Queen’s Jubliee and some extra time off work!

I have the distinct Sunday night blues – even though it Tuesday. So what better way to cheer up a bit than write a blog, reviewing what I’ve been up to with a cup of tea and cake. Being in and around London this weekend and watching on TV has made me feel proud to be British! However, I think I’ve managed to mix the best of British with the best of Europe…. I had a trip down to Royal Tunbridge Wells – a lovely English cobbley street and tea room type town – lovely even in the rain. We went to a nice Italian deli for lunch, good coffee and tastey authentic food. Also made some bunting to get into the spirit and enjoyed some nice French wine and a few drinks in the local Irish pub.

I held my second Meetup this weekend too – Afternoon Tea in a gorgeous cafe in East Dulwich – Le Chandelier. This is a beautiful little Parisian style cafe with amazing cakes and what looked like some nice salads and lunches. The Meetup was a great success, a small number but lots to chat about and a great excuse to have afternoon tea! I’m so pleased with how they’re going – I’m meeting really interesting people who otherwise I never would have come across.

One thing that was surely British this weekend was the weather, unfortunately! A contrast to last the previous weekend’s glorious sunshine. My sister was here and for me this is the best time to explore London, we love the same things and had a packed weekend, of seeing our favourite band, visiting borough market, exploring Shoreditch and Bricklane, hunting out coffee shops and meeting friends for lunch. Oh and cooking a jamies 30 minute meals – amazing satay style chicken.

Anyway – I feel a bit better, but also sad that that’s it until next weekend (but we’re nearly there!)

What did you all do this weekend?

How do you beat the Sunday night blues?

Making New Friends (and a change of direction)

Being fairly new to London, it’s sometimes hard to meet new people or at least make lasting friendships. I set out to do something about this and now a month later I’ve had some great success, and wanted to share my experience so far…

I’ve been in SE London for almost a year and have made a few friends through jobs but with a partner who works away and family at the other end of the country I often find myself wishing I had a few girl friends I could meet after work for drinks, call up for a coffee and a and a gossip at the weekends etc (without having to pay £50 and sit on a train for 3 hours – as much as I will always do this to see my lovely northern friends once in a while, I can’t do it every weekend).

I remember as a teenager, as my poor mum will confirm, I always complained of not having enough friends – even when I did as school, college etc. And I was of the generation of the boom of Faceparty (if anyone remembers this!) and then Myspace hitting the scene – where ‘friendships’ where often online whether you’d met the person or not.

So… first stop – Google. Now after skipping past a number of slightly dodgy looking sites with lonely hearts style personal ad (you know you’re not going to attract the kind if friends I’m taking about) – I found a site called Meetup. Now this is pretty cool – it’s a global site with all sorts of meetup groups from sports to book clubs… to the slightly more bizarre – but there is something for everyone… almost…

I found plenty of girly friendship groups in central London but decided to take a shot at organising my own in my local area. All I had to do was write a little blurb and plan a place and date to meet – the site then sends out an emails to anyone registered as looking for that kind of group in that kind of area. Four weeks later I have over 60 members and 15 confirmed to come to my first Meetup!

Now I wouldn’t say I was an overly outgoing person – I’d never organised anything like this before and as much as I love to chat and meet people, am never usually the centre of what’s going on. I thought no one might turn up, I thought maybe they will but they’ll be completely weird. But… they weren’t and it was a success! 13 came – a great mix of ladies, different ages and professions which made for so much to talk about and great opportunities for more meetups to come.

So… I think this really goes to show that if you want to do something about a problem, a complaint, something you always whinged about – it is possible, often in the most unlikely ways. I went online to make a real live event and meet some real, friendly women, who are all in the same situation – looking for people to have a laugh, some wine and a piece of cake with.

“Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.” – Francis Bacon

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• Is there something bothering you that you’d like to change?

• Have you made friends in any unusual circumstances?

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