The New Pets!

A Day at Hampstead Heath....

Spring has finally come! The daffodils and tulips are out in force and I was excited on the weekend to have a day of 18 degrees.....yes 18. And yes it did actually feel warm after such a long, cold winter. We headed to North London to check out Hampstead Heath, stopping at Goodge St along the way to pick up some picnic supplies. It is a big call, but had THE BEST sandwich and muffin I have ever had. A little italian deli made a rocket, mozzarella, sun dried tomato and parma ham ciabatta for us with so much flavour it was amazing. And we found a place called Candy Cakes which did iced muffins. The blueberry cheesecake with raspberry icing was to die for!!! Mmmmm.

The array of muffins at Candy Cakes.

Our lovely sandwich, olives and organic cider.

A gorgeous spring day at Hampstead Heath. We sat for ages eating, drinking and lazing in the sun. Entertainment included a woman dressed in a beige linen suit, heels and talking on her mobile phone chasing her naughty golden retriever across the park (he managed to find the only muddy puddle in the whole place!).

The muffin: before.

One of the ponds at the Heath.

Couldn't resist taking a photo of this tree, these are everywhere at the moment and have the most incredible flowers, if anyone knows what they are called please let me know!!

Easter: Boats, Bournemouth, Beach and Druids

The Easter weekend began with heading down to Putney to see the annual Boat Race between Cambridge and Oxford. Only being about 10 minutes from our house on the bus we had no excuse! This year it was Cambridge's turn to win....although they still trail Oxford overall.

The crews at the start of the race.

Team colours all over Putney.

Looking back at Putney from the Fulham side of the Thames.

We then headed down to Bournemouth to see James's parents for Easter Sunday. Above is Boscombe Beach near Bournemouth. After lots of yummy food and easter eggs (and big bellies!) we headed home on Sunday via a lovely drive through Shaftesbury, Salisbury and Stonehenge.

Salisbury Cathedral.

The lovely politically un-correct sign at Stonehenge....very un-Britain like!

Gold Hill in Shaftesbury.

A giant Hovis!!! A famous advertisement was filmed at Gold Hill.

Friday Late at the V&A Museum

A couple of girls from work and I thought we would be cultural and attend Friday Late last week (V&A opens late the last Friday of every month and holds events if anyone is interested). Last Friday's even was all about games. Unfortunately, it seems all of the young people in London had the same idea meaning it was packed and big queues for all of the games/activities. So we took a wander around the museum and had hot chocolate to follow.

Giant game of pass the parcel.

Fabulous glass sculpture in the lobby.

My Sport Relief Mile (plus two more!)

A friend and I decided many weeks ago to do the Sport Relief mile and as we registered thought....why do one mile when we can do three? It seemed like a good idea at the time! But for our first foray into running events we didn't do too badly, 3 miles in 35 mins. And had some fun and raised some ££'s doing it :)

Victoria Embankment, start of the event.

At the beginning....figuring out how to dodge the people in costumes (including Scooby and the gang, lots of tutus, a few space hoppers, lots of superheroes and I think I may have seen a Batman or two),

Scrappy Doo and his dad, so cute!

Search for the Perfect Brunch Spot....

is over! Went to brunch with my brother and his partner in Fulham at my new favourite place. It's called Del'Aziz (www.delaziz.co.uk). They have a few branches around London and come highly recommended. I had lovely salmon fishcakes and salad, Grant had eggs benedict and Andrew a full breakfast. The eggs benedict looked fantastic and must go back to try it, finally somewhere that knows it should be the staple part of a brunch menu! They do middle eastern/meditteranean food but do a standard brunch menu that's lovely as well as selling tagines, mugs, deli food and spices etc. And as you can see, the cakes are fab!!!

Munchen: Beer, Sausages and Snow.

A couple of weekends ago we headed to Munich for a couple of days (cheap flights, thanks easyjet!). James has always wanted to visit Dachau as his grandfather was held there as a POW so thought we would take the opportunity to hang out in Munich as well.

The first night we did the obligatory visit to the Hofbrauhaus, the biggest beer hall in Munich. Given the stories we've heard about Oktoberfest we assumed it would be full of tourists like us but we were pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be full of locals and we ended up sitting across from a a guy from Boston who lives there and filled us in. There are signs above many of the tables that indicate it's reserved on certain nights, and apparently you either have to have been part of the family for too many years to count or be close enough to be invited in order to sit on those tables. The atmosphere was great, incredibly festive with a band, families and groups having a good time, and drinking copious amounts of beer from 1L steins!

Before I learnt how to hold it properly....it's very heavy!!

The locals having fun.

The next morning we ventured out into the cold, it had been snowing the day before so we layered up and went exploring.

The S-Bahn station near our hotel.

Dachau - I felt it was very disrespectful to take any photos inside the Memorial Site or any of the buildings in the camp itself so this is the sign out the front. It didn't stop many others from snapping away however, made me feel a little ill....especially outside the crematorium. Just a little wrong.

The walking man statue in the trendy Schwabing area.

Quick! Emergency! Need maltesers!!!

And the obligatory food photos....we went to a lovely place behind the Marienplatz for dinner that was recommended by Lonely Planet, and it didn't disappoint. The English menu seemed a little pricey so we decided to take a punt and try to interpret the German menu, with fantastic results! The place was a little taverna with good beer and the kind of food your grandmother would cook if she was German. I had this lovely braised beef with knodles (potato and bread dumplings). Delish!!

Fantastic store we found with every kind of dried fruit and chocolate you could imagine.

We opened the hotel room curtains on the last day and saw snow, snow and more snow!

Halfway to the bakery where we had breakfast we were already covered in snow which was hitting us straight in the face. Lucky we had the thought of coffee and pastries to keep us going!

Fountain in the Marienplatz with the last of the snow clinging on.

More food....beech smoked sausages and German potato salad. Lovely! And served on a cute little heart shaped tin plate.

Our lasting impression of Munich was that it was very clean and orderly, especially in comparison to London! No big crowds, very friendly people, large roomy trains and clean air. Although I imagine Oktoberfest time is a completely different affair!