A VISIT TO MY FAVOURITE CITY - LONDON

I finally got to visit my favourite city again on Wednesday this week, London. I especially love London at this time of year, it's so festive everywhere you go with Christmas lights hanging on every building and street. My main reason for my trip to London was to see the Basquiat Boom for Real exhibition at the Barbican. Basquiat is my favourite artist and I love his work and I had to make sure I went to see this exhibition. The exhibition was well worth the wait, sadly I wasn't allowed to take photos but I did sneak one or two in. I, of course, paid a visit to the gift shop and managed to pick up a poster and a few postcards even on my student budget. If any of you are in London and fancy a visit to the Barbican this exhibition is well worth the entry fee, it's on until January the 28th. You also have to make sure you check out a piece of work from the Banksy which is under the tunnel around the corner from the Barbican, it's pretty much on the way to the Barbican from the underground station, so you can't miss it!

We headed to Carnaby next and our first shop was, of course, Crumbs & Doilies, because who doesn't love cake for breakfast! There's always time for a pit stop for cake when you're in London. Some of my favourites include Primrose Bakery, Peggy Porschen and of course Crumbs & Doilies. I love that each bakery is slightly different, I love where Crumbs & Doilies is, right in the middle of Carnaby in the Kingly Court. And is Carnarby looking oh so festive with it's Christmas Carnival! I love that I'm only a couple of hours away from London and it's so easy to jump on a train which next year I'm planning to do much more often because there's always something going on in London!

We didn't really have much of a plan of what we were doing for the day but it was nice to just have a wander around London and just see some things that I might miss on times where I come to London with a fully loaded day planned. We walked through Soho and I did manage to resist all of the magazine shops for once. Soho is such a great place and there's always something interesting to look at, another favourite is the Photographers' Gallery. 

Although walking around London is great, it was so cold and I definitely didn't dress that well for cold weather. We wandered over to the Tate Modern which is quite a nice walk but a very long walk. I do love the Tate Modern because there's always something new to look at and again a visit to the gift shop is always great. We did have some great fun on the swings they currently have on the ground floor at the entrance of the Tate. Anything childish and fun is always great!

It's been quite a while since I've been to Covent Garden so I thought we'd head there for the end of the day. I love the Christmas decorations at Covent Garden and with all the market stalls not to mention the beauty shops. I did pop into the Deceim pop up shop and picked up The Ordinary coverage foundation, so I will try this out and let you know what I think. At this point, it had gotten especially cold and dark so we took refuge in the Covent Garden Grind for a good few hours. I love the Grind coffee shops and it was definitely a great choice of place to chill out for a bit before my train back to Birmingham. 

I'm thankfully back in London pretty soon for a lovely festive day at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park on the 15th of December so there will be another London post very soon. I honestly can't believe how fast this year has gone, there are still some posts to come so keep an eye out!