London

This weekend was the first weekend since moving to LDN that my boyfriend has visited for the whole weekend. Usually I like nothing more than to lie in and be the biggest sloth, but I've become one of those annoying London types who has to be doing something. So he was dragged here, there and everywhere across London as I checked off my touristy to do list!

This is actually a post about Sunday as Saturday was Borough market day and the warrants a post all by itself. So unlike Sat the weather on Sun was glorious autumn sunshine and clear skies all day, perfect!

We headed to Greenwich with the aim of going to the exhibition at the Royal Observatory (this is our 3rd attempt) but decided to head to Victoria Docks first so we could fly over the Thames on the cable cars.

As you can see it was a beautiful day and I love the area, my favourite parts of London are the old industrial areas. For a city that basically used to revolve around the docks and the trade coming in, they feel like the real London to me. Now they have all been regenerated and look all sparkly and new but some of the character remains such as the old cranes left behind.

Here I am! 

Before taking the cable car we got distracted by the Crystal Museum which had an exhibition about sustainable future city development. It was actually pretty good with interactive displays and lots of information, and also a focus on how people and society impact the growth of a city not just planning and technology. 

We then took the cable car over which you can easily just hop on if you have an oyster card or you can get your boarding pass there! It didn't take long to cross over but the view was really good as it was so clear, pointing out features such as the Olympic park or the Shard was great. 

It's a bit of a trek east but definitely worth a visit!

Avocado on Toast

I have an obsession or it could be an addiction, I'm not totally sure but I love avocado. There I've said it. It's only a recent thing apart from guacamole I thought I didn't like avocado, but I was wrong. 

So here are two dishes one for breakfast and one for dinner, they aren't exactly rocket science but yummy all the same, and super quick to make.

Breakfast

Scoop out the avocado from its skin and discard the stone, and mash to remove and big lumps. Chop up a birds eye chilli and a quarter of a lime. Add your chilli's and lime juice to the mashed avocado, mix and then spread onto hot toast. Sometimes if I'm not so health conscious I'll add a slice of bacon.. .rock and roll!

This is usually devoured this alongside a cup of tea whilst catching up with TOWIE or MIC (guilty pleasure!)

Dinner

Is a bag of salad put on a plate  (technical I know) then below I have prawns and seafood sticks which have been quickly fried with chilli, garlic, lime and corriander. Avocado is then sliced and sprinkled over the salad. Et voila! 

Parkrun

Yesterday I took part in my first ever Parkrun, 5k around Brockwell park in Brixton. Before coming to London I was living in Portsmouth, and was a member of David Lloyd gym. I was gymming a lot and was probably at one of my most fittest times of my life so far, even finally doing a 10k race for life. Sure I know I'm not breaking any records here but it was good for me!

Since moving to London I have joined LA Fitness near work and have been to spin and a body condioning class, but I've been so busy catching up with friends, going for dinner, settling into life that I've neglected exercise a bit. I'm starting to feel a bit mehhh and need to get back in the game.

Being new to London I knew there are probably lots of possibilities I could join maybe a running club or something. But I really hate competitve running the pressure really puts me off, and in the end I know I won't end up going. However a friend who has been training for the Great South Run and who has been truely inspirational in her journey to get to the start line tweeted that she had joined Parkrun (www.longtallally.com). It's a free, non-competitive run each weekend and its run by volunteers which sounded just like the sort of thing I would like. They do record your time but its more just for your personal record unless you like that sort of thing I guess.

So along I went at 9am for my first run, when I got there there were only a few people milling around and I soon got chatting to a lady who it was also her first Parkrun. Getting to know each other and joking about how we hoped we would make it to the end, we soon noticed a lot of people starting to turn up. There was a wide range of people, even some with buggies and children in tow but it did have a very welcoming and relaxed atmosphere which was lovely.

I dragged myself round the park 5k in 33mins which isn't bad, and had a pretty good time doing it. Sure my fitness levels are down a bit but it was a great start to the day and who doesn't love the smug I've done a run before most people have had breakfast feeling?!

I'll be back next week for sure.

Check out www.parkrun.com

Denmark

Hello!
I haven't posted on here for months, but I'm going to attempt to try and keep it up this time. Since my last post my life has changed pretty dramatically and I've followed everyone else to the bright lights of LDN.

I got a new job in London and have moved up to Brixton, the company I am working for is Danish and so last week I went over to Denmark for team building for 3 days. It was pretty awesome everyone I met was really nice, very interesting and its so refreshing to see a different attitude to work. Also the Danes have a very dry sense of humour which suits me down to the ground.

Here is a little peek of my trip it started off very nicely flying on a tiny plane with propellors aptly nicknamed by my work friends as the ice cream express. As one of the many food courses includes an ice cream course! I had downloaded lots of iplayer programs to my ipad but there was so much food and drink I only watched 10 mins of Bad Education in the end :(

One of the food courses which included parma ham, mozarella and tomatoes and cheese and crackers. this was followed by tea and coffee. An ice cream course and then baileys to finish. Before all of this drinks and nibbles were also served, the flight was only an hour and half!!

We arrived in the dark so didn't get any views of where we were until the morning when I opened the blinds of my room and looked out to this incredible view. I stayed at the Koldingfjord hotel which is right on the fjord and was pretty spectacular. The hotel has running tracks through the woods behind the hotel, a hammock garden which unfortunately I didn't have time to see, swimming jetty if you are brave enough! Basically it was beautifully designed and Autumn was in full swing so the trees and countryside were beautiful.

Breakfast was very good and taken overlooking the fjord, naturally. I loved the peppermint tea which you made yourself using DIY teabags, it had a really cooling peppermint kick to it in the aftertaste. No where near as sweet as Moroccan mint tea but it had a really good flavour.

After breakfast there was time for a quick stroll in the morning sunshine to take in the views and also the beautiful hotel itself.
I didn't really take any photos of work but we basically did this idea called FedEx days which is a team building concept where you are split into small teams and have 24 hours to come up with an idea which you then present the next day. Its called FedEx because of the overnight delivery part, although we definitely didn't work overnight! That was for a big BBQ and drinks! It was a great opportunity to meet the rest of my team who are based in Denmark.

Then to end the great week I was treated to the flight back into London City airport which was an amazing view, flying straight over Canary wharf and the millenium dome. Very cool. The east end taxi driver I had made me laugh when I asked him to take me to Brixton he said in his very east end accent 'I'm from the East, we don't go Saaaf of the river love'. Such a joker. Also very reminiscent of my East end dad who pretty much says those exact words!

I'll be going to Copenhagen in the future and tips or cool local recommendations?

Uni Day

Hello! 

Today was a uni day for me, currently I work full time but one day a week I get to revert to being a student bum and go to uni. I'm studying a MSc in GIS (geograpic information systems),the easiest way to explain it is to tell you to google it or think of google maps or google earth. I do GIS for my job but in the marine environment which is pretty cool. 

Its a bit geeky though and my day was spent battling with bits of code and SQL :(
Enough of that! 

In the afternoon I took myself off to the gym, I've recently joined a swanky gym near my house. Luckily I got some discount otherwise it would be a small fortune every month leaving my bank account. I wasn't sure how well I would stick to it but 2.5 wks in an I've been doing really well. I am doing a mixture of spin, body combat and body pump alongside occasional 1 hour gym workouts and swim sessions. I feel really good once I have been which is keeping me motivated to carry on. 

Food wise I'm trying to follow vaguely James Duigans Clean and Lean ideas, but I think I need to cut down my portions sizes still a bit. I'm not horrendously strict though, I still go for dinner with friends and eat cake some times! But I have dramatically cut my sugar in take which has been hard. 

Image from ASOS website

I just purchased these River Island trousers trousers off ASOS along with ASOS premier - I can't stand to wait for things to be delivered any more! I first got into patterned trousers when Laura from Buy Now Blog Later blogged about feather print trousers from Topshop. I love them and often wear them out with heels for drinks. 

I also really like this Khaki jacket from Zara, I have a feeling it may be a next purchase. Zara is literally my danger zone. 

I got this scarf from there recently and have had soooo many compliments on it, I wear it all the time. Definitely one of my fave pieces.