Author: Melissa

Mr Jones Watches – Robotto Shi

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Over the past couple of weeks, Mr Jones Watches have been treating their Instagram followers with a couple of mini sample sales. Very helpfully, they post a countdown on their stories (which gives me enough time to clear my calendar) but you still have to be quick because there’s only a few available.

The first drop was Robotti Shi and there were four or five different versions of this fun watch. Designed by Onorio D’Epiro, Robotto Shi was originally a limited edition before a re-designed version joined the permanent range. The silver robot on the original design is very adorable – stomping his way around Tokyo – but honestly, my robot is so much cuter!

A smiley rose gold robot with a pink background – it’s like it’s made for me! The back of the watch has no engraving which is unusual and quirky (I do like a quirky MJW) and it’s my first watch with a black metal strap which I really like.

They’ve already had their second mini-sample sale which featured variations of The 100th, and I did entirely miss that one which was a both a blessing and a curse. I’m keeping my eyes open to see what they dig out next – it could be an expensive summer.

AI: More Than Human at the Barbican

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A couple of weeks ago, we took a quick trip to the Barbican to see the AI: More Than Human exhibition which promised an exploration of developments in AI. Husband was very intrigued, I was just happy for a wander around the Barbican, and a special cocktail.

The tickets had mostly sold out when we went to book online, so we only had 11am as an option. We got there about 20 minutes before this to pick up the tickets and have a quick wander in the shop (mentally bookmarking things for later…) and were let into the main display space.

I immediately hated everything about this exhibition space – they had either sold way too many tickets or had underestimated how long it would take people to get through as it was rammed full of people. I nudged my way through the crowd, taking in bits of information – there was a lot of golems, stuff about robot vacuum cleaners, Bletchley Park, random computer hardware. I couldn’t really see the link between all this and AI, but it’s not an area I know that much about so I shrugged and carried on.

I left Husband looking at the various things he was interested in, and he caught up with me talking to an online chatbot further in the exhibition – he’s far more of an expert on this stuff and told me he didn’t get it either. They had seemingly grouped together random things and there was no coherence, nothing interesting or exciting. I think this article sums it up – it was banal. I just wanted to get through to the end for my treat – a cocktail made by a robot.

I was kind of let down by having to speak to a person as I wanted an entirely robot experience, but it was a lovely cocktail. Husband had a Negroni and I had a mocktail called a Roy Rogers which was really tasty. The Makr Shakr robots are actually very cool, and definitely make for an interesting bar experience.

The exhibition is on until the 26th August 2019 – skip it, enjoy a robot cocktail, and just wander around the Barbican instead. Much more fulfilling.

May 2019 Things

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Two bank holidays – always a pleasure. May was actually quite busy after a couple of quiet(er) months. I just need to get around updating this blog!

Celtic Manor – again!
Bank Holiday one was spent at the Celtic Manor yet again, with afternoon tea and a couple of spa treatments. We did consider booking the same for Bank Holiday two, but it was more expensive and we were feeling lazier!

Mermaid Hair
Over the past few months, I’ve been steadily getting rid of the orangey undertones in my hair. We finally managed to crack it, so the wonderful Jo at Gilded Hair gave me mermaid hair. Everyone at work was incredibly shocked, I can assure you of that.

Tatty Devine Sample Sale
This was my second sample sale experience, and I spent a silly amount of money. Hurray!

Comedians Giving Lectures
A couple of weeks ago, Sara Pascoe tweeted that there was tickets available for the taping of her new show, Comedians Giving Lectures. It combined two of my favourite things – funny, funny people, and Powerpoint presentations – and I managed to get tickets for the penultimate episode featuring Tom Allen (who I ADORE), Nish Kumar, and Natasia Demetriou. All three comedians were as brilliant as expected, and it was fun to see the taping, particularly after seeing how the Americans do it on a couple of occasions. Hopefully I won’t see myself in the audience when it airs in a couple of months.

Robot Cocktails
More on this in a future posts, but we visited the Barbican for an exhibition on AI, and decided to partake in some robot-made cocktails. It was very unnecessary, but super fun.

Tatty Devine Sample Sale 2019

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Tatty Devine Sample Sale

There are three types of people who go to the annual Tatty Devine sample sale in East London:

  • The early-starters – the ones who get there at goodness knows what time in the morning (or even the night before) and seemingly never leave the hall…
  • The late-morning queuers – the ones who get there just before the doors open and lose all feeling in their legs as the morning goes on
  • The afternoon browsers – the (sane) ones who don’t want to spend the whole morning in a queue so get there in the afternoon when everyone else has collapsed, and somehow manage to pick up dream pieces regardless

If you’re in the top two groups of people, you need to show serious commitment. This not for the faint-hearted – there’s rain, sun, and everything in between. If you want the good stuff, you need to get there early and be prepared to queue.

I’m firmly in the second group. Whilst I admire those who get there before the sun rises, I could never spend hours camped out on the floor outside St Hilda’s East Community Centre – I love Tatty Devine, but just not enough for sleeping bags and camping chairs.

Tatty Devine Sample Sale

I got to St Hilda’s East at about 9.15am and there was already a healthy number of people in the queue. I put my headphones in (Editors – The Blanck Mass Sessions) and prepared myself for a long wait. Over the course of the three hour queue (yes, three hours), we shuffled and shivered along slowly. I survived the freezing cold wait by thinking about the Dum Dum doughnuts I’d reward myself with when I was done, and also by wondering if my knees would ever allow me to sit down again.

At 12.30, I was inside the hall and greeted with half a dozen tables stacked full of acrylic jewellery goodness. We’d heard that there had been bags for sale as well, but they had long gone. I then don’t know what happened to me – I think I must have fallen into some kind of fugue state as I didn’t emerge from the hall until 2pm.

Tatty Devine Sample Sale

I do remember saying to myself on a number of occasions that I had finished my selections, only to go around the room for one last lap and find more stuff. Both a curse and a blessing – there are frequent drops of new stuff from staff and customers who are putting back unwanted items. At one stage, I was literally in the queue to pay when I saw someone put a pink lobster down, so I went around the room again to see what else had been given up. You can understand why people don’t want to leave – there is a huge element of fomo and thinking that your dream piece might be just about to arrive in the room.

But when I did eventually leave/escape/come to my senses, I was very happy with my purchases – I spent way more than I had planned to, but I really couldn’t bring myself to put anything back. Really looking forward to my June payslip though.

Tatty Devine Sample Sale

April 2019 Things

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April 2016 Things_2

London Marathon 2019
I am phenomenally proud of my little brother – he ran the freaking London Marathon! We made our way up to London a couple of Sundays ago to see if we could see him – I’d read a lot about the best places to spectate so we weighed up all the options and decided on the halfway point in Wapping just by Shadwell DLR station. It was very busy as soon as we got off the train, but we walked a little further up The Highway and managed to get a good spot on the barrier. And then we saw my brother! He looked fairly cheery, although I think he was in significant pain at that point but we sent him on his way again.

We had planned to get down to Canary Wharf to see him again, but we couldn’t get back on the DLR as it was rammed full of people, so instead we took my Mum for some coffee to warm her up, and then put her on the tube to see him at the end of the race.

I’m not a bit fan of crowds so I was a little nervous about going up there, but I highly recommend it. The atmosphere is great which the runners really appreciate, and there are plenty of places to get to the barrier if you pick the right area. We even got to see some celebrities.

Easter Vacation
For some inexplicable reason, my University closes for a week over Easter. I took the opportunity to do very little – brunch with Mum, a bit of shopping, a few beauty treatments, and discount Easter eggs. It was definitely needed.

April 2016 Things_3

Shopping at Gunwharf Quays
I have been on the search for a new bag, and had heard that a new Kate Spade outlet had opened at Gunwharf Quays so took myself down to Portsmouth to check it out. I was sadly disappointed – there were a lot of great bags in the store, but not what I was looking for. I tried the Lulu Guinness outlet as well but left empty handed. It was a remarkably quick visit

Fleabag
I didn’t really get into Fleabag season 1 – I’m pretty sure I watched it all, but it didn’t draw me in. However, season 2 grabbed me and we watched it all in one night. Such incredibly unbelievable writing and it left me heartbroken!

New Phone
Husband has been driven mad by the appalling performance of my 2 year old Nexus 5X (which is actually my third one – they keep breaking and Google keeps sending me a new one). The battery was awful, apps kept crashing, everything took 30 seconds to load, but I stayed with it because the alternatives were stupidly expensive. And then, out of nowhere, John Lewis dropped the price of the Pixel 3 and I snapped it up. The difference has been incredible, and I can’t wait to play with the camera properly.

Mr Jones Watches – The 100th

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I’ve only been a Mr Jones Watches collector since 2014, so I have missed out on a lot of their history. The release of The 100th has given me some indication on what I’ve missed out on, and it confirms that I have approximately 16% of their releases in my collection. Always good to have some solid data.

My sixteenth watch was the 100th – it was released on a Thursday which is fortunately the day I work from home and I was able to buy as soon as it went on sale. I pretty much had the pick of any number, and I chose my lucky number 4.

The 100th is composed of elements from some of their iconic pieces including The Accurate, Sun and Moon, The Last Laugh, the Decider, and King. I love the blues in watch, and the eyes are a beautifully reflective silver.

I’ve worn it pretty much every day since it arrived.

The watch also came with a two-sided poster listing all of their releases, which honestly feels a bit like they’re challenging me.

I’ve now decided that my Mr Jones Watches collection needs it’s own page on my blog – take a look at my full collection.

March 2019 Things

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Brexit and more work chaos – what a month.

New Forest Trip
Amidst the chaos, we managed a couple of days away in the wild New Forest. I very much needed it.

Brunch at the Oxo Tower
I’ve been to the Oxo Tower for Afternoon Tea and lunch on a few occasions, but never brunch so we gave it a go in March. I was a little disappointed as I had picked out the Hong Kong toast from the menu only for it to not appear, but I instead choice a very delicious sweet potato and corn fritter. The brunch is in the bar, but is very relaxed and it reminded me how much I enjoy the meals there. Must book Not Afternoon Tea again soon.

Elisa Lodato
I read both of Lodato’s books in March – she’s a phenomenally beautiful author and as soon as I put down The Necessary Marriage, I had to pick up An Unremarkable Body straight away. Her writing is very hypnotic but quite unassuming so when the big reveals were made in both books, I was almost winded! Really quite delicate – I can’t wait for her next offering.

BFF-led therapy
After a very stressful couple of weeks, I met up with Tim to wander the South Bank and have a cathartic chat about the madness at work. We stopped by the new BFI restaurant, where we seemed to annoy the waiter by asking for a starter and desert, before delighting a pair of fellow diners for reasons unknown.

Miscellaneous
I wasn’t sure how to categorise this last one, but whilst March started with me both European and employed, I wasn’t sure that I would be able say the same at the end of the month.

Fortunately (on both counts), I am still European and still employed. Let’s see how we fare at the end of April.

The New Forest

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When we visited our Texan friends back in November 2018, we knew that the next time they visited the UK, we wanted to return the warm hospitality they extended to us. We got the opportunity to do so a lot quicker than expected, as they would be in London in the middle of March. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet bought our luxurious mansion (you know, the one with multiple guest rooms that’s waiting to be bought when we win the lottery) so instead, we whisked them away towards the south coast, to a Airbnb more suited to hosting friends.

We chose the quaint and cosy 18th century Little Exbury on the outskirts of the tiny Exbury village and very close to Beaulieu. It was the perfect base for exploring the wild New Forest with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and remote location suitable for long conversations around the fireplace as the wind whipped around outside. I didn’t want to leave.

The weather was… typically English so we weren’t really able to show off our beautiful countryside. Instead, we wandered from windy village to windy village, feeling a bit sorry for the wild roaming ponies and donkeys as they huddled together for warmth under the trees.

We visited Beaulieu of course – somewhere I visited once when I was small, and a lot of memories were unlocked as we wandered around the estate. I found the 800 year old abbey and the palace house most interesting; the motor museum less so (although I was less grumpy when I found somewhere to sit), and it was nice to see a little reference to the career my Dad found himself in. We also experienced a remarkable coincidence when we found out that the American side of the Montagu family (who own Beaulieu) were visiting from – of course – Texas!  

We spent far more time in Beaulieu than expected, and after a quick freshening up back at the cottage, we went back to Beaulieu village for some fish and chips at Monty’s Inn.

The following day, we spent the morning at Buckler’s Hard Maritime Museum which was surprisingly picturesque – part of this cute hamlet has been converted into a living museum, with a pub and tiny church. If it wasn’t so wickedly blustery, we could have gone for a nice boat ride but the weather got to us so we took ourselves up to the cafe for a warm drink.I couldn’t let our American friends leave the UK without experiencing my favourite meal of the day – Afternoon Tea. You really are spoiled for choice as there are so many places in the New Forest that offer Afternoon Tea but I decided on Burley Manor, an old manor house in the village of Burley (which I am truly sad to just driven through without stopping – it had two witchcraft shops! I must go back!). I mostly picked this hotel for the deer that graze outside, but it had some pretty good reviews as well which proved themselves to be true. We happily stuffed ourselves full of delicious cake and scones.It was a pretty quick whistle-stop tour of the New Forest, and I hope our friends enjoyed the dramatic landscape, even if it was all a little grey most of the time.

February 2019 Things

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Despite things lurching from bad to worse at work (we’re talking BBC News reports levels of worse), there were some bright spots in February.

Snow
My last Monthly post ended with no snow – February started with snow! Admittedly, I had a bit of a terrifying journey home from the airport where we almost skidded into a variety obstacles, but it was pretty whilst it lasted.

Tilda Swinton Answers an Ad on Craigslist
Tim and I ventured under Waterloo station for the Vault Festival to see Tilda which is an absolute riot of a show. Byron Lane writes and stars in a show about an ordinary guy going through a hard time – his boyfriend has left him, his parents are a nightmare. Out of nowhere, Tilda Swinton (played by Tom Lenk) swoops into his life to study him for her latest role. It is so stupidly funny – you pretty much don’t stop giggling for 80 minutes at all the niche film and theatre jokes. At the end, the wonderful Byron was in the bar taking photos of people with Tom. It was such a fantastic experience, and I’d love to see it again.

Educated by Tara Westover
Wow, what a book. Educated is a phenomenal memoir from a woman who grew up in a fundamentalist family, her father obsessed with the end of days. It’s not spoiling the ending by saying that she managed to work her way out of Idaho, and I am currently urging everyone to read it. Her family do dispute her version of events, but I believe it’s possible for her truth to be valid as well as theirs. I was blown away by her writing and was so emotionally drained when I turned the last page.

The Midlands
I had two work trips booked in back-to-back – one in a generic hotel conference room in Birmingham, one at the University of Leicester – so rather than come home, I decided to stay the night in B’ham. I was able to fit in a facial (classic work trip activity), a bit of shopping, and a lovely catch-up over pizza with my favourite married couple. I’ll be honest – the area of the city I stayed in wasn’t particularly pleasant and the rest of the trip was a bit of a struggle, but at least I got to see some beautiful Tracey Emin neon at St Pancras Station on the way home.

Russian Doll
Like everyone else in the western hemisphere, we binge-watched Netflix’s Russian Doll in one evening. Honestly, I couldn’t decide what I thought about it – clearly there was something in the show that kept me watching, but I wasn’t sure if I like it. I think after (over)analysing my feelings about it, I decided that it ultimately left me a little unfulfilled because there seemed to be a number of threads that weren’t fully explored. That said, I’m pretty sure there’s going to be more seasons, so maybe that will satiate my curiosity on this quirky little show.

New York in December – Everything Else

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Having been to New York on a few occasions now, we have a pretty solid routine, but we do enjoy adding one or two new experiences on each trip.

We were up early enough on the Saturday to get to the Westfield World Trade Center as it opened – mostly because we wanted to get the classic shot at the entrance that everyone gets for Instagram before it got crowded. This was our first visit – the architecture is incredibly impressive but I think I enjoyed the walk through Tribeca more than the mall. We spent very little time here once we’d got our shots, and quickly scuttled up to SoHo for some shoe shopping.

Of course we took a trip up the High Line – we could see parts of it from our hotel room and it frequently looked packed full of people, so we again took advantage of our jet lag to get there early for a gloriously peaceful walk. We saw some beautiful art on this visit – “Agora is a group exhibition that looks at the role of art in defining, creating, and using public space” – and I particularly loved the light installations like Somos 11 Millones by Andrea Bowers (above) and Marinella Senatore’s Give Your Daughter’s Difficult Names (below). It would have been amazing to see them at night.

We had a quick wander around Central Park, but this was peak Christmas Vacation and the crowds were insane. The relative calm of Greenwich Village and SoHo had lulled us into a false sense of security and we completely underestimated how busy the whole of Midtown would be. After battling through the hoards in Central Park, I had the brilliant idea of going down 5th Ave to see the Saks window display – no chance. It was a scrum.

The crowd briefly parted for me to see a bit of the store front, and that was enough for me so we ducked down towards Rockefeller Center. Even crazier idea, as seemingly everyone in New York was also headed this way to see the tree. The last time we saw the tree, it was deserted so to see it so crowded was a little stressful.

We retreated south and spent the rest of our trip in Chelsea and Greenwich, which included stumbling across an insane Christmas tree display, which I think was something to do with The Standard…

… and saw some slightly more upscale Christmas decorations on Bleecker Street.

I also found my new favourite store on Bleecker – The Mask Bar, which stocks dozens of Korean sheet masks. It was heavenly and the perfect end to our trip.