Birthday Beats and Treats!

On Tuesday night, part 2 of the birthday celebrations begun...when after 9 long days apart I was finally reunited with Byron as he came to London to see me! We headed off to The Chicago Rib Shack in Knightsbridge

and had a great night! it is a pretty cool place - we loved these dangling lightbulbs! and I love these great shot that By managed to capture.

How cool are the wipes they bring to your table - I love that they are for messy pigs!

and this is the Exhi'pig'tion which we loved! all little pigs decorated in a thousand ways, downstairs they even had cases filled with pigs that had been decorated by celebrities!

I was pretty excited about their drinks menu...and over enthusiastically ordered a root beer float only to be told they were out of root beer, sad times! so an Oreo milkshake did the trick instead and a orange soda float for By!

We put on our bibs and got down to some serious eating!

Mara had the pulled pork wrapped in bacon on a bed of squash mash...drool, it was amazing and definitely what I will be ordering if we go back!

It was ribs for By - was there ever any question?! he loves his ribs!

and a burger for me...piled high with deliciousness!  They did have some very yummy looking desserts on the menu too including Key Lime Pie! but our service had been so terribly slow we couldn't bear to wait, so we hurried home and I discovered it was a good thing I skipped out on dessert...

because Mara had got this amazing box of wimbledon themed cupcakes for me and so I waited patiently to blow out my cupcake candle while I got sung to...

and to my surprise I discovered Andy Roddick was on my cupcake!

He is my FAVE player, and so Mara replaced the photo of Andy Murray with one of Andy Roddick instead!

On Wednesday morning, my actual birthday! I woke up to some more present opening.

Excuse the sleepy eyes! me and my fave choc bar - Toblerone, By got me a bag full of all my fave treats...

and he got me this amazing card which I am in love with!

By's mom, Kathy, got me some delightful cupcake bits and pieces - check out that mini spatula! and I also got some birthday money which is being put towards a baking demonstration with one of my fave London Bakeries, Outsider Tart, next week! Can't wait!

We decided to have a sneaky 'Tex Mex Wednesday' this week! because I definitely wanted Mexican on my actual birthday so we went with Navajo Joe's in Covent Garden.  They serve Mexican food...with a difference, it's slightly more upmarket than your average Tex Mex joint and it definitely has a cool atmosphere inside.

I'm always impressed when a place has good non alcoholic cocktails, I had pineapple, passionfruit and coconut cream - it was so delish that I had finished it before my meal even came...whoops!

Usually we don't order starters when we eat out but now I have a taste card, all courses were 2 for 1 so we took advantage and shared these amazing duck nacho's! and some tiger prawns too.

I had a delicious lime chicken chimichanga with mango salsa, and they were kind enough to do it for me sans tequila!

By enjoyed a trio of fish, harking back to our Caribbean days when he would catch snappers with his very own fishing rod...this time he was eating them in a quesadilla!

Our experience at Navajo Joe couldn't have been more different to eating out the night before at Chicago Rib Shack.  Our waitress was lovely and super friendly and the service was impeccable, and the general manager even wished me happy birthday was we left!

We skipped the delicious sounding desserts because I wanted to eat lots of cupcakes! so Primrose Bakery was our first stop...

and I was able to try one I've never had before - a chocolate and marshmallow creation, I especially liked the pink glitter on top!

I also picked up a 'Cat and Cream' cupcake from Whole Foods which I sneaked through the gates at Kings of Leon and managed to enjoy whilst sort of listening to Paul Weller but not really.

The sun started to break out from behind the clouds and everyone was raring and ready to meet the Tennessee boys...some people had even gone all out with their cowboy hats and everything!

Kings of Leon are one of my all time favourite bands...this was, shockingly, the first time I had ever seen them live and the fact it was on my birthday made it even more awesome! I've been a fan since the 'Youth and Young Manhood 'days so I was pretty pleased that they played a good mix of old and new songs and even though they broke my heart by not playing 'revelry' it was still a great night.

I love this shot, you can get a feel of what it was like to be there, as the darkness fell and the stage lighting came in to it's own! I love the little sneaky peek of Caleb on the big screen there!

There were some awesome fireworks after the encore that finished with an amazing rendition of Black Thumbnail.  My other fave songs of the night were California Waiting, Back Down South, On Call, Arizona and of course the old classic of Molly's Chambers!

On Thursday night we headed to join 'The Queue' at Wimbledon! We set up our tent (and apparently we put the poles inside out...but it held up anyway) and we got given our number.

 I was no. 777 in the queue and bearing in mind that they get 500 tickets for Centre court and 500 for court no.1 we thought we'd missed our chance for centre.  Sad times for me when I heard someone coming around telling us that Roddick was going to be on centre! (my fave!) so we had a bit of a chilly, uncomfortable restless nights sleep...but it was all worth it because when we awoke in the morning we found out that....

We got Centre court tickets!!!! We got some of the last few, so that was super exciting! and I was super happy I was going to get to see Roddick play for the first time ever!

We had some amazing weather! and were really lucky (despite a rather sunburnt nose!)

Here was our first match of the day we were going to be watching on centre! Before that game started at 1pm we decided to wonder around and see if we could catch anyone good practicing on the outside courts...

Imagine my excitement when we stumbled upon Andy Roddick!! He was so close to us! We stood and watched him for a while and then saw there were some courtside seats free...

Of course as soon as we sat down the players changed ends and Roddick started playing at the opposite end of the court to us, but I still got a few good action shots!

After that we stayed on court 14 for the Petrova vs. Bondarenko game.  Bondarenko was playing quite well when we were there...

but we found out later that Petrova had won the game quite easily in just over an hour! Here she is with a triumphant fist pump after a good shot!

After that we made our way to Centre court...Mara insisted I took just one picture of Lopez, Roddick's opponent, since I took about 300 of Roddick but I've spared you and only included a few of him!

Here he is with an 138mph serve registering on the board behind him, his big serves are what he's known for.  Unfortunately he didn't produce enough of them in the game and sadly he got beaten despite me rooting and cheering for him the whole way through!

Well hello...A Rod gives us a sneaky flash of some flesh!

Next up was Hantuchova vs. Azarenka.  I was particularly impressed with Daniela's matching tennis grip, hot pants and neon painted nails! Unfortunately it wasn't enough to help her win, and after a break of play due to rain Azarenka was victorious which was sad because we really wanted Daniela to win!

Here is Victoria challenging a call, she was wrong - it was out.

So the rain came out and like good old times the covers came on!

and the umbrellas popped up!

but luckily because we were on centre that didn't halt play, well it did for about 20 minutes while they put the new roof on, but then it was under way again! It was pretty cool to experience the new roof! and it came at just the right time because we were beginning to feel a bit chilly with the evening breeze so it was good to suddenly be sitting 'indoors'!!

Of course the final match of the day was what everyone was waiting for...Murray vs. Ljubicic. 

We are definitely not Murray fans as I mentioned earlier but I figured I should take one or two pictures of him, if only for the blog!

but we had placed all our hope on Ivan, and I cheered my heart our for him all night long because he played so well and I really thought he was in with a chance! In fact if you've been watching the match on T.V you would have probably heard my 'come on Ivan' cheers because I was the only one! no jokes, everytime I shouted out some words of encouragement I would be met with a crowd full of turned heads wondering why on earth I wasn't supporting our homegrown talent...because I don't like him is the answer!!

so it was a sad moment when our guy lost and Murray won.  In fact all the players we had wanted to win lost their games! but we saw some great matches, and just had a generally awesome day soaking up the atmosphere and the sun and feeling very pleased with ourselves to be enjoying it all from Centre court! I watched back a few of the matches on sky plus this weekend and saw Mara and I quite a few times which was funny!

and there ends my action packed birthday week of fun! Hope everyone else enjoyed the sunshine as much as we did this weekend, we had some delicious boerie rolls yesterday at my South African in laws...let's hope it lasts!

Prezzies, Cupcakes, Pancakes and Shakes...and the birthday hasn't even begun yet!

It's been a busy few days around here! Last Thursday was Tamara's birthday and so we ventured to Waterloo to check out Bangalore Express.

One of the main reasons I brought Mara here was because I thought the upstairs bunk seating was super cool! You had to climb up a little individual ladder to get to your booth!

...but it wasn't just aesthetically pleasing, the food was the best Indian I've ever had! Usually I always pass on poppadoms as I'm just not a fan of them but I devoured their poppadoms in no time!

Mara had a chicken and rice dish...

and we were particularly impressed with presentation, check out her tower of rice!

I got duck Korma, which I have just been loving recently and the peshwari naan was homemade, and filled with warm yummy coconutty goodness!

I was definitely enjoying my meal here!

Afterwards we headed to Preston Road to check out Flirtease - a dessert and cocktail bar.  We were loving the decor of canvases showcasing the cheesecakes we make at our work, The English Cheesecake Company!

but since we eat cheesecake all week long we opted for a choc fudge cake and a trio of banana and coconut ice cream - two of the birthday girls favourite flavours!

They also had a rather extensive range of milkshakes but we were too full (for once!!) to try one.

and here's Mar with the birthday prezzie I got for her, some Melt chocolates.  She rather generously shared some with me and they were the best chocolates ever!! Truffles filled with banana, passion fruit and coconut and peanut butter and jelly! and the salted caramel and raspberry, mint and white chocolate went down pretty well too! We got them a day late, after the courier failed to deliver them on time but one of the employees from the shop hand delivered them to us on Friday evening in the pouring rain! and after being given a complimentary slab we certainly weren't complaining!

On Saturday we got down to some serious present opening, once Mom and Dad arrived. 

For the tennis fan...Mara got this amazing tennis ball, made out of chocolate!! It almost looks too good to eat, almost - it's filled with liquid salted caramel!

and we got tons of new baking tins to keep us busy and whipping up Bundt's and brownies for weeks to come!

I had a sneaky present opening session too even though technically it was a little early!

Even though we'd agreed that perhaps I didn't need any more cupcake stuff, it just wouldn't be a birthday without getting a few cupcake presents...I am cupcake crazy after all!

but the highlight of my present opening had to be this awesome Kings of Leon tee and being united with my tickets for their gig that I will be at when you read this!!

It's now a Gem tradition that on my birthday cupcakes must be consumed, so since it was our celebratory weekend we headed to Bake-A-Boo just down the road from where we live in West Hampstead.  Raspberry and lemon cupcakes were the order of the day. 

We headed to Knightsbridge to check out the Harrod's sale and I rediscovered my love of their food hall! Check out the singing pizza chef who sings opera while he makes the pizza dough!

and I couldn't resist snapping this pic: I carried a watermelon!!

Lately it's all been about Selfridge's for us but Harrod's food hall definitely is worth a mention! Check out the bunches of grapes hanging from those chandeliers...everything they do they do it in style that's for sure!

After that we headed to another of our favourite areas - The Kings Road.  We got some delicious cookies and brownies courtesy of the Saturday food market outside Partridge's and then we pancaked it up at My Old Dutch.

Nothing beats an enormous pancake to fill you up after a tiring day of shopping!

and of course it has to be accompanied by a milkshake! That's just how our family rolls (I overheard this being said by a 5 year old girl on the bus this week!!!)

We discovered much to our surprise M&M world had opened in Leicester Square after seeing many of their famous yellow bags pass us by! so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to check it out!

4 levels of fun, I couldn't have said it better myself! There was a buzz of excitement in the shop, and my dad commented on how all the employees must have to be qualified dancers to work there since every one you passed seemed to be busting out some moves!

There were lovely little hints all over the shop that reminded you that you were in London! like this giant Union Jack sign.

and there was a giant m&m character with a busby on his head too!

Everyone wanted a piece of the m&m road zebra crossing action, there were queue's of people wanting to take their pictures posing! It was funny to see their imitation of the Abbey Rd shot because our flat is just down the road from Abbey Rd and everytime we drive past that Zebra crossing, no matter what time of day it is, there's always a group of tourists recreating the classic Beatles shot!

and now we move onto the sweets!! There were walls and walls filled with every m&m colour imaginable. 

We opted for some purple and turquoise - as they're our fave colours and I'm sure they tasted better too!

We rounded off a lovely weekend by celebrating Father's Day, looking at Dad's smile in the above picture I'd say our present went down pretty well!

Here he is checking out just what a world class traveller he really is, I had marked on the map all the countries he's ever visited and it was pretty extensive!

Now I'm gearing up getting ready for round 2 of the birthday fun! Byron arrives in to London tonight and then my actual birthday will be filled with more cupcakes, Mexican and lots of rocking out to Kings of Leon...and hopefully no rain - fingers crossed!