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21 April 2013

the weekend edition :: to market


a few months back i entered -- and subsequently came runner up in, a competition with bloglovin' and groupon about my ideal valentine's day. the prize i won was £250 worth of groupon credit, which you might remember mostly paid for our trip to warsaw in march. well, i had about £20 left, burning a hole in my groupon account. boyfriend suggested i buy a cupcake maker. a cupcake maker? surely that's a person, i.e. me. i am a cupcake maker. but no, it's a device. and no, i did not buy it. i contemplated a george foreman for the new flat, thought about dinner vouchers for our impending anniversary, theatre, days out, etc.. then finally, the one thing i had been waiting for came up on offer, and i snapped it up without a second thought.

"but what was it erica, we must know!"

you wanna know? i'll tell you then. i bought an hour long mother loving aromatherapy massage, that's what. and i was so insanely excited for it, that's for damn sure. so i headed out early on saturday, with dirty, messy hair and a bare face -- knowing full well i would be face down on a massage bed for an hour, and any attempt at beautifying would be pointless. finding the joint was difficult.. it was in a new development of greenwich that was not available to view on google maps, so i kind of had to wing it. until i was sure i was in the right place and still couldn't find it, so made an embarrassing call to the salon to have them direct me there from... 10 metres away.

the massage itself was very relaxing, but wasn't as deep or firm as i would have liked. i did prompt her to be firmer, but she was so little, she probably didn't have it in her. i almost fell asleep, so obviously the massage did the trick... somewhat. i couldn't face going straight home while there was beautiful sun out, and as boyfriend has his boyfriend over for some fierce video gaming nonsense, i decided to wander the streets of greenwich. so, i grabbed an ice coffee and headed to the cutty sark.

there were a zillion people out and about enjoying the sunshine with me, and man alive did the sunshine feel good on my face! i was in leggings instead of tights, and a denim jacket in the day for the first time this year.

after i'd taken the lion's share of photos, i had a wander through the greenwich market. every time i'd been there in the past, it had been closed or the off season, so this is the first time i have seen it in full swing. the smells coming out of the market were glorious, and i had to stop myself from buying all of the food! i did allow myself a sneaky purchase of the billionaire'e caramel slice, and it took me a good hour to finish it. it was deeeelicious. after that, and on my wander through the backstreets, i saw a lady carrying a sign with the words 'antiques, vintage and retro' written on it. without a second thought, i was off.

sadly, there was not a lot of variety in this market, and it was fairly costly stuff for a vintage fair. but there were lots of pretty pieces that i would have snatched up in seconds if i had the money and someplace to store them until we move -- which, i don't. i'm currently obsessed with retro appliances; radios, telephone, record players, tv's.. you name it, i want it. i know kim shares my passion, but for furniture and clocks. she's strange though, so we must forgive her.

after all of that, i hopped back on the dlr and headed to lewisham, as there's a zillion great homewares shops there, and i wanted to suss out what we need for the new flat, and where we could get it all. it's not long now though, 5 weeks and counting! still need to buy a bed, mattress and sofa, so if you a) have any spare, and b) can deliver it, then i'll be your best friend! i found a ton of kitchen stuff, and we sort of have enough to get by so, that first weekend in that flat is going to be spent shopping! boyfriend's favourite. from there, i grabbed the first bus i found as my feet were killing me. i hoped it was going in the right direction, and found myself in bromley in half an hour, with an hour before the shops shut. perfect! primark and boots found me mini-haulin' then i made it back home in time for chinese and some terrible tv. not a bad way to spend a saturday, really!