It's been a fairly quiet couple of weeks since I last posted after my birthday, but I guess that's January for you - dark, cold, wet and everyone broke. But on the plus side we all made through to January payday and back on track :)

Last Thursday we had Andrew, Sula, John and Laura over for dinner to eventually give John and Laura their overdue wedding present. We'd not gotten around to it beforehand and then they were away so figured we'd book in dinner and have everyone over. So least that's done, albeit being 6 months late! Friday night was just a quiet one at home, neither of us felt like doing much after Thursday's dinner and drinks, so involved nothing more than the couch and TV for the evening! Then on Saturday morning after a quick tidy of the house, I headed off into Borough Market to get us a selection of cheeses from Neal's Yard Dairy. By the time I got back home, Shaun and Alison had already arrived who were down from Darlington and staying with us for Saturday night. We decided on lunch at home first and then headed off into town. It did seem like the rest of London decided to do the same as the queue to get into the Shard was over an hour and a half and the same for Sea Containers at Mondrian London on the south bank.

Instead of a drink with a view, we thought we'd pop by Waterloo and see the 'Take a View' Landscape Photographer of the Year exhibition which had moved from the National Theatre to the terrace in Waterloo. Not sure who decided on that, but it really made the whole exhibition seem quite cheap and slapped together. Not impressed at all this year with the setup.

From Waterloo we made our way over the the Golden Jubilee Footbridge and tried Gordon's Wine Bar which was also way too busy so headed up toward Piccadilly and to Café Concerto for a well deserved glass of wine each and give the feet some rest. After our sundowner it was down to the tube and over to Brick Lane to City Spice for dinner. Again, seems like most people had a similar idea to us, landed up being squeezed into a table downstairs amongst all the other diners. Can only assume it was the first pay check of 2015 celebrations!

After dinner, Uns headed home with them while I dashed out to Leicester Square and to De Hems Dutch Cafe Bar for Claire and Jamie's engagement drinks, but timed it badly that they were all finishing up and leaving when I got there. Even though it was a bit of a wasted journey into town, still glad I headed in. Then yesterday morning, after breakfast at home, we ordered a taxi and made out way over to The Milestone Hotel where they were staying last night. After checking it we walked down to the Natural History Museum for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition which is always worth the visit for.

After time well spent walking around the exhibition, we decided to pop next door to the V&A Museum for lunch and take a good stroll around there afterwards. There's just an unbelievable amount of art and design artefacts from all over the world in there, I'm sure it'll take years to cover everything that's there. From the V&A we hopped on a bus and made our way over to Noel and Megan's place for a visit and then over to Steers for a bite to eat. Never thought I'd bring myself to say this, but certainly wasn't overly impressed with Steers yesterday, might be giving them a skip next time we're keen for a burger :(

After Steers we headed on home to sort out some of the wedding jobs... slowly getting there them, but that list seems never ending at the moment :) Not too much planned for this week so hopefully we can crack on and get a few more of the wedding jobs done!