i have been back for about a week from the most fantastic trip with my darling daughter claudia and have been slowly tackling the 1800+ photos the two of us took with our cameras and iphones...so i apologize that i have ignored my blog for most of this month...i contemplated blogging from the road but have realized that technology just doesn't love me as i ran into major glitches with my iphone and ipad!
mark & i decided that we would celebrate our children's graduations & entry into adulthood with a trip abroad...so claudia chose london and paris...we made it a girl's only trip and mark kept asking why he wasn't coming along!! although we missed our boys, it was super special to spend time with claudia to wander, shop, linger in cafes, peruse galleries, shop, poke around antique markets, take photos, nibble delicious pastries and shop some more as only girls can do! truly a delightful 2 weeks despite some chilly and rainy days...claudia is a wonderful, easy-going travel partner, and aside from a few "diva" moments on her part and a grumpy morning on my part, all was quite stress free...the best part: she loves to take photos as much as i do...

so i must credit her with quite a few of the following photos captured via her artistic eye and pink camera!!


how can you not love a lobby filled with disco balls??

some of those delicious pastries in our new favourite find L'eto Cafe just a few blocks from our hotel in Soho...wish we had a location right around the corner from our house!!

a few iconic london sights...




a different view of the tower bridge often mistakenly called london bridge...

loved the ads at the more upscale "tim horton's" sandwich/coffee chain of london...

and we obeyed that message and went off to enjoy the most delectable "pret-a-portea" at the Berkeley...a very cool twist on British afternoon tea...the chef used the most recent autumn/winter couture collections to inspire whimsical and delicious pastries...


rainbows of colour everywhere...




february is the month to celebrate chinese new year's and it's the year of the snake, which is my chinese sign, so i totally loved the window displays at Harrod's...

and we found lots of hearts in the most unexpected place during the month of love...


we had to view the city from the london eye...



stumbled upon little shopping gems...

and this street!

loved the fantastic pop of colour of this door...

and you can't be in the queen's hometown without spying bits of "gold"...



or taking a side trip to get on the hogwarts express!!

by day...

or night...

London is still one of my top favourite cities in the world...i'll take a photo walk there any time!! it's simply brilliant, as the Brits would say...
cheerio mates!!
v
photos taken with a sony cyber-shot W570 and nikon j1