Saturday outing: Hamleys Toy Shop London or ‘The Toy Museum’

Regents Street in the morning

I have been working from home for the whole Easter break, tied to a computer with poor Erbie by my side, so the Saturday treat was to go to Hamleys Toy Shop or as we refer to it, ‘The Toy Museum’ (Erbie is only 4 and it seems to work). 

Hamleys is on Regent’s Street in London’s West End, the nearest tube is Oxford Circus, it opens at 9.30am and there are 5 floors of toys galore, from Steiff to Lego and Moshi monsters to Disney.

If you can make it there before 11am you more or less get the store to yourself.

Hoppity Hop!

Hanging around

Hamleys Ground floor - soft toys

We do like a raspberry faced baboon.

Steiff selection

Ppppppick up a penguin

Eats shoots and leaves

Moshi monsters

Hamleys car abacus

Baby toys floor.

Below are : Tolo - First friends, I think they are adorable, I certainly didn’t see any of them around when Erbie was a baby - thankfully. Look you can have Barney Rubble or Eskimos or baby dinosaurs.

Tolo toys - First Friends

Jungle book figures

Balou and Mowgli too

They have a girl-themed floor which is very pink and crafty and a toys for boys floor (not terribly PC) which is cars, planes and automobiles - don’t let the dad’s go on this floor if you want to save money. There are model trains, Scalextric, diecast models of most cars, minature farm vehicles, London taxis and buses, Airfix models, Hotwheels, those annoying remote controlled helicopters - need I go on...

Scalextric SKYFALL

Model railway

A life size Power Ranger made from Power Rangers.

On the birthday list - Star Wars Angry Birds sticker album

There are also the old classics such as Paddington Bear in Wellingtons, jigsaws and a good selection of books from Mr Men and Little Misses to Charlie and Lola or perhaps you would prefer a Dress Up Kate paper doll book?

Mr Men

You can't go wrong with a Dress Up Kate paper doll?

One is not terribly amused

Will anyone give this bear a home?

Playmobil

I couldn’t resist the offer they had on clock-work toys (4 for £10) and ended up with 3, an elephant spinning a ball on his trunk, a bear playing the cymbals and a monkey doing a somersault.

Wind ups

Erbie chose a Super Moshi plane toy with Katsuma and Wurley, more lumps of plastic but I relented as he had been so good over the Easter holidays.

People riding bikes in vintage. Regents Street April 2013

Marc Jacobs Limited Edition Diet Coke Bottles

You too can own a little piece of Marc Jacobs, all be it in the form of a Limited Edition Diet Coke bottle. Cute! Available in the UK from Selfridges, London, Oxford Street.

All images © Selfridges - Marc Jacobs

Vintage Alexa Chung!

Alexa Chung in Valentino playsuit
Best Dressed at The Brits 2013 ©Getty

It was good to see Alexa Chung got best dressed at the Brits the other evening, which prompted me to post some images I put together ages ago.

Below are some vintage Alexa looks - she was probably single-handedly responsible for the return of the Barbour, cut-off denims and the Peter Pan collar, but don’t quote me on that! Anyway it’s always nice to look at pictures of Alexa, so here you go.

Taking a Snow Day - Highgate Woods

I took a snow day with Erbie on Monday as we missed the snow last time round due to illness, we even went and bought a red sledge. It was fun.

Snow day

My new sledge

Narnia this way.

Highgate Woods, London N10

Highgate Woods in Snow 2013

Memories are made of this...

We were the only people there.

Weeee!

Egg-free. Dairy Free. Date cake!

Valentine’s Day Chocolate Cake.

I wanted to have my cake and eat it and to do so it has to be eggless. I’ve more or less given up eating cake since eggs have been off my menu (man I miss eggy soldiers, croque madames and eggs florentine, oops I’m digressing down an egg memory lane). I made this for Valentine’s day. The ingredient measures are American as my scales got used to weigh a dinosaur and never fully recovered. Cup measures are easy to come by these days and cheap as chips or you can use an English teacup. I happened to have one of those long trays of real dates left over from Christmas, so this was a good way to use them up. This is a rich dense fudgesome cake and having a slither with an espresso feels salaciously decadent and is almost guilt free! 

Ingredients
1 punnet Raspberries
1 cup chopped dates
1 cup boiling water
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 x 250g bars good quality dark chocolate (check for ingredients for milk)
1/2 cup plain soya yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
Icing sugar for dusting
Cocoa powder for dusting tin

1. Stone and chop the dates and add the boiling water, leave to soak for about 10 minutes.
2. Oil your tin (dust with cocoa powder just before adding the cake mixture).
3. Break up the chocolate into bits keep use 1 1/2 bars keep aside 1/2 bar for decorating.
4. Melt the chocolate pieces in a bowl over (not touching) a pan of boiling water.
5. Add the yoghurt to the melted chocolate along with the vanilla.
6. Mix the dry ingredients together
7. Add the dates in water to the chocolate mix and add all the other ingredients.
8. Mix well and pour/gallumph into cake tin.
9. Pop into a pre-heated moderate over (180C / Gas Mk 4 / 350F) for 30 minutes.
10. Leave to cool slightly in the tin before turning out onto cooling rack.
11. When cool, melt the remaining chocolate, pour over cake and decorate with raspberries.