Julaberry

Hullo friends!

Welcome home to us! Despite best intentions I failed to update my blog whilst we were away. To be honest, I was just too busy and having too much of a good time to use up preshus holiday time update the blog! I spent a lot of the time in the car editing photos, I took over 1400 in the first 3 weeks alone and I am still editing them!

And we’ve now been home forEVER, I don’t mind confiding that I was rather depressed for the first week or so. All that planning, plotting, exciting excited and poof! It was over. And I don’t reckon there’s anything worse than coming back to Canberra in Winter – brrrrrr…

“But LaLa! How was it?” I hear you cry!

Lovers, it was brilliant. Possibly one of the best holidays I’ve ever had, and let me tell you, I have some brilliant holidays!! It was by no means the most relaxing holiday we’ve ever had, we ran around like chooks with our heads cut off for most of it, but it was certainly was never dull and we saw so much.

London is still one of my favourite cities in the world, that place makes my heart sing. It’s so vibrant and amazing and it’s got some of my favourite people in it. And HOLD THE PRESSES!! I MET BOZ FROM THE ADVENTURES OF BOZ!

Boz & LaLa - together at last.

He’s just as lovely as he looks (and doesn’t he look lovely?) maybe even lovelier! He took Mick and I out for drinks and dinner and evil, evil martinis.

And then we watched some odd people do erm… like drunken kung fu yoga in the street outside a… Latin bar?It all got quite blurry after the martini to be honest.

"that'sh not downward dog!"

"No, you're my besht mate"

"aaaaand stretch"

He’s so much fun and I truly feel like I met a friend for life. IF ONLY HE DIDN’T LIVE OVER THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD. Hmph. Mind you, he’s probably sitting in his lounge room right now, rocking back and forth muttering “Thank God she’s gone, thank God she’s gone”.

London put on it’s fanciest-pants weather for our first few days, with steamy days and brilliant sunshine. We stayed with my friend A at her gorgeous little house just outside of town in the countryside.

I love that people in England just absolutely revel in their Summers, sometimes I think we take our Summers for granted here in Australia. We were lucky enough to be blessed with temperatures in the 30’s (that’s degrees),  sunny long days and everyone in a Summery mood.  We walked along the river, explored the nearest town, drank pints of beer and we recovered from the 28 hour trip.

On our first Sunday in town we travelled with A into London by train and wandered around Hyde Park searching for a big, red pavilion. A had read about the Serpentine Gallery’s Summer pavilion so we trekked across Hyde Park searching for it. On our journey we came across the Lady Diana Memorial Fountain. The memorial opened when I was still living in London but I never got around to seeing it, though I remember some of the controversy around the project at the time. As it was a blindingly sunny and hot day and London is currently in the middle of a drought, rendering Hyde Park to somewhat of a dustbowl, there were hordes of people there. People were wading, paddling, splashing, stomping and jumping in the fountain. Teenagers were pashing whilst they sat beside it, entire families of Indian tourists were rolling up their touser legs and lifting their gorgeous saris to wade in it.

Hot, bothered feet

I think it’s fab that a memorial to a lady who was so beloved by the public is actively embraced by the public and that they are using it and delighting in it.

After our paddle we found the Serpentine Gallery, the location of the Summer pavillion installation. It was absolutely amazing to see, a mass of red in the middle of the green park with ping pong tables and a bar. The contrast of the green with the red once we were sitting inside made my eyes strobe.

Later in the week we got to catch up with my old flatmate and darling friend, Nick. Nick and I used to live together back in the drunken Surry Hills days, around about the time I started this blog. As one of my favourite ever ex flatties it was just delicious to be able to have some dedicated Sticky days. He even vacated his bed for us and slept in the couch whilst we were staying with him.  That is a true friend there my friends.

So, I’m pretty much out of words and peeved with uploading pics to Wordpress so you what about you friends? What have you been up to since I’ve been gone? Have you been to London? Have you lived there?

Did you leave your heart in London just like I do every time I leave?