Tulip season

Ok, so it wasn't that long until I went back to London to meet the Mr. Unlike my spring trip, however, I didn't plan a single thing. The only thing I wanted to do was to catch up on R&R. So our days were pretty chilled.

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On one of these especially laid-back days, we took a trip down to the Kensington area, where as you would know, the main attraction tends to be the Museums on Prince Street and the shopping area. We, of course, had no such stressful thing in mind.

Instead, we popped into the newly opened Design Museum on Kensington High Street.

The Museum is small, but quirky. We were greeted by some of the most memorable icons of design in daily life: logos, posters, household items... everything, really.

The "Will We Need Doctors" in the future exhibit was my favourite. It showcased some of the exciting technology being developed in the area of healthcare, and asked some particularly thought-provoking questions: will technology exacerbate health inequality? Will we even need doctors in the future?

Once we'd completed our tour of the museum, we wanted some fresh air. Very conveniently, right next to the Museum, is a hidden gem tucked right into the heart of Kensington High Street: Holland Park.

A beautiful, sprawling garden, complete with English roses, Dutch tulips, and the star of the attraction, a Japanese garden.

The air was heavy and humid, laden with the threat of rain when we went, but I felt it added charm to the garden which was decidedly British in its conception.

We walked around the shocking yellow tulip blooms in the Dutch gardens:

Made mental notes of the various nooks and crannies in which you could hide away for a few hours with a good book;

Identified the source of a loud noise we kept hearing: peacocks! Actual, live peacocks prancing in the park!

We then veered into the small but immaculate Japanese garden. It seemed to be the most popular area as (sadly) it was heaving with (loud) tourists who were seemingly oblivious to the signs that this was meant to be a place of contemplation and quiet.

Nevertheless, it was beautiful. Graceful trees swept over the pond where gold and white koi fish swam in circles.

Little water features made the place seem even more serene and surreal.

When we were there, it started pouring in earnest. We stayed put: the place emptied to a large extent, and the Mr had a large umbrella and was wearing a trench coat. I wasn't going to let that romantic Singing In the Rain moment pass; and we stopped to take in the nature and listen to the rain and wind around us. Until we were attacked by a squirrel in search of nuts.

We sent the lil fella on his way with a couple of nuts (we wish we'd taken pictures but had been taken by surprise when he climbed up my leg and tried to reach my bag...).

We were quite frozen by this point, and in desperate need of warming our cockles so we walked around, down interesting alleyways and stumbled across a cute little place called Candella.

It's a tiny family-owned tea shop, offering more than 50 loose leaf tea varieties in Beauty and the Beast style china crockery.

It's really tiny and distinctive - a tea room from a quaint, bygone era.

And you get a huge pot of tea for ridiculously low prices.

They also serve afternoon tea, but as we went close to closing time, we didn't really have the chance to stuff our faces with scones and sandwiches.

But we made the most of it anyway; sometimes food can be a distraction and we instead enjoyed a chilled-out moment chatting about everything and nothing, sipping on warm gently spiced tea as the glow of the setting sun lit up the tiny room.