M & M World

Aunty Di and Uncle Larry were staying with us and we wanted to show them around town a little. We headed our for an indian curry on Brick Lane which is famous for haggling down the price and scoring free drinks, naan and basically whatever you can get. Lauren was our haggler and she managed to get us two free drinks each, free popadoms, and starter and main for I think around £8 it was the bargain of the century! We then walked around town and spotted M&M world where we went in and had a look, we didnt realise how many M&M products there were!

Outside the store

All the colours you could think of!

Paul with the red London M&M

Leeds

As Aunty Di and Uncle Larry were back from there trip around Ireland and Wales we headed to Leeds to see another family member, our Great Aunty Katherine. It was lovely to meet her! We headed up there on the train which took us around 3 hours. We had lunch with Aunty Katherine and a nice cup of tea while sharing stories about the family.

Great Aunty Katerine, Aunty Di, Lauren and me

Kew gardens

As today was a nice day we thought we would go for a look around the Kew Gardens. It was really lovely with the different themed gardens, much like Hamilton Gardens only a tad bigger :) Although it did start to rain a little it was still a good day out and about.

Paul covering from the rain at the beginning of the gardens

Professional photo from the Holly Walk where there are quite a few Holly bushes

Ash on the treetop walk - the walkway is 18 metres into the tree canopy 



Pagoda which is roughly 50 metres tall



Paul by the Japanese garden

Dublin

We headed to Dublin with Aunty Di and Uncle Larry to see Mum's side of the family. It was an early start as we landed in Dublin at 9am and met Uncle Larry and Aunty Di for some breakfast. We then headed into the city centre and had a nosey around before meeting up with Katherine to look around Trinity College and went to see the Book of Kells. After saying goodbye to Katherine we went to the Temple bar for nibbles and drinks, it was a great day in Dublin.

Lauren, Aunty Di and me underneath a flower pot :)

Molly Malone sculpture

Me with my yummy lunch

The book of Kells exhibition



Lauren with her Kwak beer in the funky glass



On Saturday we headed to Katherine's to meet the rest of the family and have a scrumptious lunch. There were quite a few family members to meet :) We had a great time in Dublin meeting the family but it was sad to say goodbye!

All of the family

Notting hill carnival

We met up with a couple of our friends to head to the Notting Hill carnival together which is only about 15 minutes from where we live in Shepherds Bush. The carnival is big and has food stalls and music to entertain everyone. We had a nice lunch of jerk chicken and rice. After lunch we managed to find the parade after nearly being injured from pushing through the crowds! We watched the parade as well as the people there. Very interesting! I believe the day we went someone got stabbed... scarey.

All the people!

Some of the parade

One of the many ladies dressed up for the parade

Homelanz 2011

On Saturday we headed to the Homelanz concert which featured Lady Six, Katcha Fire and Sneaky Sound System. It was an Australian and New Zealand targeted concert as the bands were from Oz and NZ. Needless to say we had a great time!!

Roger and Paul preparing for sore heads the next day

Cath and Ash before they headed to the dance floor

London riots

As everyone would have heard about on the news, in August London went through a bit of turmoil with riots affecting a number of locations in London. Where Paul worked he saw the smoke coming from the sony building that was affected by the riots and Westfield put barricades at the entrances/exits of the shopping mall.

Smoke from Sony uk distribution centre near Pauls work

The barricades

Barricades by the esclators