P is for Picnic

Yesterday hubby and I paid our monthly visit to SeeWoo in China Town to stock up on green tea, tofu, soya, seaweed & other odds and sods.

We thought that as we were going into town anyway, it would be nice to have a picnic lunch in St James's Park before shopping, so we packed adzuki bean pie, salad, bread sticks, fruit & beer.

We were going to bring the vintage Brexton picnic case that I scored from the car boot sale last year but decided that it would be too much of a pain in the backsie to carry, especially as we'd be laden with carrier bags after going to SeeWoo's.

  It was just as well that we didn't bring it cause contrary to what the man on the telly said about the weather, mid picnic it started pishing down.

It was alright though cause we continued our picnic sheltering under a majestic tree that had umbrella like qualities ;)

Here I am getting ready to crack open a bottle of non-alcoholic Cobra beer...

I've only just come across the 0% Cobra & I have to say that although it's very nice I still prefer Becks Blue to anything else that I've tried.

St James's Park is one of my favourite London parks.

My sister took me here on my first visit to London when I was ten years old and I've been in love with the place ever since. 

Hubby and I worked & lived-in at a pub off Trafalgar Square in the late 90s & in our spare time this was where we went to chill out or excercise; 

slothing out on tattered pub accommodation blankets or playing Frisbee, those where the days ;)

I have some really happy memories attached to this place.

Here's the Brexton that never made it to the park, thankfully!

Here's hubby sheltering under the tree, at this point it was merely spitting, a few minutes later the sky ripped open and it poured down for atleast half an hour.

Even the ducks looked a bit miffed by the end of it.

Then we strolled up to China Town to restock our supplies of oriental goodies.

Green tea is ridiculously cheap in China Town, this huge box of 200 teabags is less than £2.

I actually saw this tea when we were in Malaysia earlier on this year and they were charging a lot more for it over there, which I found somewhat stange considering it's so much closer to China.

We always pop a few things in the basket that we've never tried before and this month that turned out to be these four items...

I'm sure I've had black sesame seeds on bread rolls before but I've never cooked with them.

We go through a bag of white sesame seeds every two weeks, I like to scatter a handful in salads & sauces.

Did you spot the print on the dress I'm wearing in the pics?

I bought the dress on eBay cause the print reminded me of the Homemaker print ;)

Retrotastico!

When I was googling for a pic of a Homemaker cup I came across a really awesome blog called H is for Home, if you're into your retro stuff then this is definitely one for your blogroll.

Here's a pic from that blog of a Homemaker pattern cup...

I also found out that the blog owner has a fabulous on-line shop that is amazingly well stocked & an etsy shop too, where you can buy some of this amazing fabric...

 I almost fell out of my chair with delight when I saw it, it's really gorgeous, alas I have no spare pennies to buy some myself at the moment.

I did score some fabulous vintage fabric at the car boot sale earlier though, so I really can't complain too much ;)

Hope everyone has had a smashing weekend!

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx