A Weekend in Colo(u)r

Hey. How was your weekend? I had a colo(u)rful one, and would love to share some photos, if you'd like to see!

You know those languid, lazy Saturday mornings, where you sleep until you think you can't sleep anymore, and then you stretch out underneath your thick covers and revel in the sunlight streaming through your windows? I had one of those mornings. Until I remembered that I was late to meet Robin for lunch, so I hopped out of bed, threw on some hole-y jeans, grabbed my mom's bright red vintage Dooney & Bourke, and painted on a slick of red lipstick before heading up to Jones & Sons in Dalston.

After we had our fill of pancakes and I overdosed on bacon (Robin's veggie, so she passed hers on to me ... I kind of don't want to see, taste or smell bacon for a few months) and we chatted all things expat and friendship and writing (she's the best at that), I met John in Dalston before heading up toward Walthamstow to explore a park.

I spotted the Hackney Peace Carnival Mural while waiting for the bus and couldn't help snapping a pic ...

It's crazy how a piece of art can make you start imagining sounds ... does the same thing happen to you when you look at this? It sounds so loud and joyous to me, even though I can't hear anything!

On our way to Walthamstow, we saw a sketchy amusement park (you know, the kind that's just set up on the side of the road somewhere and the people running it are a bit scary looking?) and, for some reason, I just had to stop by.

So we got off the bus, paid the £1 entrance fee, bought some tokens, and ran to the elephant ride. I know. I'm an adult, I promise.

We didn't know that you had to press the pedal by your feet in order to raise the elephant, so we were going around in circles at ground level until one of the children's parents shouted at us through cupped hands, "PRESS THE PEDAL! PRESS THE PEDAL!" "WHAT?" I mouthed back at him. Then the ticket collector got involved. "What are you DOING?" he shouted at us, hands clutching his head (a bit dramatic, right?). "PRESS THE PEDAL!" My bad. I've not been on an elephant ride lately.

Then we moved on to my personal favorite, The Ghost Train:

As a kid, those rides always seemed to last forever (while I clutched my dad's arm in sheer terror), but as an adult, it's all over in about 5 seconds and you wonder where your £3 went. Sigh.

After buying ice cream and cotton candy (I know, we went all the way), we ended up in the bumper cars (or "Dodgems", as they're called here, apparently - another instance where John was like, "Let's try the Dodgems!" And I was like, "What?" Him: "Dodgems!" Me: "What?" Repeat x 25 times), which I did not enjoy and remembered why I didn't like them when I was aged 5, either.

I disliked it so much, I removed all the color from this photo:

So, there.

Here's to colo(u)rful weekends, spontaneous moments, blue skies and sunshine. I hope you have a great week!