After the Eat & Snap group on Saturday the die hards decided to go for a cocktail at one of the interesting looking venues along Maltby Street.  We settled on Little Bird Gin because it had pretty glasses.  Yup that is the way these bloggers roll.  We sat at an old sewing table and found some vintage scissors and a bobbin inside.

I have to admit the drink was a little strong for my palette but I’d buy another one and sit down there on a lovely weekend all the same.

It is quite funny how when you start looking for something it pops up.  As part of Eat & Snap I suggested some things people should look for to ‘concentrate the mind’ as it were.  One of those things was red.  You can see it popped up very prominently at the table we sat at.  As well as in a few of my other photos of the day.

On Friday I started planning for a recipe that Tim and I could film.  It was similar to things I had made in the past, a zucchini cake inspired by a recent purchase (La Cucina).

Unfortunately, my baking calculations didn’t succeed and the cake (more a loaf) didn’t turn out quite as planned.  So back to the kitchen.  But in the meantime you can enjoy a movie.  I am sure with the abundance of zucchini coming into season in season I will get the chance to experiment a bit more.  You know that whole thing about baking being a science.  Yeah that is true (despite my successes at normally just throwing things in a bowl).

Lesson learned: perfect a recipe before making a movie!

If you get this by email or on your phone you can check out the video here: Zucchini Cake (by Tim)

Borough Market is for the urban trendy, people with a willingness to queue for an inordinate amount of time for Monmouth coffee, tourists and food lovers*.  The hipsters go to Maltby Street.

* No shame in any of these – I love Borough Market

Saturday I had my first Eat & Snap gathering.  I had been a little nervous into the run up, never actually having taught anyone what I know.  We met at Village East which is on the loveliest little street in Bermondsey.  After having regular a ol’ chat with the snappers over brunch I felt relaxed and some friendships had already been formed.  After eating I handed out some ‘tip cards’ explaining camera settings and rules of composition and showed some camera examples.

I had planned to head down to Borough Market but we were told by the restaurant manager that Maltby Street was just down the road so we decided to head down there instead.  My weather mojo had worked well and although it was overcast (which is actually great for a bit of street photography) the rain that the weather man had told me would be happening all week never materialised.  I had heard about Maltby Street Market but hadn’t been so it was really great to see something different.  It is only one small street but it is packed with good food and awesome little restaurants under the railway arches.  I’ll definitely be heading back to check some more out.  The snappers headed off, got sidetracked by purple walls, and details, asked a couple questions, had some points clarified, looked styling in stripes and colours and snapped away.

All in all it was a great day and as a bonus I got some great shots of some styling hipster locals and a cocktail.  I’ll share later this week.  I’ll also link up any thoughts from the snappers involved, but you can follow some thoughts from instagram and twitter if you like.

Read what my snappers had to say: Charlotte | Made by Molu

Also …

I am excited for this weekend.  My first eat&snap gathering is tomorrow.  I had some ‘tip’ cards printed for the occasion and the printers duplicated my order, so I am taking that as a sign there will be another, but we shall see.

I’m hoping to find some time to relax too this weekend, after a busy weekend of catching up with people, day job and ‘night job’ means I am still coughing like a dog.  Is that the saying.  Do dogs even cough?

Anyway here are some links for the weekend

• I’m probably late to the show on this one but I love the photography on Industry of One.
• Blog of the week: The Ruffle House.  A little bit of interiors (with a great eye for spotting great matches), a little bit of personal style and a tonne of naturally red hair which is gorgeous.

Me Elsewhere:

• I had a post up on This is Your Kingdom exploring a local public garden
• Tim and I are working at getting more blog posts up on Posts Production.  We’d love if you would wander over and take a look. Today’s post is about why having a talented significant other to help shouldn’t stop you making brilliant movies.

A little while ago I went to the Transport Museum to see the exhibition celebrating the 150th anniversary of the underground.  A selection of underground posters are on show giving advice on how to use the underground, where you can get to and the wonders of modern technology.  The one poster that has stuck out in my mind is the one above which was made in 1926 showing the future a hundred years from then.  You can’t see the detail, and I can’t quite remember the timings, but basically it suggested that in the future travel would be revolutionised with high speed trains to Scotland taking around 20 minutes and flights (in blimp type aircrafts) taking approximately 36 hours.  What intrigued me about this ‘future reality’ in particular was how we perceive things will be in the future based on what things are like now.  In 1926 trains were long established but cross-Atlantic flights were rare, the first trans-Atlantic flight had taken place in 1919 going from Newfoundland in the US to the UK and taking 23 days!  At the time, then it would have seemed impossible that flights would be so fast as only taking the suggested 2 days but surely trains would only become faster (as I imagine train speed had already increased exponentially by that stage).  Standing at the vantage point of 2013 I know that flights are exceedingly faster than that and have to say that the I am doubtful of a train being invented in the next 10 years that will take me to Scotland in 20 minutes when it currently takes me 2 hours to get across London.

I guess what I am taking away from this is that your current reality can distort the way you see your own future.  Perhaps sometimes we need to suspend reality and disbelief and imagine how different our worlds can be in a year or ten or fifty.  Things might not always go according to plan but did you imagine that ten years ago you would be sharing your life on the internet and you would walk around with things devices that allowed you share ‘hipster’ photos and 140 character messages with people around the world, some who you have never even met.  Imagine what you could do if you put those same ‘unexpectations’ on your dreams and yourself.

p.s. the Poster Exhibition is still open to the end of October 2013 if you want to find some vintage design inspiration!