A note on 'July 19th/Freedom Day': If you live in England, you might be anxious and/or worried about all of the restrictions being lifted today, and if that's you, please know that you're not alone. Stephen and I wore our masks every second that we weren't eating or drinking something on this date, and we socially distanced from everyone as much as we could. We will continue to be doing the same on any future dates, so please don't read this and think that we've forgotten that the pandemic still exists - we absolutely haven't and won't be doing so either! You don't have to do anything, or go anywhere that you're not comfortable with yet. Please stay safe, friends ♡
Last week Thursday marked the day that myself and Stephen have been married for two months - usually we wouldn't celebrate monthly anniversaries, but a) we didn't make a particular effort to celebrate our first month marriage because we had just gotten legally married a few days before, so that was the most magical celebration we could ask for, and b) it's a really good idea to celebrate anything that you possibly can, especially at the moment.
When Stephen and I first started dating, I had just learnt about the 2-2-2 rule, which is as follows:
Every 2 weeks, go out for the evening.
Every 2 months, go out for the weekend.
Every 2 years, go out for a week.
Stephen and I met when we were 20, and we were long distance for a couple of years, so it was amazing if we managed to go on a date once in a six week period, let alone every 2 weeks. However since moving in together, we have stuck to having a date night every two weeks - we don't always leave the house for it, sometimes we just sit and watch a movie in our pyjamas with a nice homemade meal or a takeout, but we've never missed one in 3 years which I totally love. We're still working on the other two of the rules, but we try our best to do the second one when Stephen has a weekend off of work - the third will probably come later in life when we're more financially stable, but it's such an exciting concept, and I totally recommend it. Regardless of how you do this, the aim of it is to never stop dating each other, which is absolutely the best relationship advice I could ever give anyone. We've been through a lot in our 5.5 years together, but we've never missed a date night, even if it was on a much smaller scale than usual depending on the circumstance we were in.
Something that we've not done before however, is a date day - so when the 2 month anniversary of our wedding day fell on a day which Stephen already had a day off on, I booked off a half-day at work, and took him to London for a day of pizza, drinks, and wandering around all of the pretty side streets that the city has to offer. This is your friendly reminder to use your paid-time-off days, they're so important - even if you use them to rest! Use them! This is my first job where PTO is a thing, and it was so exciting to log out at 12pm and just.. not come back? Wild!
We started our date by ordering a click and collect Pizza Pilgrims from Kingly Court, and eating it outside on one of the pretty pastel benches in Carnaby Street. It is now open so you can eat inside of the actual restaurant, but it's also super convenient to pick up some pizza and eat it outside in the sunshine, so I totally recommend doing that. Their pizzas only take about 15 minutes to make, they're really indulgent and delicious without being oily at all, and the mac and cheese balls are absolutely my favourite thing.
Our next stop was Crumbs and Doilies, the home of my favourite desserts in London. They recently added some new flavours on to their menu so of course we had to go and try some. The Kinder Bueno cookie is insanely amazing - it's a mix of perfectly melted white chocolate, milk chocolate and hazelnut - it's so gorgeous. Stephen tried the lemon meringue, and oh my goodness, it's so sweet and rich. As with every time that I visit C & D, I had to get something from the 'cereal milk' flavour range because it is the absolute loveliest - I only ordered a mini one this time, and it was handed to me in this little doily for carrying it around, and I just love how on brand that is. Too adorable.
TW: alcohol.
Finally, we headed back on the train to go to Old Street Records bar, which is in, you guessed it, Old Street. This was my first time inside of a bar since 2019, so it was totally exciting and something I'd been looking forward to ever since I confirmed the booking of our 2 hour cocktail happy hour seat at the bar. The drinks are delicious, the staff are hilarious, not to mention incredibly talented at making cocktails, and the general atmosphere of the bar is so much fun. We got home around 10pm, so not too late that we couldn't end the evening with a lovely homemade mushroom, broccoli and prawn soba, before turning in, (and I still managed to go to work the next day - go me!)
I made a TikTok of our day here which you can watch and I'm pretty proud of it. It took a while to edit the clip of us cheers-ing with mac and cheese balls to fit in time with the music like that, so please do watch haha! You can also see the number of rounds of drinks that we had cut to some funky music, and that was really fun to edit. I cannot recommend having a date day with your partner enough - it was so fun to walk around the city in cute outfits, holding hands, and eating/drinking delicious things.
Speaking of my outfit, I absolutely love it. The pastel tie-dye effect crop top is from Quiz Clothing, and the white tailored shorts are from River Island. I felt so cute all day - it's so much fun to dress up and go out, I think we've all missed it.
I'm already looking forward to our next date in a couple of weeks! xo
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