Hawks and honey: Henna Huddle and our date in London

If you follow along on Instagram you know we just got back from a week in the UK and Ireland. Last year when Mehndika Joey Henna posted images live from Henna Huddle in London, I knew my business goal for the year was to get to London in November for a 3 day conference. I budgeted money for our plane tickets but everything else; food, hotels, short flights and spending money were all saved from Henna appointments from the year. It felt so good every time I purchased a new portion of our trip with money I EARNED doing henna. It made me inexplicably grateful for every person who has invested in their own self care and trusted me to adorn them. I literally can't describe what that feels like to be proud of your work, and make enough of an income to live your dream. Anyway, I decided to build this trip into a little getaway with Husband, we left the kids with my sister in law and family and journeyed to London. (we stopped in Ireland first).

This is one of the nicest most talented artists (Veronica Lilu) I've ever had the honor meeting as she graces another talented artist (Tiffany Henna Mama 808) with the gift of henna.

And here, Debi Varvi, the Henna Crone herself doing one of her trademark eye designs.

How realistic is that eye?! the skills I learned here will last a lifetime for sure.

Not only were the teachers phenomenal, the students were equally talented.

And there was no shortage of fun.

I used this hand for all the practice work of day one.

And here are my notes from Hand of Fatima's Class on day two.

Practice and notes from Veronica Lilu's Class on day 2.

Another class with Hand of Fatima and the work created by her students there, fusing elements from various teachers and lessons from the weekend.

And finally, my first real attempt at a bridal design. Lots of henna artist do bridal henna but where I live and my clients, I do more bellies and event henna. So this was completely new to me.

In other news, I was sick of waiting for our bag to show up after 5 days, so I manifested some resolution energy called the airlines no less than 5 times, and went to the airport to find our bag had been delivered the night before - after my phone calls which included answers in this order, "it was delivered an hour ago", "it will be delivered in an hour", "it's not listed at all". "it was just delivered minutes ago" and finally me telling THEM it was delivered but I just need a flight number to get though security. sure enough once I got though security it was sitting patiently on the floor for me, keep in mind the whole time my name and phone number were visible on my luggage tag. and it had definitely been delivered the night before. I won't say I wouldn't fly aer lingus ever again, but I will NEVER check a bag with them ever again. It cost me over $100 in international phone call fees, and $400 in replacement items while we were freezing without our proper jackets and shoes. Working with our third party insurance for our flight to get reimbursed because aer lingus will not return emails or phone calls after they told me to submit receipts.

Its fine, look at this vegetarian dim sum we got at Gold Mine Chinese restaurant in Notting Hill.

After getting our bag back, we set off on a date night, I didn't get to do any touristy sight seeing since I was in classes, so I thought a sunset walk though Hide Park would be brilliant, turns out my shoes were shit and my feet hurt and the whole reason we were walking that way was to get to an H&M that actually didn't exist (thanks map app).

The ducks were pretty though.

So after wandering around with shoes that hurt, clothes we couldn't return and shoes my husband needed to buy to get into our fancy restaurnt, I sat on a bench in front of Harrod's and cried. Apparently, he had planned everything around the area he knew there was an H&M but when I wanted to walk around the park he "let me do what I wanted" without sharing that info, so I felt frustrated, and exhausted (I literally had 4 blisters by the time we got home). In the end, I put on my big girl pants, walked some more in my literally bleeding shoes, and decided to got to Piccadilly Circus, in hopes that restaurants in that area would still be open. They were, but no where as special as my original plan so we just kept walking.

Until we turned the corner and found this adorable China town area with paper lanterns and tiny cafes along the streets.

Ultimately we ended up at Cafe Monico. I liked the menu and after all we were dressed for a fancy date night (even though Husband was only rockin' some Sambas)

It was the perfect date night restaurant and if I could just go with the flow and not let the stress of lack of control ruin my life I might actually start to have more of these magical experiences.

I don't remember the name of this drink but it was delicious.

and I love a good heavy weighted cup.

// appetizer

// Husband's Entree

// Mine. a pumpkin, kale, polenta dish.

After dinner, we walked around more to go to the London Bridge, Husband thought the London bridge was the one pictured here, but that's the Tower Bridge by the Tower of London, the London bridge isn't pretty but you do get a good view from it.

This is the Shard, the tallest building in London and at the very top is the restaurant we were supposed to eat at. I have to say, while that would have been really good and pretty, I loved our date night (minus my shoes). And was happy to explore with my Husband. I think next time I'll add an extra day or two to our time in London so I can focus on the conference when I'm there, and then do the fun stuff the day after, It was really expensive to get from our hotel to the city center and it got dark so early, it wasn't really worth it, better to stay at the hotel then set aside time and maybe book a hotel or airbnb in the city to stay at so we're there all day. I guess trying to mix business and pleasure for travel can be done, but there are always lessons to be learned. And i definitely want to focus more on the conferences in the future instead of worrying about whoever is traveling with me and the things we could be doing in the place we're visiting. I"m already saving for my next henna conference and while we might have to skip this one next year, I'll be back for it again someday.