What I've Been Up to Since Getting Back to England

1. The view that will never get old
2. Bizarre pineapple-flowers at Columbia Road Market
3. Pretty Liberty flower display
4. Temporary home in Hackney City Farms
5. More pretties on Columbia Road











6. Pretty pub in London
7. Pints with this baaaaabe
8. Goodies
9. FIKA
10. Cheeky treats at Rory's











11. A Tea and Cake London find
12. With the beautiful Charlotte!
13. Raspberry treats
14. I really just take pictures of cakes, don't I?
15. Liberty streamers (that I kind of want in my home)











16. Met Alice for a coffee catch up
17. Lattes lattes lattes
18. Vintage rainbows in Shoreditch (of course)
19. Brick walls and flowerpots in New Cross
20. Tucked away pub Rory and I stumbled across while getting caught in the rain











21. Iced lattes
22. More cake. Cake. Cake. I should have just called this post All The Cake I Keep Eating and Why Don't Any of My Shorts Fit Me I Wonder?
23. Shopdog guarding the door
24. A charming cup of tea
25. Making new friends

Tea & Cake London: Violet

After a dreary, rainy, Friday and a long (and very boring) day's work, I was in need of cupcakes. Naturally.

And since it'd been a while since I'd visited anywhere in my Tea & Cake London guidebook to the best shops around London, I decided to hop on a bus to Violet, a little bakery tucked away in Hackney.

It's kind of unassuming, a white-ish building with VIOLET down it's side. Inside there was an emptying display of treats, which I can only assume means good things about sold out snacks.

I chose a red velvet and then a chocolate with vanilla lavender icing, mainly because the light purple was too pretty to pass up. They were both delish, and I surprisingly liked the lavender best of the two.

It was a quick visit to Violet and then I was on my way, but not before several people were in and out picking up cakes and taking treats to go. I'd like to go back on a nicer day for an iced coffee and a violet salad and possibly a slice of that salted caramel chocolate devils food cake (I know!), taken to eat in the tiny back garden.

Violet
47 Wilton Way
London
E8 3ED
+44 20 7275 8360

(Previous Tea & Cake London posts!)

Birthday Afternoon Tea

Yesterday was my birthday!
Woke up to sparkling wine and chocolate outside my door, went downstairs to a salmon and eggs breakfast, hung out with my flatmates all afternoon. Left for Afternoon Tea at Bea's of Bloomsbury (Another Tea & Cake London find, actually!) that Bella so kindly booked for us. The sun was out all day, I don't think it rained once.
Tea was amazing; baguettes, cupcakes, brownies, marshmallows, scones with giant amounts of cream and jam. I had a hibiscus and blackcurrant tea that my be my new favorite (or maybe Birthday Teas just taste better?). We chatted our way through the treats, managing to finish all but three cupcakes.
Feeling high on sugar and just a bit (okay a lot) full, we wandered past St. Paul's to London Bridge for the train home, me stopping and sighing over London's views every ten feet (look at those lights!).
At home more cake was waiting - a carrot cake with mascarpone frosting that Bella had whipped up earlier. In true tradition, there was a cake chop, which my flatmates seem bewildered by but is now totally normal to me. And then there was more cake eating.

I honestly couldn't have asked for a better birthday. I was worried, before I came to London, that my birthday would be spent by myself in a cafe with a book. Instead I've made the nicest new friends who treated me like a princess and had the most amazing day, made even better by wishes from friends and family back home.
Thank you thank you everyone who made my day so amazing. 24 couldn't be off to a better start!