A year in UK

I made another video especially for London that I will upload as soon It's finished.

Greenwich Park + my emotional night with One Direction

What an unbelievable day! A week ago I was getting sad and desperate because the One Direction's UK leg was kicking off and I still hadn't any tickets. But two days before the show I wished to attend, they were releasing more tickets so without thinking of the state of my poor bank account, I clicked on the link to buy some. It was the best idea ever!! Good seat with a very good view for a very good price. I just could not believe it! 

SO Saturday finally arrived and I was more than impatient. Not to waste the cost of my train ticket to London, I thought it would be a good idea to visit Greenwich before heading at the O2 Arena. My feet placed on " the Big Smoke" concrete, I took the Tube and DLR to Cutty Sark. After being a bit lost at Canary Wharf to find the DLR station, I finally managed to get in this massive green space. Walking around beautiful white buildings, I found out the Nationale Maritime Museum. Not very keen on boats (but it's free!!), I decided to give it a go in the aim to keep me busy  and calm down my impatience (I swear I was buzzing like a child before Christmas!). In my opinion the museum was not really entertaining but in the back of it, it led to the park and the Royal Observatory which I didn't visit because the queue at the entrance was long. So I just stayed a bit to admire the view of London (very worth it!). Then having one more hour to kill I went back down to sit down on the grass and enjoy the rays of sunshine. But I could not wait any longer so I headed to the O2 earlier than expected. 

17:00- already out of North Greenwich station waiting for my friend. 

(Sorry in advance if I fangirl a bit in the rest of the post)

After collecting our tickets and getting some food, we are now ready to discover our seats and wait for the show to start. Once we were inside I could not believe it was currently happening. We were in the lower tier close to stage and the view was fantastic. I have to admit I am gutted my pictures and videos are bad quality because it does not reflect at all what I could see in front of me (hoping that one day we could take pictures with our eyes... *sigh*). The show was great!! Whether you like them or not you cannot deny that the members of One Direction are great performers. The four of them were so cute, Harry was hilarious, Niall waved back at us (and it will remain on Youtube forever), Louis' family and the sons of David Beckham stood underneath our block. 

Even today I do not entirely realise what happened. All I can tell you is I am more than happy I could see them live before their well deserved break. I know it sounds really cheesy and cliché but they really saved my life 4 years ago. I remember during my depression, their music was the only thing that made me "happy" or at least made me stop crying. Everyday I was promising myself not to end my shitty life (I am so ashamed to write that down) to thank them for making me feel better and to prove me you can fulfill your dreams. I sincerely owe my life to these boys because I would probably not be part of this world anymore (oh god I hate talking about it!! Sorry.) if they did not exist (thanks Simon even if I don't approve evrything you do). 

I wish I could see them again

Banana cake

If like me you hate eating bananas when the black bits appear then this recipe is for you! A really quick, simple and delicious banana cake.

Ingredients:
- 2 bananas (+1 to decorate)
- 150g sugar
- 150g unsalted butter
- 150g self-raising flour
- 3 eggs

• Whisk the eggs and sugar together. Add the flour and mix evenly. Add the melted butter and mix well. Finish by adding your mashed bananas in the mixture. 
• Pour it in a greased tin and cook at 200°C for 30 to 40 minutes. 

Shoreditch Street Art Gallery

Top 5 of my summer songs

I know summer is over... Well at least summer holidays! But I still have these five songs that I often listened during my month off that I decided to share this little playlist with you. I am not goign to London before the weekend so be patient! :)

• Fréro Delavega - Le chant des sirènes  x
• Felix Jaehn ft Jasmine Thompson - Ain't nobody x
• Kygo ft James Parson x
• Louane - Jour 1 x
• Charlie Puth ft Meghan Trainor - Marvin Gaye x

Gâteau au chocolat

Chocolat: 250g                                              Sucre en poudre: 250g

Beurre: 120g                                                   Oeufs: 6

Fécule de pomme de terre: 4 cuillères à soupe

• Faites fondre ensemble le chocolat et le beurre sans les faire bouillir. 
• Ajoutez le sucre, les jaunes d'oeufs, la fécule de pomme de terre. Mélangez soigneusement.
• Incorporez les blancs d'oeufs battus en neige et mélangez.
• Mettre dans un moule préalablement beurré
• Faire cuire 25 min à 180°C.

Recette basique donc qui marche aussi bien en gâteau normal qu'en muffins.

Chausey Islands + Zoo

As you may know I am on holidays at my parents in France. Even if I know my little Normandy by heart I still love to discover new places or revisit the ones I have already done. This week, for the first time, we went to Chausey. It is composed of small islands in the English Channel. The weather was nice and it only took about 3 hours to walk all around the main island. 

On Tuesday afternoon we visited the zoo of Jurques (Normandy). We went there so many times when we were young so it wasn't a great discovery for me but for my little nephew it was. 

 

Coffee cake

As we need to empty the cupboards because we are going on holidays, I wanted to try a coffee cake. I didn't have enough to do a sponge cake so I looked on the Internet for the recipe of a normal cake. 

Ingredients:
For the cake
-75g butter or margarine
-75g sugar
-2 eggs
-75g self-raising flour
-1/2 and 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
-1 tablespoon boiling water
-1 tablespoon coffee granulates

For the filling:
-200ml double cream
-2 tablespoon icing sugar
-1 teaspoon coffee granules for 2 tablespoons boiling water

• Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4. Grease your tin.
• Beat butter and sugar until pale and creamy. This will take only a few seconds.
• Lightly whisk the eggs in a mug. Gradually add them to the mixture. Add flour a tablespoon at a time whilst beating. Beat in baking powder.
• Dissolve the coffee granules in boiling water and fold it gently. 
• Pour the mixture in the tin and bake for 30 minutes and let it cool for 5 to 10 minutes. 

• For the filling, add all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until the cream forms soft peaks. 
• With a piping bag or a spatula spread the filling on the cake and done!

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Almond cake (the easiest and quickest cake ever!)

Rubbish at baking but want to impress your loved ones? I have the solution for you! Let's just hope they are not allergic to nuts. This is the recipe for an almond cake. If you look on the internet we basically all have the same recipe: it's simple and quick. So you have no excuses now! Ready - Steady -BAKE!!

Ingredients:
-4 medium eggs
-200g ground almond
-200g sugar
-100g melted (unsalted) butter

• Mix the eggs and the sugar. Add the almond powder and melted butter. Mix well and pour in your greased tin. Place it in the oven (200°C) for about 20 minutes. 

• Now admire your great work! 

Windsor Great Park

Last weekend it was a new adventure for Annabelle and Lola! This time we went to Windsor Great Park... yeah we were too poor to visit the castle and July is not the best time of the month if you don't want to be annoyed by the tourists (sorry tourists!). We had a nice walk all through the day under a lovely British weather. Windsor Great Park is huge so we stayed at the 'Long Walk' starting at Windsor Caste and finishing at the statue of King Edward VII. To get back in the car we decided to go through the city of Windsor. It was really charming and there was a nice market walk. 

We could see Wembley Stadium and London's buildings from the top of the hill

Et voilà! Honestly I think it was my last "trip" in UK. From September I will have to start saving money if I want to stay and carry on my studies in England. Now I will go more often in London and I would like to plan a weekend in Paris so I could see my friends. I will probably have some more adventures when I will be settled and I will have money to travel in the North of the UK. My list is sooo long: Snowdonia, Lake District, Manchester/Liverpool, Scotland,... I wish I could visit some European cities too such as Berlin, Brussels, Florence,... I have to admit I am a bit sad to stop discovering UK for a while... but well, I love London and I can't wait to find some hidden gems out there and share it with you! :)

Easy couscous recipe

If you are running out of recipes try this easy couscous! I will start by writing the original recipe I found on BBC Good Food and then I will tell you how I did it the other day. I forgot to take a picture of it so next time I will cook this for dinner I will take a picture for the article. 

Ingredients:

- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion thinly sliced
- 200g chicken breasts diced
- 1-2 tbsp harissa paste, plus extra to serve
-10 dried apricots
- 220g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 200g couscous
- 200ml hot chicken stock
- handful coriander chopped

• Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion for 1-2 minutes until softened. Add the chicken and fry for 7-10 minutes until cooked through and the onions have turned golden. Stir through the harissa to coat everything and cook for 1 more minute.
• Tip in the apricots, chickpeas and couscous, then pour over the stock and stir once. Cover with a lid or tightly cover the pan with foil and leave for about 5 minutes until the couscous has soaked up all the stock and is soft. Fluff up the couscous with a fork and scatter over the coriander to serve. Serve with extra harissa if you like. 

As I was cooking for children I didn't dare to follow the recipe so here are the few tips I can give you:

• I replace the harissa with tomato purée for a non-spicy version
• I didn't put apricots because I don't like it and I'm not sure the children would have liked it too. 
• Next time I will do more than 200ml of chicken stock because the couscous was quite dry. To me 200ml is not enough, it burned the bottom of my pan and I was only on medium heat.

London, July 4th

 Last Saturday, under this beautiful British summer, me and my friend Lola went in London looking for clothes and books. We first stopped by the gigantic shopping centre of Stratford: Westfield, located in the Olympic Park. So we had a little shopping spree to see what the summer sales had to offer... Well not much! We both ended up with an item each. But the atmosphere out there was exotic. The sun, the heat, a bridge which vaguely reminded me of Barcelona's Maremagnum... We felt like we were in Spain and not at all in the British capital city. 

Quick lunch outside and we took the tube to Camden. When you live near London all the year, you tend to forget this is one of the most visited places in the world. So obviously in July you have a mass of tourists visiting trendy places (including Camden). We searched for presents in the market or at souvenir shops but nothing really interesting. Completely dehydrated, we decided to grab a drink at Costa Coffee. From our table, we could see several street arts on the walls outside. Once we finished our cups we took some pictures and carrying on walking we found out a nice little street with colorful houses (if you often read my blog it's no secret this kind of street is my weakness). 

Arrived at Chalk Farm Station, we headed to Granary Square because Lola (bookaholic) heard of a barge selling second-hand books called "Word on the water". The place is made of a big building with water jets in front of it and stairs with synthetic grass leading to the canal. Because of the heat, Granary Square was full of people tanning in their swimming costumes. We went on this barge searching for books. Once Lola came out with the one she bought, we finished our lovely day in the shade of Hyde Park.