- Fancy a free haircut on Friday? Check this way…

- The Natural History Museum will stay open late. Jazz? Glass of wine on the Darwin center terrasse? Night walk in the wildlife garden?

- Party @ the V&A Summer Camp. Bombay Sapphire will have a design cardboard bar with stylised cardboard glasses (but real cocktails). A great way to enjoy their late evening.

- You can even go on to the Serpentine pavillion and sleepover… Midnight feast, films and even breakfast in the morning…

- I really must try to find a free Saturday morning and do this guided tour of the Somerset House!

- The extraordinary Chilly Gonzales will be @ the field day on Saturday…

- Latin fever @ the Carnaval del pueblo!

- Even more music with the Croydon festival…

- A classic, but have you done it yet? Buckingham Palace is open for the summer….

- Have a spooky evening…

- Saturday, head for Brick Lane: free cocktails, demo of Urban Art and even a tattoo session! You might also decide to stay around and go bowling in this fab diner… Perfect for Sunday’s festival: bowling but British, music and dancing!

- It’s open air cinema season! A whole programme @ the Somerset House… Act crazy for Mamma Mia and choose funky colours… The Wapping Project proposes a barbecue with your movie…

- You already knew routemasters could ne recycled as veggie restaurants (the root-master is my favourite). Well, one of those goes around, proposing German food!

- Oooooh, as soon as I’m on holiday, I am going to book myself one of those fab afternoon teas… Now, chocolate or pink? (vegan and gluten free versions are proposed)

-What about the kids? Little ones will love the teddies picnic @ Covent Garden on Saturday… Teenagers will much prefer to go to the underage festival!

- Give! Exchange!

Pssst, heads up for next week! There will be a maze @ Trafalgar (with dragons and Chinese cooking on Tuesday). And Selfridge’s is to open their Xmas shop too…

Hey, anyone has a great address for a roof terrasse for cocktails?

I am particularly fascinated by the hats. French, well, they will settle for a bob, a cap, perheaps a Michael Jackson/Billie Jean kind of hat. But here, what a collection you have for weddings and Ascott! 9 years in the country and I still gasp in wonder (and jealousy, I never dared to wear one of those although I’m dying to).  Some are large enough in diameter to be small parasols. Others are sculptural by their minimalism. Fascinating.

One of my favourite mad hatters is Gina Foster. I never go to High Street Kensington without a stroll via ther almost hidden Church Lane to see what she has in store…

Want something unique? Oh, she’ll have it. She’ll make every head turn!

Gina Foster
5 Kensington Church Walk
Kensington
London, W8 4NB

Fancy more classical but as stylish? Try CA4LA…

Or are those aliens? Giant spiders escaped from Matrix? Eccentric parasites from Moebius? Nomad shops from the 5th Element?

Each pod shelters an ecclectic universes of its own. Here an Asian bazaar, lanterns, chopsticks, Chinese noodles. There, the back room of a charity shop, each scale offering a shirt. Over there, a giant version of 4 fixed on a black cab chassis… Everything is mixed: a collection of clocks, kitchen tools, CDs, kitsch glasses…

Entry is free, and the atmosphere joyful. The only risk is to have your kids compare their chaotic bedroom to a work of art!

Barbican
The Curve
Silk Street
London EC2Y 8DS

Until Sept 12, 2010 – free

One of my favourite breaks in this neighbourhood is no doubt the Albion. Great British classics, reasonably prices, under the shadow of -no less – Terence Conran. Thisis on the brasserie side but still family friendly, wooden notes, comfortable. My love for it is not the lovely food but having my breakfast coffee served in gorgeous red enamel tea pots. So French Sunday mornings.

Crossing the street, I just stop in my tracks in the cutest and yet tiniest cafe. A counter, 4 bar stools, and what looks like amazing machines.

Forget espresso robots, automatic buttons, steam, speed, noise. Here, coffee, my dear is an art. Everything is measured, enjoyed, admired. Manipulations are methodical, precise, yet easy to do at home, should you wish to buy the equipment. The effect is between mesmerizing and mind blowing.

The menu proposes three choices. Each coffee pot serves enough for two. And the price, given the quality, is pretty reasonable.

Our tastebuds have been seduced by…

Tegu Aa, Kenya, £4 for 240ml -  splendid cacao notes, velvety…

Yirgacheffe, Ethiopie, 230ml – floral, almost lemony…

One forgets, with Starbucks and Costas on the go, or those mechanical mugs of Nescafe drunk at work, the sheer pleasure of a real coffee. The kind that just ceases any conversation, that closes your eyes, that just kicks in your system immediately. Here this charm is intensified by the dance of the alchemists in fromt of you, by their passion, their explanations of each single step.

Sadly, the address will close its door on July 30th, 16.00, the adventure was always meant to be temporary. You still have a few days to discover it! Let’s hope the torrefactor Square Mile will soon launch a similar experience…

Penny University
4 Redchurch Street
London E2 7DJ

Open till July 30, 2010
(Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 10.00-18.00, Friday 10.00-16.00)

Coffee lover:? Have you tried Monmouth yet? Or Flat White ( for the coming two weeks, you can even get a free coffee there thanks to this operation. I did try on friday, works fine, and what a joy!)?

I’m looking for the best French addresses in London. Have you tried any? Let us know!

- The free ping-pong tables project finally is launched tomorrow. Rush to St Pancras!

- You have until Friday to enjoy the food festival @ the Old Spitalfields market – cooking demonstration and free tasting, yummmy!

- On Friday, the Design Museum goes mad for recycling and green art. You can even try electric bikes. All this listening to a fab percussionist!

- Visit the parliament!

- Why not celebrate the 60ies @ Carnaby Street?

- Time to revise your Picasso knowledge…

- London parks are getting festive too!

- Add a pinch of poetry… and learn about Keats’ life right in the house and gardens where he used to live…

- Summer school holidays are on! Struggling to come up with ideas to keep the kids busy? You’re gonna love O2: mini golf, water games, trampolines…

- Or initiate them to opera with this version of Mr Fox -  only a few pounds.

- Did you know a few falcons actually nest on the Modern’s Tate chimney? Here is a chance to learn more!

- Sushi AND fusion food? Count me in!

- oh, and I’ll have cherry granita for desert…

- Speaking of ice-cream, Ben and Jerry’s launch their music and sweet treats festival this week-end @ Clapham…

- How could you resist a designers’ market?

- Follow Time Out to discover the oldest parts of London…

- Opera, art, walks, a pinch of madness with the in-transit festival….

- Too hot? I know what you need: a water tournament!

You’ll find me having a mocktail with friends @ Vista, a bar on a roof with a view on Trafalgar Square… I’ll also be following my friend Celine, a street-art specialist, to discover some more in London!

You have just stepped into the oldest botanical garden in London. Founded in 1673 by the Society of Apothicaries, it was meany both as medicinal and educational for the novices. The choice was meticulous -  the area was already know for its orchards and its microclimate. You will find the lagest olive tree in  Britain here!

Quite important for the time was the proximity of the Thames. Roads were unsafe and the river provided the quickest way to travel.  Hundreds of smalls boats would have travelled up and down but if you were rich, you would have had your own barge.

Little by little, exganges of seeds and plants were arranged with other famous botanical gardens. Quite a collection here,  I tell you! Although this is now open to visitors, it still remains of scientific importance, helping researchers to collect plants for remedies (even members of the public can leave their own list) and participating in programs with great names such as the Eden Project or the Natural History Museum.

Flowerbeds alternate between elegants  squares or a little meadow crazyness. You’ll glimpse the triangular roofs of houses around the place behind a sunflower or a clematis…

The cafe is quite a place – the locals (golden wallet, smart clothes and all) do love to lunch here on a Sunday. You’ll get to see trays with 5 Cokes and a bottle of champagne! Do book in advance if you want a table. Most people do settle for the wooden benches of the lawn. The food’s great – worth a first class gastropub (duck confit with truffled mash! The mixed salads are a must -  creative and filling). Lavender scones are also found at tea-time… Many families do come with a picnic hamper and settle under the trees. Children love to run around, gathering fallen leaves.

Do take the kids to the big pond! Frogs and tadpoles hide under the lilies. Brown and blue dragonflies dance around, unsure where to stop, bees jump from a water flower to another… Even water snails make an appearance! A fascinating nature lesson for the whole family.

It feels like Beatrix Potter’s garden somehow. Surely Peter Rabbit will appear in the vegetable patch, between the tiger nasturniums and the blushing cherry tomatoes?

Chelsea Physics Gardens
66 Royal Hospital Road
Chelsea
London SW3 4HS

Fee: £8/adult, £5/child over 5 years of age
Alternatively, try the Friends of the garden card! £30 for the year, you and a friend can go free each time: it will take only two visits to get the most of your money.

Pssst: don’t forget to say hi to the Chelsea pensioners! You’ll even find an elephant there. Feeling hungry? Well Partridge’s just a stone away from the modern art gallery Saatchi, always worth a visit.

The streets look a bit sadder somehow, they had camouflaged themselves elegantly in this urban jungle, you would always meet one at least on your way.  An emptiness we had not quite anticipated, an absence where we had got so used to see them.

They have all gone to nice new homes, sold to fans with a golden wallet. they will look fab in a private garden or an ultra-modern lounge. We know we’ll see them again, one of those days, in the glossy pages of a decoration magazine…

But, oh, wait, there is one left! Just by the entrance of the Royal Chelsea Hospital, where they last met before being auctionned, the very last elephant is trying to look local…

The Royal Hospital Chelsea
Royal Hospital Rd
London SW3 4SR

Mondays to Saturdays 10.00-12.00 then 14.00-16.00
Sundays 14.00 to 16.00
Free

Instinct usually guides me to complex, poetic, floral alliances: jasmin… orange and geranium… basil… Moroccan mint… Here you’ll also find starwberry or fig marshmallows. Enought to get your radar mad! But classics are a little piece of heaven too.  Do fall for the chocolate and liquid salted caramel. Oh, I have to close my eyes even now.

Decoration is retro, comforting. A bunch of flowers made with colourful sugared almonds here, chocolate laybugs there. The packaging was inspired by an French engraving of 19th century chocolate mould an declined in different colours – butterflies cut out of it fly away on the walls.

As Petra from the Choc star van, Chantal Coady was led by her passion for chocolate. A punkish art sudent, she just jumped for adventure in 1983 – only with a few weeks experience at Harrod’s. Well, that’s a lesson: always follow oyur dreams, especially if they’re 70% cocoa made.

Do prefer the Knightsbridge boutique.  A window in the floor gives a view of the workshops going on. You can take chocolate lessons here, whether you’re a grown-up or a junior chocoholic.

This is one of my secret hideaways. There is a tiny garden behind -  a lovely court, only a handful of tables, white walls, mosaics and a few white roses… Blue sky above you, round mirrors reflecting details… So peaceful! Get rid of your watch and iphone, get a coffee and one of their marvelous truffles and just forget everything.

Rococo Chocolates
Belgravia/Knightsbridge
5 Motcomb Street
London

Vegans will find their heaven here too.
Cross the street and gasp at the huge meringues and splendid tarts from Ottolenghi.
Macaron-fans will be delighted to learn Pierre Herme will be opening his boutique a street away from here in September 2010. You’ll have to beat me there!

- Waterloo is offering a food festival -  have a look this way for the program….

- Is the sea too far for you? Well, you can always pretend with Sergent’s gorgeous paintings…

- Do your gourmet shopping in Soho with this brand new Saturday market!

- Stroll through Portobello and try this new ice-cream parlour. Liquorice ice-cream? Ice-cream served on an espresso? Mmmmmh….

- See London differently. Why not with a canoe?

- Be French! Go and play petanque and grab a glass of Ricard…

- Grab friends, a picnic, a nice bottle of wine: it’s the season for open air cinemas!

- Are you a MRavel/Twilight/Star Wars fan? Rush to this festival!

- Dance, play, sing in Shoreditch! The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will play on Friday evening and there will be fireworks. The rest of the week-end will be more family-oriented.

- Oh, and the newest pop-ups… Cheers to Courvoisier (cocktails, massages, martial art)… With Campari, you’ll have cocktails with a view… Play ping-pong for free with Puma (100 tables will be dispatched around London until mid-August)

- Have you heard of  Short and Sweet? this cafe proposes an evening of short films every Monday. Entry is free.

You’ll find me… looking at elephants – yep, those you’ve seen around London, only half size. They’re being sold in a 5* hotel on Friday evening (all the info is on their facebook page)
After that, I need to try and exhaust my daughter @ Legoland. what are your plans?