On Friday evening, I got back from a couple of days in London. After moving back to our hometown last winter, I don’t get to visit London too often anymore as it’s a little bit of a trek. I used to go quite regularly when we lived in Southampton cause it was just over an hour away, but now it’s a good two and a half hours which you know isn’t shocking but not something you want to be doing all the time. July is a super busy time for press days, it’s when most brands do ‘Christmas’ press days which is a bit mental. There’s gotta be a reason for this so if you know the answer send it on a postcard, nah I’m just kidding leave me a comment. There’s me showing my age though with the whole postcard comment though.
So I had a few things to do in London so I turned it from a day trip to a two day trip, I took my sister Hayley with me as I was doing some stuff I thought she’d enjoy too. After arriving on Thursday in Euston after our train journey, we checked into the Thistle Euston hotel. When I booked the hotel, I was looking for something within budget but in a convenient location. This one was literally 2 mins from Euston (we found a separate exit from the station which made the hotel about 4 mins closer than when you go out of the main exit.) I also managed to get a cheap deal through one of those ‘last minute’ websites so all in all, a twin room cost £130 which I thought was quite good for a London hotel considering I booked it last week.
For more options for hotels in London, read HotelsCombined’s blog on Where to Stay in London: The Ultimate Sightseeing Guide which is a good guide on hotels in different parts of London to ensure you have the best trip!
It was clean, modern and the beds were comfy. It had a nice white tiled bathroom with a huge shower which I always love to see in a hotel room. The room was pretty averagely sized and I wouldn’t say it was decorated to my taste but it was clean and simple so I was pretty happy. The room had this huge window wall which looked over to Euston station and we left the curtains open so we could see all the lights at night, it was pretty relaxing and I had one of the best nights sleep I’ve had in weeks!
So after checking in, making sure the hotel TV had ITV2 for Love Island cause you know priorities, we got ready to head in for our evening. We headed to the Etsy Christmas press day first, I love Etsy and spend about 75% of my work day browsing for cool stuff, so I was super excited to have a look at their press day. They had a bunch of really cool sellers there, including Hopscotch London who had some lovely candles, and Bloom & Wild who were doing flower arranging.
Once we’d spent a little while there browsing and gossiping with Sarah, we headed to Emma’s book launch. Emma aka full name Emma Gannon or (blog name) Girl Lost In The City, is a writer and all round mega babe. I met her at Zoe’s book launch last year and then found her blog on the train ride home and just fell in love with it. She’s honest, hilarious and one of my new blogging inspirations. I was so chuffed when she asked me along to her book launch at The Hoxton Hotel in Holborn. Her book is called Ctrl Alt Delete and I have a copy winging it’s way to me from Amazon as we speak. It’s all about Emma’s journey of growing up online, I am so excited to read it as I imagine it will really be relatable as being a similar age to Emma and I also spent the majority of my teen years on MSN, Bebo and MySpace. I’m excited to read it and I’ll let you know how I get on!
So yeah, we went to Emma’s launch, I don’t think I have ever seen a room so full and busy. It was packed full of people who were obviously so happy to see Emma and celebrate for her. The atmosphere was buzzing, and I just felt so happy for Emma. There were a few other bloggers there, such as Meg, and Lauren, and we all stood in a circle having a good gossip about really important things such as Harry Styles, Love Island and clothes. But no in all seriousness, it’s always so lovely to meet and see bloggers, I feel like I always have a bond with other bloggers cause we’re all in the same boat (however cheesy as that sounds.)
I also almost lost my shit when I spotted Gemma Styles (Harry’s sister) walk in. But don’t worry, I kept my cool and didn’t run over to tell her ‘I love your brother.’ But also, not only do I love her brother but I also love her as the articles she writes for the DeBrief are SO good. Go have a read if you haven’t before as I’m sure you’ll love them too. But yeah I hope you’re all proud of me right now for not fangirling or saying ‘tell Harry I love him.’
The party was lovely though and it was so nice to see Emma and see a room so happy and excited. It kind of made me inspired and made me realise how lovely the internet community can be. Yes there’s some bad eggs out there, but the majority are good and I love to see other women doing incredible things.
Okay so gushing over.
After we left the party we were pretty hungry. We fancied pizza, well tbh I always fancy pizza. We walked over to Leicester Square which is about a 10 minute walk from Holborn. I ordered two pizzas from Pizza Pilgrims which I’d seen on Instagram loads. When we arrived they were already ready, and for two decent sized pizza’s they cost £12. £12! Isn’t that good for London food? I was so impressed and the pizza’s were so good. Literally one of the best margaritas I’ve had. We got the tube back to the hotel, sorry to the other tube goers who had to smell our delicious pizza and we got in our PJ’s, popped on Love Island and ate our pizza.
I’m a grandma I know, but I was so happy to be in bed with my pizza.
The next morning, we got up, checked out and left our luggage with the hotel. We went for brunch with Sarah from Etsy. We went to the Etsy offices which are decorated like a tree house. They had a Harry Potter wall and a pantry full of Pom Bears, it was like the dream place to work.
We went to Good and Proper Tea and had crumpets smeared in Nutella. I ordered an Iced Latte which they didn’t have but had a Matcha Latte instead. I thought that was another type of coffee… erm yeah I was wrong. It was a green tea drink and I was like ‘ooh this is the healthiest things I’ve ever had.’ It just tasted like tea really, but for some reason I was really worried it would make me need the toilet. Is this TMI? Probably. But let’s say I was worried about having a Bridesmaids moment for some reason, so i only drank half. Thankfully, I was fine.
After eating our Nutella smeared crumpets and discussing wedding planning, it was time to say bye to Sarah and head off to Regent Street. Next we had an appointment at the Jo Malone Regent Street Boutique. We were a little early so we had a quick shop in Brandy Melville. This is like the only shop that I know the way to like the back of my hand. I love Brandy Melville cause the clothes just get me. I know that it’s annoying they only do one size and I do find that a bit ridiculous. But I love how simple everything is. I may have bought a couple of things cause I can never resist!
Then we headed to Jo Malone as they recently emailed me to ask if I’d like to go for a wedding fragrance consultation which I of course jumped at the chance of going to!
I’m doing a totally separate post on this so I won’t spoil it right now, but we had a lovely hour with AnnMarie and Holly. Also the shop is so Instagrammable. You have to visit.
Then we headed to Lush on Oxford Street, they had DM’d me on Instagram to ask if I’d like to go for a shop tour. The Oxford Street store is the biggest Lush shop in the world. Three floors of Lush goodness. Again separate post with haul coming soon, but we had a great two hours finding out about loads of different products and inspirations.
It was almost 5:30 after finishing up in Lush, and we wanted some dinner. I’d promised my sister we’d visit Chipotle as we found it in NYC and have been obsessed ever since. We don’t have anywhere like it near us so we were excited for burritos. However I then didn’t fancy a burrito but didn’t want to let my sister down so I had a salad bowl. I usually mock people who have a salad bowl but seriously it was pretty bloody amazing. I had a big dollop of guacamole cause it’s always worth the extra money and it was SO good. Gonna have to try re create it at home.
After eating we were still a little early for the train, so we had a mooch round H&M and Urban Outfitters, before heading back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and catch our train feeling weary and all shopped out.
It was a busy couple of days, I’m still shattered right now but I do love visiting London. I’m so lucky to be able to do all this cool stuff and be able to take my sister along with me. Like I said I’ll be doing some more in-depth posts of the Jo Malone and Lush experience and I have a couple of other London posts planned too!
Hope you all had a great weekend, what have you been up to?
