48 Hours in London

The look on my sister's face on her 18th birthday when she unwrapped her 'tickets' (handmade as I hadn't had them arrive yet) was absolutely priceless, I genuinely wish I'd recorded it. The tickets were for Wicked, the West-End show that she'd wanted to see ever since being a child.

I'd planned a weekend trip to London for us, staying in Clapham and we wanted to pack as much into our trip as possible. And I thought I'd share it with you!

We arrived at our little hotel in Clapham on Friday evening, which seemed a bit far out at the time but it was a two-minute walk from the tube station, so pretty convenient really! We ditched our plans to go for a meal and drinks in favour of stocking up on snacks from the Sainsbury's Local and watching 8 Out Of 10 Cats in the room. And we had such a giggle. I was exhausted from working all week anyway, and we wanted to be fully charged for a full-on day on the Saturday.

Our first full day was a packed one. We decided to spend the day shopping, it had been so long since we'd had a good shopping trip! Oxford Street (including the Harry Potter section in Primark, of course), Regent's Street (if only for Hamley's), Caranby Street, coffee, pasta and a lot of overspending... totally worth it. We wandered the busy streets, died over the Disney Spectrum collections and somehow managed not to buy the entire Sweet Peach range in Too Faced.

Back to the hotel for a quick change and out for dinner and Wicked. We were so excited. 

After spending a small chunk of time crying at the price of prosecco in the theatre (I should have known better, it was too much for my poor Northern soul), the music started and we settled in for the show. It was my third time seeing Wicked but I still love it each and every time. I kept stealing glances at Isabelle and seeing her fall in love too, which was so lovely to see. (We might have both cried a bit. Just a bit though.)

We decided to take Sunday at a slightly slower pace, and use it to see all the usual tourist sights. We headed to Covent Garden first for the most amazing brunch (an omelette with chorizo and potato?! Yes please!) before taking a little wander around Whittard's, which is one of my favourite shops!

There's sometimes a massive assumption that when you take a trip to London everything is rushed because you have to pack everything in. But I'll be honest, we weren't really feeling that. 48 hours isn't a very long time for such a massive city, so we decided to walk towards the river, and see what we stumbled across along the way. No rush, no stress. We took it steady, explored little side streets that looked interesting, passed Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square and eventually found the River. We wandered the Embankment, stumbled across a huge second hand book sale, found cute prints for sale, had an ice cream and just took the city in. We had the best day, saw plenty, chatted and had a giggle. And did a lot of people watching!

We're already planning another trip to London, hopefully next year because we just loved spending quality time together! The next show has already been decided - we both want to see Hamilton so badly that we just need to bite the bullet and sell a kidney each to afford the tickets! It'll be worth it though.

Have you been to London? What are your favourite spots?

Love,
Sian xo