Highlight of the Week - chilling with vino tinto, vino blanco, beer, shandy and a new discovery of 'tinto verano con limon' which is red wine mixed with traditional lemonade or less traditional lemon Fanta in SPAIN in the SUNSHINE - woo!

Lowlight of the Week - Realising how unfit I am.  Getting lost on a 1-hour mooch turned it into a 4-hour hilly hike.  This was on the second day of my week-long holiday.  I then spent the rest of the week aching all over - slightly depressing perhaps.  I chose to solve it by eating lots of tapas and drinking lots of wine.

Embarrassing Moment of the Week - Where to start? I went into the women's toilet and almost walked into a 70-year-old Spanish woman, panicked because I didn't know the word for "sorry" so I bowed, almost knocking her out (I used to live on Japan, I blame it on that).  My friends and I also got kicked out of the cathedral in Toledo in a rather loud and public fashion as we tried to sneak in because we'd missed the free entrance period by about 2 minutes (due to very misleading signs).  Jesus would've been ashamed.

Yes, I haven't blogged for over a week as I've been sunning myself up in Spain.  My friend won a stay in a 'villa' in the Spanish mountains, near a 'town' called Cecedillia.  Not long before we left, the 'villa' was downgraded to a 'lodge' to a 'flat' and the 'town' to a 'village' that was more a of a cabin (but still very nice).  I've got another friend who lives in Madrid, so I spent some time with her and we also went to the stunningly beautiful Toledo (although we spent most of our time there looking at things without knowing what they were) and the incredibly intimidating tomb of Franco (plus the odd thousand civil war victims!)  I enjoyed myself immensely.  Only small problem was the lovely 4-hour delay that Easy Jet provided us on the way back.  Oh yes, and the perfectly grey sky that greeted us on our return - back to reality!

Also used the panorama function successfully for the first time on my camera - see above! Go me!

Highlight of the Day - the same as everyone's in London I imagine: SUN!

Lowlight of the Day - Learning that Cleo Higgins from Cleopatra Comin' Atcha (now on The Voice) is 30, reminding me that I am not that young anymore.

I've had a great day today.  Sun is amazing.  We really get a great atmosphere in London when it's sunny...because we appreciate it while it lasts!  I mooched down to a lovely little restaurant on Cambridge Heath Road (about a 10 minute walk from my flat), called This Bright Field.  Slightly odd name, I grant you, but the food was really delicious (I had roast beef with a Mama of a Yorkshire Pud like I've never seen before).  We ate outside (it wasn't really warm enough too, but why not?) and I think my yorkshire was almost big enough to catch the wind like a sail and go skirting of the down the road!  The staff were all really lovely too.  I'll go again.

I was with two friends, and we made the most of the sun, but walking down Colombia Road, then over Arnold Circus / the Boundary Estate and into Club Row.  There's some amazing street art on Club Row and I love the Boundary Estate because it used to be on my tours when I was a tour guide (the first council estate in Britian, because, believe it or not, the now super-expensive, sought-after Shoreditch, used to be the poorest area in the UK, with slums, such as the Old Nichol Slum, where the Boundary Estate now is (built 1901, as the slum was demolished so it's not that long ago), where people lived in houses without foundations, in basements without windows and with 15 to a room.  We went to an exhibition inside Mother London on Redchurch Street, called the Secret 7".  All in the name of charity, they've taken 7 songs and asked artists to design covers for them (hence 7" records).  They are selling them next weekend at £40 apiece, but you won't know which artist's you have until you've bought them.  It's all the name of an anti-knife charity.  Some are by famous artists, like Gilbert and George, others are by complete unknowns.  I'm officially stating, in advance, that my favourite is the one above.  If it turns out to be a Gilbert and George worth 1000s, I am an art genius.   What was wonderful about it was, that, if for instance I had been to an art gallery with two exhibitions: one of Gilbert and George and one of someone I'd never heard of, I would've probably spend very little time looking at the other exhibit, but, here, you looked and appreciated all the talent, regardless of how famous they were.  It's a wonderful idea and it was great to see 700 mini pieces of art.  The staff were friendly too, not like the arsey types you can often get around Redchurch Street.

And what better way to top it off than with an ICE CREAM (not that I haven't had ice cream at home almost every day since forever, but this one was OUTSIDE).  Stopped in Motown Desserts on the way home, not it's not a Diana Ross Pavlova cafe, it's a cool cake and ice cream shop on Bethnal Green Road.  The ice cream is homemade and after several tasters (just to be sure, they even had brown bread ice cream!), I went with cookies and cream.  Yummy sunny Mothery day.  Happy times! 

Lowlight of the day - Checking the TfL website to plan my journey home to my parents' house for Easter Sunday the following day to find that Southeastern trains, in typical reliable style, have cancelled all trains to my local station on both Sunday and Monday (covering my return journey) which leaves me with a two-tube-one-DLR-one-bus fun combo. Oh joy.

Embarrassing moment of the day - Being at home with the parents and "More Sex Please We're British" coming on, with opening scenes of people removing massive dildos from boxes...'nuff said.

I went home to my parents' for Easter Sunday.  I say it was not very Easter-like, though, as we didn't do anything particularly Eastery.  I'm a bit old for Easter eggs, we don't watch the Easter hymns like at Christmas when we watch the carols, as we just don't know the Easter hymns (I was hoping for Oats and Beans and Barley Grow, but apparently that's neither a hymn nor an Easter song).  We didn't even have hot cross buns.  It made me wonder exactly what we did as a tradition at easter except for eat cake and chocolate and I honestly couldn't think of anything.  My Mum still spent most of the time trying to feed me and interviewing me about all aspects of my life, as if we never speak on the phone or as if I hadn't seen her only about a fortnight ago! When she will realise that my love life, work life and home life are all highly unlikely to drastically change in the space of two weeks I'm not sure, but that day can't come too soon! I feel like I'm on Parkinson!

Not much to report today, so I thought I'd write about something wonderful I did last Sunday.  I went to the Museum of Immigration at 19 Princelet Street between Brick Lane and Spitalfields.  It's a museum dedicated to the various immigrants who have lived in the area and that house since it and the surrounding houses were built by French Huguenot silk weavers in the first half of the 18th century.  It's a truly fascinating museum, based in a house which was also used as a secret synagogue by Jews in the area in the 19th century.  They knew it had a synagogue in the back of the house, but the other locals didn't, so they secretly worshipped there in peace away from persecution.  From the engravings of names of donators to the synagogue on the walls, to the large silk reel hanging on the front of the house (the sign of a master silk weaver) the house echoes the uniquely diverse history of the East End and an area that is today so sought after but has been through a very poor and run-down past.  Immigrants from France, Eastern Europe, Ireland, the Carribbean and the Bengal have inhabited this area throughout the years and all left their marks.  I used to be a tour guide, doing walks along these streets, covering much of their histories and this house summarises it all beautifully and succinctly within four walls.   It gives you a lot of food for thought about people, community, heritage, London and your own personal history. 

It's only open for a few hours every couple of months (I queued for a good hour in the freezing cold) but it is definitely worth it.  They do lots of fabulous work with local schools about immigration and local history throughout the centuries too.  A lot of it was on display.  If you ever get the chance to go, do it!

http://www.19princeletstreet.org.uk/

This was also number 20 on my list of 30 things to do before I'm 30, so well done me for ticking it off! One of the easier ones done!