Autumn near Red Lion Lane

I often come back from London and think to myself how much I miss living in a city where you have so much choice and that every weekend has plenty of choices without having to spend too much money getting places.  In particular, this morning I wanted to get out the house but often it means getting in the car which isn't ideal when you're on a huge budget mission with baby on the way.

With all the positives of city living there is something we never got and what I wanted more than anything when we lived in Manchester was to step outside our front door and be in the countryside within minutes.  At our current place we call home, we finally have that luxury.  We see the changes in seasons, something I never paid attention to when we lived in Manchester partly due to being an ignorant young adult but also because it never slapped me in my face.

Last weekend we took a walk around the corner where Autumn was certainly slapping us in the face.

A sunny afternoon in Richmond

Phew I'm out the other side of a terribly busy time at work.  It's been pretty rubbish and with some painful symptoms I'm enduring with this pregnancy I've not been feeling the happiest.  At the most stressful point with work I went to London for the weekend to see Ellie Goulding with Mark, Ellie's number one fan who is also pregnant and her husband.  I can't believe we went to a gig in our third trimester but we survived!

We stayed at my brother's flat and the next day my parents also visited so we all went out for the afternoon.  Off we went to Richmond, a favourite place of mine even though I don't think I ever would live there even if I did have the money to afford property there, yummy mummies aren't really my thing.  Having been there before, I lead the way to Petersham Nurseries.  Mark and I were there in January, it's such a pretty cafe and garden centre I was desperate to see the end of summer there.

I adore the home bits they sell if only the price tag matched my bank account though I mean seriously £1150 on 5 dining chairs, how the other half live hey! Funnily enough I still enjoy looking at all the lovely things, it's like a museum.  I just have to get my thrift on and try and find all the things they sell at car boots don't I...

Mummy and daughter day out

...as my Mum put it.  I've been having a stressful time at work recently in the lead up to our annual major launch of results as well as coping with some painful pregnancy woes (going to physio on Monday!) so my Mum saved the day and said we needed some girly time together.  As much as we went backwards and forwards with ideas of what we could do, we ended up doing what we always do when it's just the two of us...meander around London.

Our first port of call was to the Real Food Festival on South Bank which was amazing though sadly no pictures taken I was too busy salivating, we couldn't even decide what to eat so walked some more and got paella from Covent Garden.

Before we dove into the hub of the festival we had a coffee on the roof garden of the Queen Elizabeth Hall which was lovely and peaceful.  I'm sure it's not as peaceful in the summer but look forward to going back there when there are more flowers in bloom and some bits aren't closed off.  

The rest of the day was spent plodding about central London, we even ventured down Regent Street! A quick stop in Hamleys made me jump for joy that pretty soon we can start being kids again playing toys with our offspring, however, how we will ever afford said toys is a whole different issue I'm trying to work out right now!!

My purchase of the day was on a really nice scarf from the Orla Kiely range that's in Uniqlo.  I could have gone mad there was a lot of scarves and they were all so nice!

Unfortunately I was flagging quite early on so we headed back home late afternoon.  To avoid mental crowds on the tube we jumped on a bus and reminded ourselves we must do that more, you see so much of London from the bus it's a no brainer.

Then popped back into the food festival on the way to the train to get a cheeky bit of cheesecake yum!

It was definitely needed though my Mum probably got a bit exhausted of me trying to get out all the womanly things I need to know right now like really how is this baby going to get out of me?!!?