Our Weekend in London — Sophie Cliff

Have you ever come home from a trip or a weekend away feeling like it was just EXACTLY what you needed? That's how I felt on the train home from our weekend in London on Sunday. It was a pretty short trip - we were only actually in the capital for just over 24 hours - but I came back feeling refreshed and happy and like the sparkliest version of me. I felt more ready to take on the world and put all those plans into action and generally kick life's ass a bit more. Which is exactly the opposite of how I'd been feeling on Friday night.

A busy couple of days at work and a bit of a midweek wobble and *that* presidential inauguration meant that by the time I finished work on Friday evening I felt teary, emotional and pretty worn out. I was actually feeling pretty stressed about going away and was panicking about all the stuff that I wouldn't be able to get done. But it's in those moments that you really need to get away, isn't it?

Some quality time with Sam was just what the doctor ordered and the glorious blue skies that London laid on for us definitely helped. I travel down south for work all the time but hardly ever get any time to explore, so playing tourist for the weekend was FUN. We wandered along the Thames in the sunshine and ate our way around Borough Market and admired the view of Tower Bridge from the rooftop of our hotel. We got drunk on expensive cocktails at The Savoy and then followed them up with cheap and delicious Shake Shack burgers.

We had an epic night's sleep in our gigantic hotel bed (more to come on that next week!) and revisited one of our all time fave restaurants. But best of all, we got to catch up properly, to talk about things other than wedding planning or work schedules or what to have for tea. I think when life is so busy (and especially when January is doing it's depressing thing) it can be easy to forget how important it is to just switch off and have fun. Because let's face it - when we're old and grey it's the cocktails on rooftop bars and laughing with the ones we love that we'll remember, not the fact that we had a really tidy house or that we were really great at keeping on top of life admin.

Our weekend away also reminded me that you don't always need to fly to some exotic destination to switch off and enjoy yourself - just getting away for a night somewhere local can your soul the world of good. So this year I'm committed to making sure we do this more often - planning little trips away just for the hell of it. Because they help to keep me sane and they remind me what life is all about - making memories and laughing and just being content in the moment. More of that can't be a bad thing, right?!