Bids in Graceland: April 2013

Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Bids & Grace at Borough Market

I've been wanting to go to Borough market for forever and finally decided to make the trip last weekend. The weather looked deceptively warm (it was not!) and I took out the twists that I've been rocking for the past couple of days for a twistout. I shall let the pictures tell the rest of the story!

Outfit details:
Blazer - H & M (old)
Scarf - Bimba y Lola
Jumper (just seen) - Madewell
Jeans - Madewell
Shoes - Topshop
Vintage Dooney & Bourke bag - Etsy via Bleuvintage
Earrings - La Raffinerie

Oooh what is that glass building yonder?

The Shard

I thought those eggs were pretty big until I saw some ostrich eggs (scroll down!)

The massive ostrich eggs. Those things looked like melons!

Lunch options were as follows:

We decided to go for the kangaroo fillet but there were no baguettes left so we had it in a bun. A very interesting and different meal. It was quite tough and chewy and a very different flavour to the meat. Would I have it again? No, but I enjoyed it and I'll even try camel next time.

Yummy yummy cinammon elephant biscuits. They were for 4 for 6 pounds so I grabbed the 4 and munched happily on them. Love cinammon!!!!!!!!!!! Very yummy!

I didn't go for the shortbread owls but they looked so cute!

Finished off with drinks at the Swan pub, adjacent to the Shakespeare Globe Theatre. Passionfruit and Strawberry smoothie. Yum!

Guinness, Pimms and passionfruit and strawberry smoothie with some water to wash it all down.

Sadly I didn't get pictures of the Argentinian empanadas that I had as an appetizers to the kangaroo filet. I shall just have to make a return trip to the Argentinian street food stall. Those empanadas were delicious!

So we went, we saw and conquered Borough market. On to the next food market woo hoo!

Thursday, 25 April 2013

And we're back!

All good things must come to an end and here we find ourselves back in London. Ah well! But the sun came with Grace and I from Lagos, woo hoo! We got a bit carried away with our joy at seeing the sun with his hat on and here is the evidence:

Walk this way...

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

My name is not Susan

I just want to get along with you

Que sera sera

Tell me what you want from me

Outfit details:

Blazer - Zara

Blouse - Marks & Spencer

Jeans - Madewell

Vintage Dooney & Burke Bag - Etsy via Hanni & Max

Scarf - Parisian market

Trainers - Lagos market

Sunglasses - Rayban

Notice anything about the captions (wink wink!)? Can you guess where they come from?

Monday, 22 April 2013

Sunday best - More Ankara love

Hallo ha everyone! Another Sunday, another ankara dress for the Lord! This is another one of the dresses that I had made here in Nigeria. I really need to get a load more, I love them. Grace is doing her thing in a puff. As before, I lightly spritzed with the SheaMoisture Mist and went round my edges with the Cantu Shea Butter Coconut Curling Cream before putting Grace in a puff with a goody hair band which I had doubled round my head. Here are the results!

Outfit details:

Ankara dress - tailormade

Shoes - Ann Taylor

Necklace - Tzunuum

Earrings - Eklektik Ekhos

Cuff - ASOS

Bag - Gift from my parents (aww!)

Watch - Michael Kors

Saturday, 20 April 2013

Grace and humidity

Finally got round to posting about the turbulent relationship Grace has with humidity, actually more like I'm having with Grace in humid conditions. It's been a hectic couple of days and Grace has been behaving like a proper diva - gotta love her!

For this trip, I had big plans to rock twistouts and various styles with defined curls whilst here in Lagos but alas, Grace and the weather had other plans. I mentioned in this post that it is roughly 30 degrees celsius everyday here and the humidity is unbelievable, the relative humidity was about 84% today. To clarify, the relative humidity represents the amount of moisture in the air, so a reading of 84% suggests the high likelihood of rain (it's already rained here today!).

Throughtout the trip, Grace and I have been getting to know ourselves in a new way in our humid circumstances. I had brought my tried, tested, "guaranteed results" products with me because I didn't want to be trying any new products on this trip. The products included:

Cantu Shea Butter Coconut Curling Cream
Kinky Curly Knot Today
SheaMoisture Thickening Mist

They were the exact same products I took with me to the USA. Big mistake. When I went to the USA, I was able to achieve nice defined curls and do lots of different things with Grace. Here in Nigeria, not so much. Grace has been way less defined and more poofy. I twist her every night in about 12 twists, but about 5 minutes after I unravel her in the morning, she has soaked up all the moisture in the air, huffed and puffed (literally!) before shrinking into my head!

So now I'm thinking it would have been a better idea to have brought the Carol's Daughter Hair Milk Pudding and my IC Fantasia gel (which I use sparingly). These humid conditions call for a gel or pudding product with enough hold to keep the hair sealed and protect the hair from the moisture in the air getting in due to Grace's high porosity.

Never mind! I am trying to roll with the punches and the best thing to do with Grace in my current circumstances is to let her be and let her do what she wants to do. I just make sure she is moisturised with the Cantu Shea Butter CCC and Thickening Mist and seal with my cousin's coconut oil.

I'm hoping to come back to Lagos in the near future for another visit (fingers crossed!) so hopefully I'll have a better experience with the humidity and be able to report on a better regimen for Grace in such conditions.

Here's what Grace is looking like at the moment: