Friday figments and photos

Ah, Friday, there you are. I struggle with the concept of wishing my life away, but at the same time the weekends are so full of promise. Brunch, sunshine, London to explore, road trips, literary art benches, the hushed silence of tourists at the Tower of London, iconic buildings and Lolly Cake.

Luckily on top of this, inspired by the stunning view of our 'Room with a View' travel linkup we're got another girlie getaway weekend planned (ps there's still time to join us!)...

Have you many plans for the weekend, or are you chillin in your PJs?

Things to do (if you fall for a sailor and find yourself spending time) in Aberdeen, Scotland – Part 1

Scottish Sea shanty singing aside (rounds are usually best I've found) my lovely guest poster Alana (she of the SantaCon legend and Guildford walking track) has kindly offered to pop back in with a round of adventures and recommendations in Aberdeen.

I adore that Alana likes to travel the way I do, explore and get under the skin of a city off the beaten track, really taking the time to wander and taste the beer. I mean, the culture of a new place.

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Aberdeen is Scotland’s third largest city, the ‘gateway to the North Sea’ and not a city you’d find yourself visiting unless you have another reason to be there. I date a sailor who works in the offshore industry and he’d been away forever doing boat things so I decided to pay him (and Aberdeen) a visit.

When going to a new place I normally search for travel blogs to get ideas beyond the usual Tripadvisor/tourist board website fare but it seems nobody has written a travel blog on Aberdeen. So after researching and visiting it myself (and with many thanks to Emma) I would like to present:

Things to do (if you fall for a sailor and find yourself spending time) in Aberdeen – Part 1

Get some Scottish banknotes
If you’re used to spending English pounds the Scottish equivalent are a colourful change. Plus it’s fun to use them back in England. They’re legal tender anywhere in the UK but they can confuse people – so if you’re the mischievous sort this one is for you.


Visit the Aberdeen Museum
I LOVED this museum. The rooms were small enough that I didn’t feel overwhelmed and a lot of the paintings and sculpture were in my art sweet spot of somewhere between 1800 and 1940.

  
Following a colourful trail of flowers up the stairs took me to the current exhibition which was 50 years of work by textile designer Kaffe Fassett.







Compared with the white walls in the rest of the gallery the exhibition was a riot of colour, pattern and texture. I absolutely loved it and couldn’t rate it high enough. The only people that seemed to like it more than me were the couple wearing matching Fassett inspired knitted jerseys.

The staff are also lovely. When I asked reception if anyone would know if works from an ancestor of mine were in the collection another staff member tracked me down, catalogue in hand to look it up for me before I had a chance to find him first.

Get your sailor boyfriend to give you a tour of his boat
It’s not something that most visitors to Aberdeen get to do but The Boy organised for me to have a quick tour of the boat he works on. Technically it’s 81 metres of multi purpose offshore vessel but calling it a boat simplifies things.



There was some pretty serious maintenance underway - in fact the boat wasn’t even floating as it was getting a new paint job and an overhaul of its mechanical bits. It was fascinating, oily, manly (seriously there were no women anywhere) and a totally different working environment from my job in a pristine central London office.

Visit Footdee and try find the ugliest garden ornament or friendliest cat
Footdee (called Fittee by the locals) is an old fishing village on the east side of the Aberdeen harbour. It’s incredibly photogenic with cute little wooden shacks and slate roof cottages. I had a lot of fun judging peoples taste in garden ornaments and trying to figure out if a garden gnome can ever be ironic.

The weather was good so I also took a walk along the beach near Footdee. You can see out across the North Sea and watch the boats coming in to Aberdeen harbour. I was there at 7.30am but I think it would be spectacular if you arrived a bit earlier for the sunrise.



Walk around Aberdeen
Aberdeen is known as the grey or granite city as a lot of the buildings are build of the local granite. The Marischal College building is pretty spectacular as it’s recently renovation has restored the granite from charcoal to the original silver grey.

Aberdeen isn’t a big city and I got a good feel for it by walking around.

Leave Aberdeen and go on a daytrip
45 minutes south of Aberdeen by bus is the town of Stonehaven and nearby Dunnottar Castle. The castle is a ruined fortress famous as the hiding place of the Scottish crown jewels from the army of Oliver Cromwell. It’s also perched on a headland facing the North Sea and is pretty awesome to explore.





There is a path that heads from Dunnottar Castle in the direction of Stonehaven. Hoping it would eventually get me to town I followed it along the edge of the cliffs getting stunning views over farmland, the sea and back towards the castle. The walk goes past the Stonehaven War Memorial which is designed to look unfinished to symbolise the lives of the local men that were cut short.



When I reached Stonehaven there was all sorts of noise (I believe it was a rather enthusiastic jazz band) and activity down by the harbour. The town was in the middle of a harbour festival and there were children and boats everywhere as well as people trying to convince you to vote Yes or No to Scottish independence, donate to the RNLI or even just buy a kipper in a roll.



I also ducked into the Tollbooth Museum which is tiny but worth a look. It’s like being in a really quirky and cluttered antique shop. Except nothing is for sale.



Things in Aberdeen I didn’t get to see
I had some bad luck with flight cancellations and delays and arrived in Aberdeen half a day later than I planned. Here’s some other things I would’ve seen if I had the chance:

Aberdeen Maritime Museum
I prioritised the Aberdeen Art Gallery ahead of this museum however it’s meant to be pretty cool and would’ve made the list if I’d had another day.
Aberdeen Country Fair
Held on the last Saturday of the month (and the Saturdays before Christmas) this market has everything from local produce to crafts and jewellery.

In a second installment shortly I talk about the tasty places for food and drink at in Aberdeen...

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Thank you Alana! I need to book a couple of tickets methinks...

The Zetter Townhouse cocktail lounge, Farringdon

You should never judge a book by it's cover, a cat by it's whiskers or a hotel bar by it's classically beautiful facade. This Farringdon beauty might even have a boxing Kangaroo in the corner...

 

The beautiful exterior of the Zetter Townhouse doesn't in anyway hint at the eccentric parlor contained within. Stuffed with a bevy of nick-knacks, opulent artworks, mismatched furniture and kitsch oddments, whenever we happen to be near Farringdon I try and encourage a bee-line towards the overstuffed couches inside.

'Accidentally' ending up there on several occasions (I'm not really sure why anyone still trusts me to navigate, I certainly wouldn't) it is perfect for settling in for a couple of hours on a moody Saturday afternoon, and booking ahead for a post-work prandial never seems to be a bad decision.

 
And this cocktail bar isn't all show - their bartender concoctions are delectable; from the house specialties (one of the drinks featuring 'almond poison' aka. aromatic bitters in the same family as angostura) to the classic staples of margaritas. I could almost write a sonnet to the espresso martinis we had recently. It was a perfect way to round off a back massage (in a teeny place in Clerkenwell) and brunch at the neighbouring Modern Pantry. Just bliss.

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I bet you thought I was only teasing, didn't you?

Each time we go, there seems to be another nook to explore. Well, this visit solved the 'how to find a boxing glove wearing kangaroo in London' conundrum. It was keeping me from sleeping...

Books about Town - London Literary Art Installations

Literary history saturates every single stone of London; exotic tales of mystery, shrewish wives harping on at their no-good husbands, matchgirls standing in Christmas snow and an early TARDIS sighting in an East End work yard.

Wandering around London of late I happened to glimpse some lawn furniture with a slight difference to the standard wicker and PVC set ups. These were spotted from the top floor of a double decker, around the corner of tube stations and whilst running from pillar to post - gorgeous works of public art capturing imagination, summoning childhoods and delighting the senses. Not your average garden set then...

J. M. Barrie's childhood delight of Peter Pan - they'll have to watch out for him sneaking off his bench at night to collect Wendy from her Bloomsbury home to go looking for one more adventure!

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

The classic escapades of Jeeves and Wooster, penned by P.G. Wodehouse.

C.S. Lewis’ jaw-dropping The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Complete with majestic Aslan, and a secret wardrobe compartment...

We decided to lallop around Bloomsbury, one of the four book bench trails around London. Call me indecisive, but each bench was my favourite. Imaginative, delicate, strong and beautiful Ive rediscovered old well-worn favourites, and added several classics to my ever-growing 'must-read' list.

The luminescently delicate Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

George Orwell's kaledescopic 1984 overlooked by the ministry of might Senate House.

The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde is perched outside a magnificent church, the iconography fascinating.

A careful eye kept by the school of Tropical diseases, the post-apocalyptic novel, The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham sits in the shadow of trees and Senate House (mentioned in the novel as a place of refuge.

Iam Flemings James Bond stories' celebrates the best of British with suave decoration befitting 007.

Our last bench for the day was possibly our favourite - a very special BookBench about Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly.

(I spy with my little eye and New Zealand Fantail and Weta...)

Take your place (carefully) on these special Book Benches and let them inspire you to read for pleasure.

Yes.

Be quick though - sadly they're being gathered up from the 14th-16th of September to be auctioned off for charity!

A Room with a View - September travel linkup

Drawing the curtains on a breathtaking view is the ultimate cherry on top of the travel cake. The ability to nestle in a mountain of blankets and pillows whilst watching the everchanging skies over a new city is simply wonderful.

We've stayed in every kind of accommodation over the years. Celebrated glorious views of the Eiffel Tower from luxury hotels, snuggled on a single bunk bed in Scotland, woken up with freshly brewed coffee and croissants in an Avignon apartment and B&B'd our way through England. But there were definitely a few favorite rooms with a view...

Watching the sun set over the Thames, then rise again the next morning, coffee in hand:

Transportation, storage, fantastic views, the ability to sleep in your bed or snooze in the sunshine on the roof, listening to the putter of the boat engine counterpointed with soft catcalls from the other end of the boat, and relaxing in the helm with a good book as the world floats past. What more could you wish for?




Mr Kiwi's favorite featured an infamous Irish brewing house



but the one I'm lusting after at the moment is a little more lofty; with rustling tree leaves, the patter of rain and the childish delight of sleeping in the treetops. It's all Peter Pan's fault.

 
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So, how about you?

An InLinkz Link-up