a weekend in london

I went to London! After I had spent my week in Sweden, I flew to London for four days of vacation and dancing and hanging out with friends, and Liam joined me for the weekend. It was lovely.

I went directly from the airport to blues dancing at the Joker in Islington. Remembered being there in 2016 and feeling so very welcome and included; this time, I'm so much a part of the UK blues scene that I didn't even think about it. What an insane privilege.


I stayed with my beautiful friends Ryan and Anna. <3


On my first full day there, I had a lindy private lesson which was AWESOME and then I tried doing some touristing, but it was just too hot outside to move. Apparently this was the hottest day in 2018 or something like that. I crawled inside pretty quickly. But, in the evening we went to the Blues Kitchen, and had a wonderful time! More on that in another blog post.

On the Friday, Anna and I created a Period Cave in their living room, with chocolate and fan and lovely chats. That was pretty much everything I had energy for because my period pain was killing me a little bit, as it tends to do on the first day.



But in the evening the pain was easing off and I went for dinner with my friend Isabelle.



We had delicious lemonade



and yummy galettes


and a lovely time in general.



And then we went to Blues at the Ritzy, a monthly blues dance in London that I've heard about for years but never made it to before. It was just as much fun as I expected! Tom Attah played great music, but I loved the talk about blues he had before the social dancing started even more than the music. It was interesting and fun and chilled and serious and packed with information at the same time. Recommend!


And then Liam arrived, and we spent a Saturday in Greenwich with the fabulous Louise, but I took so many photos that that will have to be its own blog post, too.


And then we went back to Ryan and Anna's and spent the evening in with pizza, Exploding Kittens and Codenames. Both of those games were new to me and I loved both.



Sunday morning snuggles on the couch.


Later on, a walk along Brick Lane.



Nom nom


We went to Spitalfields Market.


I like lemonade


and these two.


Ryan, you're not going to be able to keep that face for long ...


... told you so. :)

And later that afternoon, Liam and I took the train back to Chester. Thank you for this lovely weekend, Anna and Ryan! It was a joy to spend it with you.

Betty Carter | This Is Always