"A Great British Summer"

Let me start by saying this: London comes to life in summer!

Spending my first summer in London has made me fall even more truly in love with this amazing city! The sun is out, even if it is only briefly and between skies full of clouds and inclement rain! People are out and about, weekends are busy and everyone is infinitely more cheerful! Lets just say that Londoner's certainly know how to take advantage of the brief few summer months they have available to them!

Brace yourself. This blog is going to be a long one....

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Our first highly anticipated event of the summer was the Royal Ascot Races! I should add that this was towards the end of June, so technically summer had started a while ago but I am not really sure if we could technically even call it summer based on the cloudy and cool weather!

After making the trek out to Ascot, a small town that comes alive once a year for the Royal Ascot Races, we weren't overly thrilled to discover that the weather forecast was in fact correct and there would be intermittent rain and cloud for the duration of the day. Unfortunately, when rain is forecast here, that is usually a correct prediction.

Myself and the lovely Georgia still dressed up in our finest, got our fascinators out of the wardrobe - off ordered off Amazon in my case - and were up and about despite the ominous weather forecast!

Above is our favourite pair of London-Aussie friends: Dave and Georgia. As you can see it didn't take long for the umbrellas to come out - all I wanted was a few nice pictures off us before the rain destroyed us all!

A pretty good picture of Michael and I, if I do say so myself, we did alright to scrub up for the big day! Wish I had been wearing sunglasses as I spent a good portion of the morning squinting towards cameras!

Above is a picture of myself and my friend Morgan from uni! It is not very often/never that I "run into" someone I know in London, let alone in Ascot so I was pretty excited and we both agreed that this was a photo worthy moment! Michael also brought along a very special savoury treat - TWISTIES! Thank you Kylie! There was an Aussie girl nearby who wasn't being discreet about her envy for our delicious Australian snacks!

A lovely shot of our Ascot buddies all dressed up - before the rain hit and our appearances all disintegrated!

We got to the races just in time to set up our picnic rug right by the fence, where the horses and the royals happened to strut past. As you can see Georgia was the queen of the umbrella, while the rest of us semi gave up on staying dry. At the Ascot Races you are allowed to bring as much picnic food as you like AND one bottle of "sparkling" per person - which we made sure we did! No more buying expensive drinks for us!

Above are some real legitimate photos of Royalty parading past while we braved the rain! The photo on the bottom left is a legitimate photo of the Queen (although, you can barely tell) and on the bottom right is a real photo of Kate Middleton (again, can you even tell). This is definitely the closest any of us will ever get to royalty and it was a genuine suprise to all of us that they even came past so closely!

Some classy rainy shots of the end of the day, the heavens quite literally opened and it POURED! We decided to make a not-so-speedy exit among the crowds of people who all, funnily enough, had the same idea as us! As you can probably tell we all got soaked the entire way through, Michael looks like he was attending a wet t-shirt contest haha! There were a lot of see through outfits happening as we all scrambled for the train.

I am proud to say that we did not let the rain get us down! We had an amazing day at Ascot!

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Michael and I decided that having lived here for almost a year, it was about time we got out of our East London bubble and ventured to West London - this sounds like a simple task but getting from one side of London to the other is actually a huge feat!

One night we headed over to Notting Hill for drinks and dinner. Before the eating and drinking began I couldn't resist stopping by the famous blue door from the movie Notting Hill - some of you might recognise this as "Hugh Grants door" from that movie.

We then headed to an underground restaurant called Trailer Happiness - we found this after buying a voucher online. It was a really random and funky vibe, we got dumplings and Chinese food with tropical cocktails - super random but very delicious!

After our stint in West London we headed back over to our favourite East Side. After having been to a rooftop party at this venue earlier in the month I decided I had to take Michael to the One New Change rooftop opposite St. Paul's Cathedral. The views are not only amazing but free!

Some pictures of us and the view of St Pauls and East London on the edge of the Thames from the One New Change viewing platform - there is also a really fancy cocktail bar here but you can go up and have a look for free!

St. Pauls Cathedral - so beautiful at sunset!

From here we headed towards the Thames and walked over the Millennium Bridge. This bridge obviously takes you across the Thames to South East London but also provides yet another beautiful view of St Pauls Cathedral - this is such a photogenic building. I think this is an amazing photo of Michael (below) if I do say so myself! 

The Millennium bridge lights up at night and looks amazing, we were a bit early so kept on going.

I have decided that for people that live in London we don't spend too much time actually checking out the major attractions and places that London is famous for - admittedly the hoards of tourists completely terrify me... We strolled along Southbank as the sun was setting. Behind me is a view of East London - including St. Pauls Cathedral (again, yes) and The Shard. 

It was beautiful and a surprisingly quiet and clear night as we walked along Southbank - this is my best attempt at an artistic photo!

Finally, some photos of "the" monuments London is famous for - you can see the London Eye and even Big Ben in the background. The sunsets in London are actually really amazing. I am still yet to see Big Ben at night and still have to tick that off my bucket list!

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One of my favourite things about living in East London is the amazing green spaces and parks that are right on our doorstep! These are gorgeous even on the most rainy day but they really come into their own during summer, when everyone is desperate to make the most of the green space!

The photos below are taken in Victoria Park - one of the biggest parks in London and probably the biggest in East London. 

Victoria Park, aside from being a huge beautiful park, also has several cafes and bars around the outskirts. We stopped at the People's Park Tavern for a few sneaky beverages on this beautiful warm day! Gotta make the most of the limited opportunities to have a drink in the sunshine!

I've almost mastered my panorama app - tried to take a photo of Michael in the beer garden!

Most importantly, for all my Aussie friends and family back home - we have finally bought a BBQ!!!! In our Dalston flat we have a really nice balcony that we all really don't utilise enough! Michael has a toy to play with on the balcony now! We have definitely been making the most of this semi-summery weather and have been cooking BBQ's several nights a week! The snags in bread are not quite the same (not as cheap and fully of nasty deliciousness) but I still love a good BBQ!

Another beautiful park nearby, and my personal favourite, is London Fields. Michael and I have had our fair share of picnics and sunny afternoons here!

This particular day was absolutely beautiful - I even saw a tinge of sunburn! We spent the entire afternoon lying in the park, eating cheese and SHAPES - a rare and beautiful thing! As you can see plenty of Londoner's had the same idea, with no beaches around the next best thing is to head to the local park with a picnic, some drinks and some good company to soak up the sun with!

A cheeky picture of Michael and I with our Shapes! It was a special moment - thank you Dave and Georgia! The "picnic in the park" culture is definitely something that I absolutely love about living in London during the summertime!

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Another surprisingly fun even we had at school was the Year 11 Prom - yes, Australian friends, they have prom over here! Up until now I thought was that an Americanism. This pretty much meant that us teachers got a little dressed up and admired the style (and more surprisingly, class) of our graduating (mostly) year 11s!

It also meant that we had the chance to take some silly selfies! A huge shout out to my amazing work friends, who are not only gorgeous but keep me sane and put up with me on a daily basis - well done to them all! 

I am pictured above with one of my favourites and the person voted Best Looking Female Teacher! (sorry for the poor photo quality)

Before the Prom it was essential that we all headed to the local, not so classy pub, for a cheeky drink!

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Now we have come to what I am going to call the highlight of my summer, that is of course, British Summertime Festival featuring TAYLOR SWIFT! Yes, I know, she's skinny and blonde and commercial and dates a lot of guys blah blah blah but I LOVE HER!

I headed to T-Swizzle with some of my favourites: Georgie and Madeline, as well as Georgia's friend Nicole. 

The weather Gods were finally smiling on us! The weather was amazing and it could not have been a more perfect day!

We had plenty of drinks and took plenty of photos while waiting for the lovely Taylor Swift to come on stage!

One of my favourite photos of myself and the beautiful Georgia mid-drinks run! They made us pour our bottle of wine into plastic cups - just sporting the classiest look possible, ya know!

The four of us honing our selfie skills - admittedly I am terrible when it comes to a selfie that features myself only but I am definitely getting in some good experience when it comes to a group selfie!

Loving life at T-Swizzle! I had such a fun night dancing away to all my favourite Taylor Swift songs with these lovely ladies!

As you can tell by the above photos we were all well and truly in our happy places by the time the concert was drawing to a close - most of these photos were taken during her final song (and the best moment of the entire night) - Shake it Off! We most definitely were Shaking it Off and having the best time of our lives!

I'm not sure how well this video will turn out but it definitely sums up our fantastic night at Taylor Swift - or as we are now calling it, the highlight of our summer!

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Now for another bunch of random summer photos I have to add in....

Just down the road from our flat is a place called Street Feast. In summary; it is amazing!

Street Feast is basically a collection of street food vendors all in one location! Street food is the HOTTEST trend in London, we all can't get enough and love lining up for street food and eating it standing up! Street Feast is not only amazing because there are a million options but also because it's approximately a 3 minute walk from our flat and the atmosphere is great!

I took some super cheesy photos of Michael and I with our street feasts! I got an amazing beetroot based pizza with caramelised onion, goats cheese and spinach = amazing!!! Michael got his new favourite addiction: jerk chicken aka. Jamaican spiced chicken.

These photos (above) were all taken at our work summer party! These are some of my beautiful and amazing colleagues that bring a smile to my face on a daily basis - I am really lucky to have meet some really awesome people, despite our inability to all simultaneously pose for a photo... 

Finally, and this is a pretty big deal, Georgia and I managed to visit Honest Burger - one of the most popular burger places in London. If there is one thing London does well it is definitely burgers and these ones did not disappoint! We got a table by the kitchen and were both super fascinated watching the burgers being made - simple things, right!? I got a chicken burger with three different cheeses on it YUMMMM!!!

Later that night, despite my attempt to have an early night, my house mates talked me into having a few drinks and heading back out, we ended up at something that somewhat resembled an underground rave and I got home at about 5am! On the left is a somewhat presentable photo of Luke, Lucy and I. On the right, as you can see, Luke and my appearance has somewhat disintegrated - trust me this is definitely not the worst photo of the night!

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Lastly, my most recent summer escapade was a boat cruise along the river Thames! Well, it was the last day of school and the first day of summer holidays and in true London style it was POURING rain - perfect water for a beach/boat themed cruise along the river!

The stunning Madeline and Georgia joined me for several hours of boat cruise madness - I swear it was completely accidental that we all arrived wearing the same tops but at least our hats were different, or as some drunk man put it "they represent all types of transport: illegal, air and sea."

We began our cruise by heading past some of the major London landmarks - the London Eye and under the Tower Bridge. The rain seemed to subside somewhat so we ventured onto the deck to take some snaps and I once again got to practice my selfie skills!

We took plenty of snaps at the beginning of the night but there seems to be a bit of a time lapse between the nice start-of-the-night photos and the less presentable end-of-the-night photos!

After crusting a REALLY long way south - as a reference for my London friends, we went way south of Greenwich! We finally cruised back towards central London and got an absolutely stunning view of the Tower Bridge, by far my favourite star attraction in London!

We did our best to take some selfies in front of the Tower Bridge, while it was all lit up and shiny - as you can see our attempts weren't exactly the greatest but hey we had a great time laughing at ourselves and braving the rain!

As it turns out the professional photographer did a MUCH better job in comparison to our selfie attempts!

I seem to have perfected the deer-in-the-headlights look!

Here come the selection of end-of-the-night photos - were all were definitely in our happy places and having a very fun filled night! My facial expressions in some of these pictures leave a lot to be desired. 

I love Georgia's face in this photo = priceless! We definitely had a great time, battling the weather and the millions of bogan Aussie's a Kiwi's on board the boat - always a fun night when I head out with these two ladies (topped off with an accidental detour via Waterloo and the BEST Macca's run of all time).

Well that about sums up most of the summer!

I am on school holidays now - hence the time to post this ridiculously long blog! Next week I head off to Portugal with a friend, before meeting Michael in Bosnia and Herzegovina! I have been counting down the days and CANNOT wait to get away!

Until next time.....

xxx