Spring arrived with a season that felt full of movement: hosting friends at home, exploring new corners of London, spending time away, eating very well, seeing art, buying books, celebrating birthdays, welcoming family, and heading off on bigger adventures. The headline, of course, was our epic road trip through Turkey, but the whole season had a lovely rhythm of gathering, wandering and making the most of longer, lighter days.
Season in Numbers
Flights taken: 6
Countries visited: 4
US states visited: 2, plus DC
Museums visited: 4
Art exhibitions: 3
Coastal stops: 5
Emergency Walmart purchases: More than planned
Items listed on eBay: Too many
Early Spring: Flatwarming, Tết and New London Rituals
Spring began close to home with our long-delayed flatwarming party on 1 March, finally welcoming friends properly to Brixton. It also became a Tết celebration, in collaboration with my work friend from Vietnam, which made the evening feel even more special.
We had several friends over and set up a DIY spring roll station, so everyone could make their own. It was relaxed, fun and exactly the kind of evening we had hoped to host since moving: people gathered around food, chatting, laughing, assembling rolls and making the flat feel properly lived in.
It felt like the first time the flat had properly become a social space, rather than just the place we had moved into. After months of settling in, unpacking and figuring out new routines, having people around the table made Brixton feel much more like home.
The following weekend, we walked over to Herne Hill for breakfast at Sessa, a new place we had been curious to try. That evening, we finally made it to Normah’s in Queensway for dinner, somewhere that had been on our list for ages. After that, I had some leave from work and enjoyed a few slower, simpler days. One of the nicest was a trip to Bloomsbury, where I had lunch at Cafe Deco and wandered through Waterstones on Gower Street, buying a few classics. It was one of those quiet solo days that felt like a small reset.
Those early March days had a nice balance to them: a bit of exploring, a bit of eating out, and a bit of time alone to wander, read and reset. It felt like spring arriving quietly, through small plans rather than big ones.
Leytonstone: Catsitting, Barbecues and East London Wandering
Later in March, we went to stay in Leytonstone for two weeks to cat sit for our friends. It gave us a chance to properly explore the area and settle into a different London rhythm for a while.
We went to Panda Cafe, walked around the neighbourhood, and made the most of our friends’ barbecue, grilling prawns, fish and other seafood. It felt like a tiny change of scenery without leaving London: a different house, a different high street, a different set of weekend walks.
Staying somewhere else in London for two weeks also gave us the funny feeling of being temporarily local in a new place. We had our usual work routines, but with different streets, different shops, and a different cat waiting for us at the end of the day.
One weekend, we headed to Epping Forest and visited the famous oyster shack. The queue was enormous, almost three hours from joining the line to actually getting our food, but it definitely became one of those slightly ridiculous spring memories.
Another Sunday, we tried Farha, a bakery, which was delicious. It had exactly the kind of weekend bakery feeling I love: somewhere that feels casual and neighbourhood-y, but still special enough to make a morning feel like an outing. After a few weeks of staying nearby, it was nice to have already built up a little list of places we wanted to try before leaving Leytonstone.
After that, we visited the newly opened V&A East Storehouse. It felt completely different from a traditional museum visit, more like being allowed behind the scenes of a huge collection. I loved the sense of wandering through objects, fragments, furniture, costumes and design history, with everything packed together in a way that made the scale of the collection feel much more visible. It was less polished and more exploratory, which made it a really fun spring afternoon.
That part of spring became a little East London chapter of its own. We were not doing anything especially dramatic, but we kept finding new corners: bakeries, galleries, forests, open spaces, and neighbourhoods that felt both familiar and completely separate from our usual south London life.
Another weekend day took us to Wanstead Flats and Walthamstow, where we visited the William Morris Gallery. It was a gentle kind of London day: walking, exploring and finding ourselves somewhere we do not usually go.
Back in Brixton: A Japanese Dinner and a Farewell
Back home in Brixton, we hosted another dinner on 1 April, this time with some ex-work colleagues. We cooked a Japanese dinner, which also became a kind of farewell meal for one of my friends before her big move to Bali, where she was heading to pursue her fitness dreams.
It felt like a proper marker of change: one of those evenings where everyone is gathered around the table, aware that someone is about to begin a completely new chapter. There was something very spring-like about it, a farewell, a leap, a sense of possibility.
The Big Spring Story: Our Turkey Road Trip
And then came the biggest adventure of the season: our epic road trip in Turkey. This was the centrepiece of spring, the trip that gave the season its sense of scale and adventure. After a few weeks of London routines, dinners, and neighbourhood exploring, Turkey felt like the moment when everything opened up: new landscapes, long drives, different food, new places to discover, and the feeling of being fully away.
I have already written about the trip in separate posts, so I will not go into the full itinerary here. But as part of the season as a whole, it was the big turning point: the moment spring shifted from gentle London days into something much more expansive.
Returning to London: Museums, Dinners and Dulwich
Back in London, we eased into city life again with more weekend plans. We went to the Samurai exhibition at the British Museum, followed by dinner at Baba Tang.
Another weekend, we explored Dulwich and went for dinner at Connie’s. After the scale of Turkey, these London weekends felt smaller and softer, but still very full: galleries, neighbourhood walks, dinner reservations and the pleasure of being back in familiar places.
Sant Jordi, Books, Birthdays and Seurat
On 23 April, it was Sant Jordi. We celebrated on the weekend by going to a bookshop and buying books for each other, a small but very sweet tradition, and one that felt especially fitting after my earlier spring trip to Waterstones.
That evening, we went to a birthday bash for my best friend in London, turning the day into a proper celebration of books, friendship and spring. On Sunday, we visited the Seurat exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, rounding off the weekend with art after books and birthdays.
May Begins: Family, the Kent Coast and Creative Evenings
To begin May, Victor’s parents came to visit from 1 May to 8 May, giving us a reason to plan a full early bank holiday weekend by the coast.
On Saturday, we took the train to Ramsgate and explored both Ramsgate and Broadstairs. On Sunday, we spent the day in Margate, and on Monday, we went to Dover to see the castle and the cliffs. It was a lovely way to start May: sea air, family time, trains, coastal walks and the feeling of stretching the long weekend as far as it could go.
May also included a couple of lovely friend moments. On 8 May, I celebrated a work friend’s birthday at Kiln, one of my favourite spots in Soho. Then, on 14 May, I went to a painting session with another work colleague, which was so much fun. It was an open session where you could paint whatever you liked, making it feel relaxed, creative, and surprisingly freeing.
US Trip: Graduation, Lost Luggage and Goodbye, Virginia
In mid-May, we flew to the US for what became a very full, emotional and slightly chaotic trip. The journey started badly when our checked bags did not make it to DC because the conveyor belts at Heathrow were not working, meaning the plane took off with barely any luggage on board.
We arrived in DC, where my brother picked us up, and then drove straight to Richmond to stay the night. The next morning, we had an early drive to Charlottesville for my other brother’s graduation from UVA. Since Victor and I had arrived with only the clothes we were wearing on the plane, our glamorous first stop in America was Walmart at 9 or 10pm, where we bought emergency clothes, toiletries, makeup, and everything else we were missing.
The next day was long, but ultimately very special. We went to my brother’s graduation, and I felt incredibly proud of him. Afterwards, we drove back to Northern Virginia. On Sunday, my newly graduated brother, Victor, and I spent the day in DC before meeting the rest of my family for dinner at The Capital Grille to properly celebrate his graduation.
The rest of the week was spent helping my family pack, as they have sold the house and are moving to Florida. In many ways, it also felt like my own goodbye to Virginia. I may, of course, come back someday, but it is unlikely to be in the same way now that my family will no longer be there. It made the trip feel much more significant than an ordinary visit home.
On Friday, we shifted into a different kind of reunion and went away with my two best friends from college and their partners. We spent the weekend in Fayetteville, visiting New River Gorge National Park. After a busy, emotional week, it was lovely to have time with old friends, partners, mountains and a completely different landscape.
We then flew back to London and were welcomed by a massive heatwave. We only had a few days before flying again, but we managed to fit in a barbecue at Victor’s business partner’s place with his other employees, celebrating a good work week and lots of new work for their consultancy.
Closing Spring in Calafell
A few days later, on Friday, we were at it again and flew to Barcelona, before driving down to Calafell to spend the weekend by the beach. After such a busy spring, it felt like a fitting place to end the season: sea air, family time and the first proper feeling of summer beginning. But more on that in the summer digest.
Closing Note
Looking back, spring was a season of movement in every sense. Looking back, spring was a season of movement in every sense. We slipped between homes and neighbourhoods, from Brixton to Leytonstone and back again. Across London, the season unfolded on foot, by train, and through galleries, restaurants, bookshops and parks. Around our own table, we gathered people for spring rolls, Japanese food, birthdays and farewells. Further afield, the season stretched through Turkey, the US for graduation, family goodbyes and a college reunion, and finally to Calafell as spring tipped into summer.
Winter had been quieter, but spring felt like the year opening up: more plans, more people, more light, more movement. A season of hosting, wandering, eating, reading, travelling and collecting the memories that will carry us into summer.
So that was spring: full, messy, generous and bright. What did spring look like for you?
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