chesham

here i am in chesham, staying with some friends for the next few days. it's a relaxed town - the perfect place to kick back before getting into some more travel. chesham looks like something out of a cliché english storybook - with quaint old houses & a milkman that delivers fresh pints every other morning. to give an idea, it is the set of many midsomer murders' episodes...

i'm crashing at some friend's of my parents from when they lived out here in the 80s. they have two of the cutest little boys i've ever met - robert (3) & harrison (just over 18 months). it's been a nice break to spend some time with the whole family, and (since the weather has been unseasonably hot) being able to sit outside in the sun without even needing a cardigan. european summer is definitely on its way!

i'm currently sitting inside my favourite café in chesham - the drawing room. it's a joint café & art gallery, and the building is actually the artist's own house (with 1/2 dedicated to the café, and the upstairs being a gallery), so the whole place resonates a really homey feel.

they make the most delicious organic tomato and lentil soup, it is totally mouthwatering. i can almost taste it now...

& to top it all off - they have free wi-fi. i've spent the past few days here, organising my next couple of weeks, before i head off to paris. where am i going, you ask? you'll just have to wait and see...

S.

camden, part deux

after a 13 hour coach trip from dublin, i was back in london at 8am. rather than take myself and my heavy pack back home, i made last-minute plans to catch up with a friend from back home - anna. she's passing through london for a few days before jetsetting off to ghana for three months, as a volunteer worker in an orphanage. wanting to catch her before she left, today was the only day possible. 

so, i strapped my considerably huge pack to my back, ready for a nice, somewhat relaxing day in a quiet part of london...

well, anna had other plans. "hey steph, let's go to camden!" ...imagine trying to casually stroll in and around market stalls with a big pack on your back - that was me. don't worry though, i made anna carry it too ;)

despite threatening grey skies, we didn't get any rain - so we whiled away a good 7 hours at the markets, both warm & dry. originally walking into the markets telling myself that i would. not. buy. anything. ...i walked out that afternoon with a new ring to add to my collection - a silver treble clef. in my defence i did barter the price down four quid...

eventually, our exhausted legs found their way to chin chin laboratorists. it's a nitro ice-cream bar, where they make the ice-cream on the spot, using liquid nitrogen to freeze the mixture. we shared a valhrona chocolate, with caramel & honeycomb, which we ate just outside the 'ice-cream laboratory' on a few wooden swing chairs. 

it's things like this that make camden such an exciting, loveable place - there's always something new to discover. although next time i'll definitely make a point of leaving my backpack at home...

good luck with all your ghanian adventures anna, see you in the summer!

S.

platform elastic sandals...enough said

massive pack to the right..