Mole Valley Heritage 2016

On a bright, sunny Sunday, the 11th September, I woke up early to spend the entire day exploring historical buildings as part of the Mole Valley Heritage Open Days 2016. I had a great time visiting a range of sites, from concert halls to churches, and even a house belonging to solicitors!

The first location: the Yehudi Menuhin School. As a school for the musically talented, its Hall was designed to 'caress the sound of strings', and was built for the best acoustic experience. Though not the most beautiful or grand, it holds a special place in my heart - many (very many!) years ago, I myself played a piano piece in that hall. It was nostalgic, to say the least. Little me hardly knew what was going on those years back and everything was much more intimidating, so this was a wonderful way to appreciate the architecture without the nerves and butterflies.

I then visited the lovely town of Dorking, heading straight for St. Martin's Church, an absolutely gorgeous church where I was met by an equally as wonderful old man who showed me around. After this, I had a brief tour of Downs Solicitors, a townhouse located on the High Street with a considerable history.

The final location was the most exciting: St. Barnabas Church in Ranmore. They had a choir singing when I arrived and an elderly man with a knitted jumper and wispy white hair playing the organ. I was then allowed to go up the terrifyingly narrow spiral staircase to the top of the steeple, and watch a man ring one of the eight bells they had. It was so impressive, he demonstrated different techniques which really opened my eyes as to how complicated bell-ringing is - it's not just pulling on ropes a couple of times!

They also sold donated books there for very cheap prices, and after a quick browse, I found Life of Pi (a book I've wanted to read for a long time but never had the time or chance), a hardback of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and a 1915 first edition of Some Musicians of Former Days. I've been obsessed with old books lately, especially their homely smell, so I was extremely pleased with my find.

♥

I love you

xxx

QI Event & London Christmas Lights

Hiya!

I went to a Waterstones event a few days ago, at the great Piccadilly store. It was a QI talk, where John Lloyd (the founder of QI) and the QI Elves told us about the idea of the show, how it started, what they do, and gave us a sneak preview of facts from the next series 'N'. There was also an audience quiz, a guy won the prize of various items of cool merch.

It was really fun!

I got a book - 1,234 QI Facts to Leave You Speechless - and had it signed by Lloyd and almost all the Elves.

After the event, my friends and I browsed the books, squealing and sighing over the gorgeous clothbound classics (they looked gorgeous).

We're such nerds ;)

Anyway, we decided (at 9:30 pm, mind) to take a long route to the Underground so that we could see the Christmas lights on Regent Street and Oxford Street.

It was well worth it.

I like this one :)

Heehee, couldn't resist :P

♥

I love you

ttyl

xxx

Shopping on Halloween!

Hiya!

Sorry I wasn't here yesterday to wish you a spooooooky Halloween!

What did you do? Trick-or-treating anyone? Or any fabulously carved pumpkins? Horror films?

My friends did Toothless and a Minion. They were very good :)

Sadly I didn't do much for Halloween, though I went out later on and came across kids dressed up during their hunt for candy, and a firework display in someone's backyard which we loitered on the street outside to watch.

It was surprisingly good and went on for ages...

Bits of firework kept on falling into my eyes and setting off car alarms around me though :/

Anyway, the reason for not being here on such a freaky night as Halloween (let's face it, this zombie blog should be six feet under, and only come out once a year, probably on the freakiest night), is because I went shopping for the whole day.

I went to all sorts of shops and got myself a lovely 'reversible' plaid blanket scarf from Uniqlo, a few tops from Zara...Kids (why am I so short?! *wails*), and some heavenly treasures from Lush.

The Peeping Santa bubble bar smells amazing!! It's a fruity scent, strawberry mostly I think, and it makes me want to eat it. It looks adorable, and I'm pretty sure in the bath it will look like I'm sitting in a pool of strawberry squash...

Or blood, but let's not think about that...

I also bought the Yog Nog bath bomb, purely because of its sweet smell. I'm a sucker for sweet things. It smells like toffee, and though it may be lacking in its looks, I picked it up immediately and cradled it in my glittery fingers (blame the Holly Golightly!).

And as I write this, I am now sniffing them. Someone take them away please, or else I will become high from the wonderfulness of Lush's products.

I also went to Waterstones, to scout out the Welcome to Night Vale book and Dan and Phil's 'The Amazing Book is Not on Fire'.

I will definitely be getting both, they looked awesome!

There was also a book signing for a children's book there - excited kids were lined up outside the store with their parents, no doubt waiting for the author to arrive.

I ran away long before it started though...screaming kids are not my thing.

Well, I had a great day, and I hope you did too :)

And if you did anything scary, and you're anything like me, good luck falling asleep for the next few weeks...

♥

I love you

ttyl

xxx

P.S. bubble bar and bath bomb photo creds go to the Lush website because I ain't got no time to set up nice backgrounds and get perfect lighting for my own photos...