Just two creatives blogging about living a married life.
Our ups, downs, and everything in-between.

2017 has been super crazy. So sorry for the lack of posting on my behalf. I thought I would do some filling in on what’s been happening. Firstly on the big news front… after a beautiful whirlwind of meeting and talking, laughing and falling more and more in love every day, Ollie proposed… and we got engaged!! To be MARRIED!!!! (If you can’t tell I am VERY excited!) It was a precious moment of lovely words and the question asked in a very sweet understated way. I cried like a baby and got a perfect ring, I feel so crazy blessed to have Oliver and get to be his wife:)

Subsequently, the last two months have been filled with an engagement celebration and planning for the future. As it turns out organising a wedding isn’t as difficult as people would expect, after a couple of afternoons making phone calls and sending emails, we managed to organise the venue with catering; church, registrar, pastor, photographer, wedding car, bridesmaids dresses, cake and band. As a couple of designers our invitation designing was a breeze. I hand painted some foliage and laid out simple fonts in the centre, Ollie printed it with a company called Solopress. One thing which quickly became evident and is the main negative about preparations is that–weddings are expensive!! As a result, we have been looking for ways to keep costs down. In a dramatic bid to save money, I decided to undertake the dress making myself! I will write a post detailing the process after the big day, but I will say–the results are not too shabby, a lot of enjoyable hours went into making it. The style of the dress is elegant and simple with the personal handmade touches and very much not perfect but saved a lot of money.

The second bit of news from our lives of late is that we had a Ghanaian engagement party. It was so much fun with lots of theatrics, vibrant colours and laughter. Ollie is currently writing a post on the occasion so I will leave the explanation to him. The pictures are a lot of fun!

THIRD big piece of news… (I know there’s more!) Ollie and I have bought our first home!!! This is exciting but super nerve wracking and feels like a big decision to make but after lots of prayer and God placing peace in our hearts our bid was accepted and we have bought a tiny flat in south east London! We could have got more for our money moving a little further outside of London but felt like being here at this time is where we are supposed to be. It’s handy for our church which is an 8-minute tube ride away, we have friends walking distance and it isn’t far to visit Ollie’s family. It’s also going to cut down both of our work commutes which is such a lovely bonus. I’m excited about the challenge of making such a small place a home for us and can’t wait until we are married and will share it together.

Hannah

I’ve always said Croydon is one of the best boroughs in London, not only because it’s the place where I was born and grew up, but also because it’s in close proximity to most places the average person often visits. Half an hour away from an airport, 40 minutes away from a beach, and 15 minutes away from central London. It has a wealth of well-known superstores such as IKEA, House of Fraser and John Lewis, as well as a plethora of restaurants including a Boxpark, and with a Westfield in the way, there isn’t much of a reason for Croydoners to travel long distances. All that being said, what I find more interesting about Croydon are the people. A mixture of diverse races, cultures religious groups, and mental states. A mixture of city and town people, wealthy and poor, young and old.

So when Hannah found out her train from Brockley was cancelled resulting in her taking a replacement bus to West Croydon. Used the extra waiting time to grab a few sneaky shots of people on a regular Saturday morning.

Ever since A Level art, I developed an appreciation for good photography. I would always make a point to visit the photography galleries at the Tate modern and stare at the pictures, trying to imagine I was actually there, trying to put myself in the mind of the photographer, to visualise what they were trying to achieve, and where they stood when the picture was taken. Instagram has been the place where I’ve practised my photography skills and admired the work of professionals. My Moto G was the only thing I used for photography, a £117 smartphone praised for everything but it’s camera. About 97% of my posts on Instagram were with the camera on that phone, and although some shots are really impressive, the camera still has many limitations, mainly it’s ability to take pictures at night.

I’ve never really been aware of the steps one could take from engagement to marriage, in my head there were only two; get engaged, get married. So when I saw an apple watch on the wrist of my friend and found out it was an engagement gift I was surprised since I assumed only the girl got a gift, but also excited, because it meant I could also get a gift. I knew I wanted a Canon camera but wasn’t sure of the model. When asked by my fiancé what gift I would like, I chose the 700d. Although it was a few models down from the latest, it was still fairly expensive and I would have been okay with her not getting it, but to my surprise, she did. Not only did she get the camera itself but also; a 64 gigabyte SD card, and a brown leather strap to replace the original Canon one.

I’ve now had this camera for almost two months now and although I’m far from being a professional, I’ve placed a few good pictures online the majority of which have been taken by me but a few are by Hannah. 

If you’d like to keep track of the images we post please take a look at our Instagram page, or if you would like to download some of our images for free, please take a look at our Unsplash page.

Ollie

Working in Bond street for nearly a year has made me familiar with the area. I know the location of certain stores Oxford Street, and what times the place is at it’s busiest. At one point I was even familiar with the tune a drumming busker would play each evening. Debenhams, H & M, House of Fraser and the Selfridge’s are just a few large stores I saw on a regular basis and understood the way they operated. However one store I thought I was familiar with, completely brought me back into the realm of unfamiliarity when we visited it for our wedding gift list, John Lewis.

I’ve only purchased a single number of items from the John Lewis on Oxford Street and although I was by no means an expert, I wasn’t a complete novice either, I was under the assumption it only operated like every other store in the sense that one chooses an item, pays for said item, then leaves the store. So you can imagine my surprise when I was told there was a process that involved one scanning items that get automatically added to their wedding wish list, and are also provided with a free drink and pastry. We originally planned to put our list together entirely online, but on receiving this information we couldn’t pass the opportunity.

No advanced booking was required for this particular store so we made our way to the customer service section upon arrival, answered a handful of scripted questions from the lady at the desk, and we were given the power to scan in any item of our choosing around the whole store. The device itself wasn’t that impressive, an old Motorola smartphone customised with a John Lewis scanner making it three times thicker than any other phone on the market. The app on the phone used for scanning looked very dated, with an interface akin to a Windows 95 application. Its requirement for a constant internet connection was something that was clearly overlooked by John Lewis and this became our first downfall.

Soon after reaching the lower ground floor Hannah spotted some oven mitts she wanted to add. She pushed the button on the side of the phone to activate the scanner, scanned the barcode and, nothing happened. She scanned it again and still nothing. Upon inspecting the device we realised it had no signal and no internet connection. Attempting to repair it ourselves proved fruitless, so we located a staff member at the till and asked for help, she too was unable to fix it. So she passed the responsibility on to her supervisor who stopped wrapping up crockery to glance at the device, then decided to call someone else for help. We were stuck on the side waiting and watching other customers make their purchases until another staff member came from out of nowhere, apologised, and took a look at our scanner. She too couldn’t fix it but told us our device was faulty and she will call to get one brought down to us. After around five minutes our new, functioning scanner was brought to us and we continued our adventure cautiously, as not to damage the again.

We spent the majority of our time on the lower ground floor trying to locate the items we wanted, the floor was incredibly large. A few things we canned included cutlery; kitchen appliances, crockery, an ironing board, a bin, cooking utensils, even containers for storing food. We both have a similar sense of style so there wasn’t much discussion when picking items, however, it took a long time for us to decide on what type of glass to choose. There were so many choices, but none in the size we were after, they were all either too small or oddly shaped. We settled on a style we liked in the end, but I’m sure we’ll end up adding to them with IKEA glasses in the future.


We next visited the bedding and bedroom furniture floor. I have no experience with purchasing anything for a bed, I have only ever bought pillows, and that was a two-click purchase on Amazon, I wasn’t aware of how many different types of feathers one could pick from for their pillows or duvet, I wasn’t aware of the thickness, the different sizes and how expensive some of these items can get. We ended up choosing a duck feathered duvet which can be doubled up for the winter, but single for the summer. As we were both clueless on pillows I seek assistance from the staff. I interrupted two sharply dressed men deep in conversation, upon receiving my request they continued talking, this time bickering as to who would have the honour of assisting us. A man with glasses and a grey ponytail humbly won the contest and after his college walked away gave some unexpected advice. He told us to show no interest in the all other pillows and focus our attention on one, not the most expensive or fanciest looking one, but a firm, lightly brown one that adjusted to the shape of your head when you slept on it, and never defeated no matter how often it was used. Both of us were asked to try it and I was immediately convinced, Hannah, on the other hand, was not a fan and although we added then to our gift list I have a feeling she isn’t going to use it.

We floundered around different floors for a few minutes, choose a door mat and a few other items. It was getting to the stage where our legs were begging for a rest after hours of standing and walking, so we decided to call it a day, not before we made one final stop to the cafeteria. In all the months I walked past this store I had no idea it had a cafeteria and a fairly large one at that with a wide variety of food to choose from. We redeemed our free beverage and hot drinks. With our hot chocolates, carrot cake and shortbread in hand, we found somewhere to sit, rest, and discuss the events of the day.


I no longer see John Lewis in Oxford Street as an average, relatively overpriced superstore where you walk in, purchase an item, the walk out. Instead more of a place where one can spend a day walking around window shopping, the have a decent lunch, a place where someone can book an interesting holiday and purchase a wide screen TV, a place where you can find obscure items you’ve seen in someone’s house, but never knew where they came from, then have a conversation about pillows with a staff member afterwards. It’s not on the amazingness level of Harrods, but it’s certainly closer to it than I thought.

Ollie

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to write a book; what topic I would choose, what format the writing would be, and how many words it should have. But I have never found a decent topic to write about. My expertise has always been web development and design, yet I would never think myself familiar enough with that field to write a whole book on it. Sure–I know a thing or two about running an online magazine; putting a site together, and I guess I could have written a book on the fundamentals of designing for anyone new to it, however, my confidence isn’t at that level. Who am I to tell someone else how to do anything?

A book is one thing, an article or blog post is another. I won’t write a book about coding, but I’ve written numerous articles on well known design website Creative Bloq about it. I wouldn’t write a book about anything in the video game industry, but I’ve certainly written a few things on Medium which have been picked up by an online publications, and I would never even dream of writing a book on anything about Christianity however, I’ve put together several small posts on my old church’s website. A blog post requires much fewer words than a book, a maximum of 3000 in my opinion, meaning there is less time investment on the side of the reader. I feel ‘less bad’ if someone reads a post they don’t agree with because it’s only 5 or 10 minutes of their time they’ve lost, as opposed to the 8 or 12 hours they would have lost reading a book. Almost everybody and their grandmother has a blog, so the requirement to be an expert wasn’t an issue. Yes–there is a possibility I’ve published posts with spelling or grammatical errors, but the beauty of it being online is it can be edited as and when I see fit. In conclusion, I enjoyed writing blog posts for various outlets getting paid too–if I’m lucky. So what drove me to write a book, what field did I deem myself expert enough to dedicate hours of my free time and thousand of words to?

I read a lot of fiction books grown up as a teenager, Goosebumps, the Famous Five, and the Secret Seven series. One book we were not allowed to read at home was Harry Potter. Growing up in a Christian household, reading a book about witches, wizards and magic was a no-no, (although come to think of it, we happily watched merlin on BBC one every Saturday afternoon when that was on). What made matters worse for me was that everyone read it at school. Everyone talked about it, saw it on the news, and had watched the films, but I couldn’t engage in any of those activities. So I grew up never knowing anything about Hogwarts even though it was mentioned in passing between my friends, I went to work not knowing what a 'muggle’ was whenever people made jokes with the word around me. And I had no clue what the sculpture below the number nine and three-quarters at Kings Cross Station meant, these things were all alien to me, until recently. After becoming an Audible account holder and getting a taste for fiction books after Stephen King’s 'The Stand’, I yearned for another long interesting book to be read to me, and what better books to go through than the series I was never allowed to read as a child. Seven books long; with raving reviews, and read by none other than Stephen Fry, I couldn’t resist.

Powering through all the books at 2.5 times speed I managed to get through the everything in under a month and came to an interesting discovery. The in the Harry Potter series is so good and engaging, the characters are interesting, but the world is what grabbed my attention. J. K. Rowling is a genius in my eyes because of it, she essentially created a whole world out of nothing, a universe. A book or film can be made from any small piece of the story that wasn’t elaborated on in the main books. Voldemort’s story in more detail; how Hogwarts came to be and its first students, the Quidditch World Cup in a school on the other side of the world. I was impressed with the possibilities, the different stories that can be derived from this world. Also having a story on a modern magic school is something that was new to me since most of my non-fiction reading was around sci-fi and fantasy set in the middle ages. With this new found passion for universe creation, I thought to myself, how difficult would it be to create my own universe? I play a diverse range of computer games all with varying degrees of story quality. I’ve watched a plethora of films and television series some of which are incredibly engaging, and I came up with a handful of stories which I didn’t put into writing in my youth. How difficult would it be to create my own universe? I’d have no issue with not being an expert because everything I write will be made up and I can make the book as long or as short as I want. With that, I began to write a book called, Crimson Hail and the Secrets of Valour. Currently, 2 chapters and nearly 6000 words in I have fleshed out the backbone of the story which I got from a dream I had last year and I’ve built upon ever since. It’s heavily inspired by Harry Potter of course but more futuristic and SciFi which is a genre I enjoy more.

So far I’m enjoying the process, and I hope to get to a stage where I can share some of the text online, maybe. Currently, I’m not in talks with any publishing houses and I’m not sure if I want to, purely because I’d rather not have any deadlines to work towards, however, I am really enjoying the process of making certain parts up, and diving into research to make the text more detailed. I’m using the time during my commute home to write the book on my smartphone, which is how I usually wrote my blog posts so there’s not much of a departure there, nevertheless, I would love to be able to take a few days off work to focus on getting it done.

I have no doubt the frequency of my blog posts will reduce because of this, but I will most likely write another post to let you know how it’s going.

I’ve always been a city boy at heart; I grew up and went to school in South London, went to university in Canterbury, and have travelled mainly to capital cities. So spending a week in North Wales for me was a bit of a departure. Foliage in most directions, livestock a stone’s throw away and, mediocre phone signal, all thing I’m not very used to. Nevertheless, my time in Wales ended up being a time of many new experiences.

Climbing a mountain

I’d like to think I’m a fit and healthy person because of my regular gym attendance, however climbing Moel Famau really tested my fitness. 

My original assumption, when offered to come along, was it would be an incredibly long walk–with some amazing scenery which was true. What I didn’t realise was how different walking in the city is compared to walking in the countryside. A walk in the city might entail one following a designated path, possibly with signs, on flat paved terrain and the odd bit of grass. The walk I took in North Wales was at first akin to the city, pavements, tarmac roads, signs, right up until we veered off the obvious path to one that was barely noticeable. One so narrow and muddy I even questioned the possibility of a car driving through it. When walking along these roads I always made it a point to walk behind someone, not only because we were walking against the wind and I would receive less of the icy cold gust trying to push us off course, but because my inexperienced city mind couldn’t determine which section was okay to walk on and which wasn’t. One wrong step could result in my entire foot being completely covered in mud, which was a risk I didn’t want to take. So with eyes almost glued to the feet of the person ahead of me, I took the exact same steps they did unless they made a miss step, in which case I would take a gamble and place my foot elsewhere.

Once done with the muddy roads we climbed over a style and found ourselves in a public farmland used to graze sheep. Although the livestock was quite close to us, they always made sure never to be in our touching distance by trotting out of our path. I was relieved at the prospect of walking on more grassy terrain than before as it would provide more stability, yet the land here was possibly more slippery than before and trying to avoid small piles of chocolate raisins on the floor (which I later found out was sheep droppings) didn’t help.

The journey from this point onwards was pretty much expected based on what I experienced a few minutes before. I occasionally stopped to look around at the diverse scenery which included Lord or the Rings-esk leaf covered floors with broad mossy trees some of which had fallen down and required ducking and weaving to get past. The peak of the mountain was pointed out every now and again, and the more I looked at it, the more I thought our progress towards it was quite slow.

Eventually, we reached a place nicknamed the ‘Zig Zag’ due to its highly uneven ground, and the placement of the rocks, one is required to move in a zig zag motion to climb it, this section by far was the hardest part of the journey. Completely brown with erosion which stood out because of the tall grass on either side, I stared directly at the steep path and took a deep breath before commencing. Placing my feet on the dry mud covered rocks was fine at first, but after a handful, I started to get out of breath, the air became thin. Climbing in such a way where my legs had to reach as high as my chest for each step constantly started to take its toll, quitting was not an option so I thought to myself, the best way to get through this, is to get through it as quickly as possible. With that I started a light sprint to the top, pain coursing through my legs, cold wind whistling through my ears, I was determined to get to the top no matter if I had to climb with my hands. 

After what felt like an eternity, a group of giant Christmas trees came to view, with a fenced off forest section on the left side of it. Once at the top of the zig zag I found a patch of grass in front of the trees and sat on it, soiling the palms of my hands, and the back of my jeans. I took in deep breaths and watched the others zigging and zagging beneath me. I was glad that obstacle had been overcome, but there was more climbing to go.

The final destination was a fort right at the top, from where I was standing there was about 15 minutes of climbing left, not insurmountable, but I wasn’t sure if my legs were completely up to it. With perseverance on the mind, I stood up and began walking. The ground here was entirely different, steep, not as steep as the zig zag, and covered in rocks. Hand-sized, flat sharp rocks that made a crunching sound as if stepping on cracked plates. I had to stop and take a break every few steps because my right leg needed the recovery time. My body was so warm after all the climbing I was thankful for the cold wind on my face. Once at the top, the views I saw made the whole trip worth it.

My view from the centre of the fort showed some breathtaking scenes of; the Welsh horizon, hills, valleys, and other mountains in the distance. It was surprising to see family’s which young children at the summit, did they climb up the same way we did? How unfit am I? I later found out there was a car park halfway up. A part of me wanted to take that route in the future, but I’m honestly glad I took the route I did.

Village shop carols

We have off-licence or corner shops in the city, many of which are chains so it was a surprise for me to see a completely independent one in Wales. Stocked with many of the items one would find at a typical convenience store, but in a slightly smaller environment, with a cafe area, and homemade Welsh fudge–from the slopes of Moel Famau (of course). The whole place has a modern 'hipster’ feel, so it wasn’t a surprise to me hearing they will be hosting a carol service with minced pies and mulled wine, what worried me, however, is if there would be enough room for the whole village.

On opening the door I was greeted with a wave of warmth, followed by the sound of combined conversation from; a group of tall, middle-aged men at the cafe side of the shop, engaged in light-hearted conversation with the bartender. A group of elderly people behind them some of whose backs almost leant on the wall of groceries. I stood in front of the freezer starring at the carol singers in the corner, on the other side of the shop door. There must have been between 50 and 60 people squeezed all around the place, including young children, which created a cosy, homey atmosphere like no other I had experienced before. About five carol singers sang in harmony, reading words from light brown pieces of papers in front of them. It was great hearing people join in with the subconsciously swaying their heads to the tune.

I left the shop briefly afterwards and therefore missed the second wave of carol singing, which I assume was some kind of string band based on the sounds I heard whilst walking away. I did, however, come back for the third and possibly final group of performers who were a group of saxophonists. I’d never been so close to a group of musicians before, I could almost hear their fingers moving up and down on the keys as they played. The first few songs were slow ones, which added to the ambience of the shop and didn’t really disrupt the conversations that were taking place. As the music picked up, more people turned to stare and began clapping and smiling along. A woman with frizzy hair down to her chin even started dancing and grabbed someone (who I assume was her partner), to dance with her. 

Mulled wine depleted, and happy faces leaving the shop, it was clear the event was successful. I hope the shop gets a lot of future business from that night, and if they were to do it again at the end of this year they could possibly sell some more Christmas related items.

It’s clear in this post that the new experience I had most to talk about was climbing the mountain however, there were many other things that took place which I haven’t mentioned, I might include them in future posts. If this is how 2016 ended, I can’t wait to find out what cool new experiences are waiting for me in 2017.

Note: The last two and the penultimate mountain images in this post were generously provided by Simon Dalton.

If you found out you only had a certain number of months to live, what would you do with it?

I’m sure this is a question you might have seen or heard somewhere before. Either in a book, on a television show, or it’s a question that’s been asked directly to you. Unsurprisingly many don’t answer this question with, I would like to spend the rest of my life making more money or, being the best at my job. Instead, people usually want to spend more time with important people in their life; friends, family, loved ones. So why do many get stressed out when they don’t hit a deadline, or miss the train that would have got them to work 10 minutes earlier. What’s important to most people is time with the people they love, not spending hours working in a place that causes their stress levels to rise.

It’s easy for me, a 20 something web developer writing this article to say, ‘if your job stresses you out, quit that one and find one you enjoy’ when the person reading this could be–a single mother of 5 trying to make ends meat on the only job they can get. Or the recently graduated student who us struggling to find a paid job without experience. As I’ve never been in such a scenario I can’t give the best advice and therefore can understand if you believe this article isn’t for you, but I urge you to read until the end. I’m sure you will find something useful.

For those of us living in developed western countries, we have a lot of things to be grateful for, especially when we compare ourselves to those who lived 200, or even 100 years before us. Turning on a tap and having cold, and hot water available at will; having a strong stable house to live in, a device in our homes that freezes and preserves our food, closed gutters, general sanitation to prevent the spread of common diseases, clean breathable air, the freedom to think, say, and write what we want without being persecuted, the ability to walk into a store a choose a bunch of items that have been shipped from different countries from around the world. I could go on but you get the picture. We have a lot to be thankful for and yet, many of us are not satisfied, we try to achieve more; make more money, get a bigger house, better car, live in a nicer area, which usually leads to more stress in due to harder work, and trying to maintain the level of life achieved, but it’s not important, none of it is, and it doesn’t make sense if you look at it from the in the grand scheme of things .

This doesn’t mean sell all your possessions and live on as little as possible, nor does it mean don’t try to achieve greater feats. The message is, don’t get stressed out, work hard, work smart but don’t push yourself to the point where life stresses you out, work stresses you out, when all you think about is trying to make more money to impress others and live a seemingly important life, it’s not important, work isn’t important especially if you don’t like it.

So my advice is if you’re not doing this already, find something you enjoy doing, change jobs if you must, and spend more time with the people you love, even if it’s a quick phone call or a message on Facebook.

Ollie

The past 5 months with Ollie have pushed my tastebuds out of their usual comfort zone of Nando’s, Pizza Express, and the classic Golden Arches to new extremes.

Here is a round up of my top favourite restaurants from this year.

Shaka Zulu

The most recent, and to me the most impressive of our eating experiences.

I had no clue where Ollie was taking me. He said he’d booked a South African restaurant in Camden, but could only get a table for 5.45pm. I thought it was a little odd to eat so early, I should have guessed it was going to be something special but I was not prepared for the surprise. The main thing which took my breath away was the interior design and architecture of the place itself. Escalators took us down into a breathtaking cave of sculpted walls and giant statues of tribesmen and women. As someone who loves anything sculpture related I took a lot of photos and it inspired a couple of pages in my sketchbook. I don’t feel like I was a particularly great conversationalist during our evening due to spending so much time gazing around at the walls. We ate a-la carte and the menu was equally as exotic to me as the interior design. There was crocodile, zebra, ostrich and buffalo just to name a few! I was impressed by the food, but for Ollie who has grown up eating African cuisine didn’t seem very impressed with his croc stew and said it was nothing exceptional.

We both agreed however that it was a super cool place to go, if not for the food, then the atmosphere and waiters and everything else. It was a delight!

Sticks n Sushi

We love sushi! This is such a great restaurant! There are a bunch of Sticks n Sushis dotted across London, we visited the Covent Garden one. We went to this Sticks n Sushi on a whim one evening without booking in advance, this meant quite a wait and not the best of seating arrangements when we did finally get to our spot. It is a chain of Sushi restaurants started in Denmark, so you know its good. I’m such a fan of anything Scandinavian. The atmosphere in Sticks n sushi doesn’t disappoint. I love the careful beautiful lighting which only the Danes seem to right.

The food is also sublime. This wasn’t the first time I have been to sticks and sushi, I think I have tried most things on the menu. It was brilliant being able to order my favourite dishes and show Ollie that it is possible to get nice sushi out of Japan. He didn’t think it was possible but was most impressed with our food. I steer clear of any of the skewers of meat, in my opinion they are over priced and don’t taste that great. The fish is where it’s at.

No-one does tempura shrimp like Sticks and Sushi. A great night out with awesome company, recommend this place to anyone!

Kintan

This is another of Ollie’s choices. Again, I didn’t know what to expect but LOVED it!

The premise of the restaurant is that you have a table with a hot BBQ esq contraption in the centre, you chose your own meat and cook it!

We were seated in a booth which was separated from other diners which I like, it feels more private. I think we were the only westerners in the place, which to me emphasises how authentic it is. There was an odd mix of British pop from the charts which did seem to jar a little with the rest of the place, but we had so much fun it wasn’t too distracting.

The menu was confusing and I loved the comical how-to illustrations which told us how to go about BBQing our food. It felt like we were transported to Japan.

This would be a great place to go with a bunch of friends. There is something super nostalgic about sitting around cooking your own meal and chatting with friends over a drink. We are definitely going to bring family here next time they visit London.

I took control of the cooking a little due to my paranoia about undercooked meat, needless to say I burnt most of it so our food didn’t taste great, but Ollie lovingly ate my burnt offerings without complaining.

Top tip- book in advance. We saw people being turned away, it was so popular and the wait was so long for tables. That would be such a shame if you traveled all the way!

Wahaca

Wahaca is probably the most mainstream of the places from this list, but as Ollie has never been before I thought he would enjoy it. There are so many of them across London. We went to one in Brixton. I have to say it was one of the coolest Wahaca’s I’ve been to. I’m a big fan of lovely interior design and interesting spaces, this certainly has it all. We were seated on a table under romantic fairy lights and had a fun time choosing our tapas dishes, sharing them and discussing which were our favourites as we went along. One dish went down so well with us we even hailed over a waiter and re-ordered. It is such a fun place to eat and I love that the waiters and waitresses are so friendly and willing to help. I would strongly recommend the hibiscus flower water. It is so sweet, refreshing and goes really well with the spice of the food.

Croydon Boxpark

We have eaten a couple of times at Croydon Box park since it opened last month. It is a buzzing hive of brilliant sights and smells and wonderful food. It is FULL of people. We opted for a taiwanese restaurant our first time and enjoyed bowls of noodle and chicken soup. It isn’t somewhere to go if you want to discuss important things as you are practically sitting on other peoples knees, but it is such a great experience. You can visit a different shipping container for each course if you want! There is anything from Mexican, french, Italian, Japanese down to a good old jacket potato place. Croydon is a really up and coming place at the moment, if you’ve never been it is well worth a visit! We are big fans. This would be an awesome lunchtime venue!

Hannah

I’m one who likes to make sure my senses aren’t going to waste. I only watch TV shows when I’m doing some sort of personal project, listen to music or audio books when I walk. And listen to a lot of podcasts when I’m at work, video or audio. As you can imagine, I’ve listened to a lot of shows throughout my time considering a week of 8 hour work days is 40 hours, and a month is usually 160. I can honestly say I’ve got to the point where I see certain show hosts as close friends I’ve never met, and other hosts as people I’m glad I haven’t met. Sorry I didn’t mean that to sound horrible, in essence some shows are good and some are bad. Anyway, I’ve put together a list of 6 of my favourite podcasts from all corners of the Internet, they may not be for you but I still think they’re worth checking out, if you have some free time on your hands. 

Just a quick warning for readers in the UK, all of the shows I list below are American, sadly no British podcasts have been able to catch my attention for a long period of time, so please ignore the list below if you’re not a huge fan of the American accent.

We have concerns

This is somewhat of a guilty pleasure comedy podcast for me as I listen to it every now and again. The two hosts, Jeff Cannata and Anthony Carboni go through one news article per episode submitted by a fan, (usually related to science), and talk about it with a comedic eye. Poking fun at it through the improv acts and jokes. I love the humour and chemistry between the two hosts, and each episode doesn’t fail to put a smile. There is also some element of education to their show but not always.

http://wehaveconcerns.com/

Reply All

The lists of shows I listen to aren’t in order but if they were, this would be at the very top of the list. Reply All is by far my favourite podcast and the best show from Gimlet media. It is a show that goes through weird, sometimes forgotten stories from the internet. Naturally being a Gimlet show it’s well edited and put together, and the hosts have good banter whenever the episode calls for it, but what makes this show fantastic are the stories. 

I don’t know where they find them but their stories are so interesting yet have so much variety. From episodes about how a Hasidic Jew left the community after discovering the internet, to the origin of certain internet memes and what their creator thinks of what the web has done with them. Each episode engages me to the fullest and leaves me with a new appreciation for the internet.

https://gimletmedia.com/reply-all/

Toolsday

This is one of the newer tech podcasts I’ve started listening to. Toolsday mainly focuses on web technology and speaks to me as I am familiar with most of, or all the tools mentioned on the show. What differentiates this to all the other tech podcasts I listen to are, the hosts. Firstly both hosts don’t fit the mold of being white males in the tech industry and they interject their backgrounds into episodes every so often. Secondly, they’re both quite unintentionally funny, I love the fact that Una sings a different theme song for each episode, and Chris put her down every so often after she’s sang it, the wealth of knowledge they bring to episodes, and the occasional bickering between the pair.

http://toolsday.io/

Invisiblia

This podcast is one quite close to my heart, there aren’t that many episodes in a series compared to the other shows I have recommended, but that doesn’t bother me too much. Invisivila has 3 hosts whose name I can’t recite because it’s mentioned so few times in the shows, but they so a fantastic job of telling the story and pulling at my emotion strings. The psychological stories that are talked about in each show are not only mind blowing, but also eye opening. I learn things about the human body I didn’t know were even possible; like the case of a woman who could see someone expressing an emotion and feel that exact same emotion herself, or the blind man who is able to ride a bike without any assistance. The hosts don’t just stop at the superhuman ability the individual has but also how it affects their friend; family, and their life as a whole.

This is one of the few podcasts that makes me stop and pay full attention whilst listening, then have a session of deep contemplation afterwards.

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510307/invisibilia

We’re alive

I believe I’ve spent the most hours listening to this show out of all the others in this post. There are 143 episodes around an hour long each, and I don’t regret an minute of it. This is not your typical podcast, it’s not a documentary or conversational type of show, more of a fictional story with actors, foley and character development. The basic premise is very original, a zombie infestation has developed in some part of America and a group of people try to survive it. Okay so not very original, but the zombies aren’t like the ones from the Walking Dead, they can run, jump, some are insanely huge, and one can even talk. 

As well as listening to how the group understood the zombies more and more, I enjoyed listening to how they develop, working together as a team, and continuing on after deaths of close friends. Also, some of these episodes have the most tense cliffhangers I’ve ever heard in a podcast.

http://www.werealive.com/

Undone

With only 3 shows at the time of writing this article this is the newest podcast I have on this list. The host is brilliant, the editing is top notch as I’d expect from a Gimlet show, however this podcast in some way speaks to me as a millennial. As one who listens to a horrible news story, forgets about it a few days later and moves on to the next thing. The idea of this show is to look back on events that were in the news a long time ago, and see how they’ve progressed, how the people and the area involved have changed since. 

The first episode was one that drew me in and made me immediately fall in love with this show. It focused on how disco suddenly disappeared in the late 70s and no one ever talked about it, or addressed it. The story talks about why disco stopped during that time, the people who were involved in it, and what happened to those people afterwards and that type of music evolved from those events. If all the future episode are like the first 3 I’ve heard, this will definitely be one to look out for.

https://gimletmedia.com/undone/

These podcasts are great for those who want an introduction to the medium, however they are very subjective. I’m sure people who have listened to a lot of shows will have a whole different top 6, or even more. Nevertheless I believe my selection is quite diverse, and will help in choosing which type if podcast you enjoy listening to. 

Ollie

For the longest time, I have been fascinated by the world of animation. As a little girl whenever anyone would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say ’ a Mummy’, ‘a bird of prey trainer’ or 'an animator’.

Over the years my aspirations to become a bird of prey trainer faded away as the desire to create beautiful animations grew. So when it came to choosing what to study at uni there was only one option, animation!

I found an animation course which prided itself on stop motion and spent three years squirrelled away in a blacked out room painstakingly making my models move frame by frame. My third-year tutor taught me the most and was a big inspiration to me. He had been an animator on Pingu for many years! As a tutor, he was brutally honest if he didn’t like something and that was brilliant! It makes so much impact on learning if you have someone teaching you who really wants to push you to be the best you can be. I wish I had been taught like that from the start, but for one year it was great!

skip forward 8 years

I have been in London for 5 years now, working in the children’s television and licensing industry! It has been so awesome. I have had the opportunity to work on concept designs for many popular children’s television shows. It’s been so cool to create characters and design sets, then see them up on the small screens. I’ve designed logo’s for tv shows, style guides galore, packaging, products and toy design. Going into Hamleys and being able to buy toys you originally visualised is so rewarding.

However, as fun, as all this has been, and is, it isn’t what I want to be when I grow up.
… ’ you ARE a grown up!’ I hear you say. I know, I know! This is the shocking conclusion I recently came to, I’m all grown up… so it’s high time to get a wriggle on and start working on achieving my goal to have my very own animated children’s television show.

Here is my plan…
1.    Find enough moments to write down idea’s which are flying around brain.
2.    Turn ideas into coherent Pitch Bibles.
3.    Develop writing skills and rough out new and exciting scripts.
4.    Ask clever, creative friends to review work and be honest with feedback.
5.    Find connections! - Try and be brave and put concepts out there into the big wide world.
6.    Don’t get too discouraged.
7.    And lastly but not at all finally pray lots about it. Creativity and passions are a good thing given by our Heavenly Father! ( there isn’t enough space in this bullet to expand on this, defo will write another post on creativity and Christianity).

Sorry, I’m still learning how to write blog posts. My plan is to blog about each stage of this process of trying to get my pitches out there. I imagine there will be a lot learn a lot along the way, it will be great to share the journey on here for anyone who is interested!

Thanks for reading and I’ll let you know how it goes when I have more to add!
Here’s to being a grown up!

Hannah

Being single isn’t that difficult. You get to buy what you want, eat what you want, go wherever you want to, it’s amazing when you’re below the age of 25 (or younger depending on how mature you are). Then–people around you start getting married, your friends, siblings. Family members start wondering when you’ll meet someone if you’ll meet someone, and what’s taking so long. Then you think to yourself, I have had fun being single, maybe now’s the time I should look for a partner.

Finding that person is difficult for both Christians and non-Christians, but the people of the world have–more options, whereas a Christian should really only be looking for other Christians (2 Corinthians 6:14), preferably a practising bible believing Christian, not an I-only-open-my-bible-on-a-Sunday type, and the former are pretty hard to find. The first place that should come to the mind of one looking to find a Christian partner is the church. You get to see them weekly, speak to them, find out how they interact with others and most importantly, what their relationship with God is like, however, there might be a few problems with meeting someone in the church. What if you’re not physically attracted to anyone in your church? What if everyone in your church is spoken for, or even worse, no one is attracted to you. Try another church? Hope to meet the perfect person at a Christian event? Or try online dating?

Yep, I just mentioned online dating, in a Christian context. A lot of believers might give a disapproving look after reading that, ‘someone who trusts in God shouldn’t need to resort to such methods’, 'people who search for partners online are desperate, you should just leave it to God’.

For the longest time, I agreed with those statements, I always believed God would just bring you together when you least expect it, with your head buried in the word and in service to him, without any effort on my part. If I applied this logic to other situations, however, it wouldn’t make much sense. Don’t go out to look for a job, trust in God and he will bring one to you. Don’t go looking for a house or even prepare food, God’s got that sorted for you too. Okay, the last point is a bit extreme but you get what I’m trying to say.

I am not diminishing the power of the almighty in any way, I just believe we should trust God to do the things we can’t do, not the things we can. Meaning yes, God will provide you with a partner, but that doesn’t mean don’t make a move or don’t approach anyone, and online dating is one form of you making a move. That also doesn’t mean ignore God and spend all your time looking for a partner. Spend time with God regularly, listen and be lead by him. If you do all that and feel the pull towards online dating, then use it, if you don’t feel the pull, then don’t use it. Everybody is different and God knows best so put your trust in him.

As someone who was formerly against online dating, I avoided it for a long time. Although I felt the pull towards it, I ignored it and treated it as a thought planted by the enemy. After almost 2 years of initially feeling the urge, I eventually gave it a try and found the most amazing person in just 5 days. God works in mysterious ways we can’t even begin to understand. If I hadn’t gone online this article, this website and this new opinion I have wouldn’t exist. Most importantly, I would not have met the person God has placed in my life.

Ollie

I have always made things, since as far back as I can remember, and in every medium going! Firm favourites were always sewing, painting and model making. I especially had a flair for the latter and have vivid joyful memories of being tiny, sat at the kitchen table making things with Mum’s homemade play-dough, then progressing to her salt-dough, leaving it out to dry and painting it.

My 7th birthday was the first time I was bought the magical clay that is Fimo. I had a starter set of twelve colours, some tools, varnish, hair clip bases, broach backs and gold and silver powder. It was AMAZING, I can remember taking each bright colour block out of it’s wrapping and placing them back in the styrofoam mounded display tray. (They subsequently stuck to the tray disastrously causing a lot of mess and anguish picking the blocks out again, but that is a mistake I have never repeated). I would spend hours on my creations, furnishing my dolls house with tiny plates of food, making jewellery or gifts for my parents. The wonder of putting my carefully crafted objects in the oven and waiting for them to cool down so I could varnish them was such a magical process to me. The longevity of the items I could make also opened a world of possibilities. Even though I was a kid with no money and couldn’t buy anyone gifts… I could make them thoughtful quality objects which would last!

Sorry for the waffle, I’m not as concise or eloquent as dear Oliver so I’m struggling a little to get to the point of this post. Thank you for bearing with!!

My idea for Little Toucan came about through my love for animal puns, cute tiny sculptures, and the gap in the market between cards and small thoughtful gifts. Sometimes you want to show someone your appreciation for them, but a card isn’t quite enough and you can’t afford an extravagant gift. This is where my little ‘toucans’ of affection come into play.

It is a fun and surprising way of putting a smile across those loved one’s faces.

To start I had a fun time sketching out what I wanted to make and then coming up with funny animal puns to go with them and writing witty product descriptions. Then evening upon evening I spent hunched over my tiny creations, trying my hardest to make them as exactly the same as I possibly could… I love a good challenge! The painting process was when they really came to life. I chose the brightest acrylic colours I could find and really stylised the painting for cuteness. Then I topped them off with a glaze of satin varnish.

I purchased the brown craft ring boxes from the Little Box Company. I love how unsuspecting and dull the brown exteriors are in contrast with the bright pop of colour when you open them. I carefully selected coloured tissue paper which would compliment the little critter in each box to make them stand out. To brand the packaging I printed out a bunch of colourful stickers with my logo on from www.moo.com and then tied everything together with contrasting coloured twine.

To ship the cute critters I purchased padded envelopes from Amazon and printed out address labels with my return address on.

Once all the hard work of making had been done I really enjoyed posting images of my products online and seeing the massive positive response I received from all my friends and family. It was overwhelming.

I created a Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr site all advertising my shop.

The pictures for my social media and shop I took on my iPhone, I set up a little photo-shoot booth on my windowsill with white paper and the lovely diffused winter light. I was quite proud of the photographic results. The only piece of slightly negative feedback I received from people was that from the pictures they didn’t really have a handle on the size of the models… In real life, they are only about a centre meter in diameter, extra cute!

I learnt a number of things through this whole project. I learnt how fun it can be to be creative and really concentrate on the quality of the objects you are creating, thinking about people buying them. Playing shop is fun too! I underwent this project during a particularly lonely and if I’m honest quite hard time in my life, and I can’t recommend enough giving yourself something challenging to focus on to help take your mind off the realities of life, it was a definite escape for me. That might explain to you all how I had the time and patience to complete this. Being creative is good for the soul. I also learnt that pricing objects is hard. For the hours and effort put into each character I should have charged about 5 or 6 times the price I did to earn minimum wage… but for me it wasn’t about money really.

I sold out of stock in the first three weeks! That was a surprise. Most of my sales had been in person to friends and family, but I am proud to say 16 sales were to complete strangers!! That surprised me. And scared me a little at the time. Friends and family always tell you things are great, even if they aren’t really, but strangers don’t need to care about your feelings. After every sale I would check in my shop daily waiting for negative feedback, but it never arrived!! Only positive!

The whole experience was such a fun one, right the way from designing the logo, to making the models to posting them to customers. I really love playing shop. And the money I made covered the cost of all of the materials bought. I am not a millionaire, and the hours spent on making these models I can never get back, but I’m ok with that. I am thankful for the whole experience and will always look back on it with fondness.

The shop is totally dry but if you want to check out pictures of the models feel free to check out my social media pages, they are still active and quite pleasingly accruing likes and follows from strangers. Some of my models are being pinned multiple times a day to peoples Pinterest boards which feels lovely!

Hannah

https://www.instagram.com/hellolittletoucan/

http://www.littletoucan.com/

https://www.facebook.com/HelloLittleToucan/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/453104412490164159/

I’ve never really been into plants, I know they provide the oxygen we breathe, the salads we eat, the all natural skin products we use and so on. However, apart from the obvious beauty some of them possess, I’ve never felt the need to just–watch them. I could watch animals all day but plants, don’t really do much in terms of moving, making them not really exciting to look at. 

I’ve visited a lot of attractions in London whilst growing up from the millennium dome, Madame Tussaud’s, the Tates, national gallery, science museum but for a long time I hadn’t visited Kew gardens. I’d heard of it if course, from friends and loved ones who have visited and given it great reviews, but I didn’t see the point. Other than a romantic place to walk around in and stare at exotic looking plants, which is exactly why I decided to go there with Hannah on the afternoon of her birthday.

With a day taken off work, and a relatively good camera at the ready, I set off to visit the London-based botanical gardens I’ve avoided for so long, and the scenery was a lot more impressive than I ever could have imagined.

Ollie