I had a wonderful day out in one of my favourite places London on Thursday. I visited and did a few things that I have wanted to do for a while now and I wasn’t dissapointed. Neals Yard, Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium and SIX the musical were on my list of agendas to do so I thought I’d share my experiences there with you.
The first port of call was a lovely little place called Neals Yard which is based in Covent Garden. I’d only heard of this pretty little place recently through the likes of Instagram and upon researching places to go and see in London on Google. Apparently, like me there are still lots of people that don’t know about Neals Yard which made it even more intriguing to me, so after reading about it and seeing some very pretty photos of the place I decided to check it out.
The joys of Google Maps made it easy for me to find, and it was about 5 minutes away from Covent Garden tube station. It has two entrances to it and I went through the entrance next to the Benefit shop down Short Gardens.
The first place I went to was the Walk – in Back Rub parlour, which unfortunately wasn’t open when I arrived but my stomach was telling me I was ready for some food, so I went to a little cafe nearby at Neals Yard called 26 grains. I opted for some scrambled eggs on sour dough toast, a latte and a slice of rhubarb sponge cake which came to £22.00.
The food was nice and good quality and the latte tasted somewhat nicer then some of the other coffees I’ve tried at various other cafes. I enjoyed munching through my scrambled eggs on sourbread before demolishing a huge slab of rhubarb sponge cake. The cake was delicious and went down well with me, as do all sweet things (I blame my grandad for the sweet tooth.) It was a nice treat and something which I rewarded myself with since switching up my diet and fitness since New Year.
After relaxing here for a while I explored the rest of Neals Yard, took some pretty photos for my Instagram then went to get a back massage at the Walk – In Back Rub massage parlour there.
The great thing about this place is that you don’t need to book an appointment, and it has various different length massages that you can choose from to fit in with your schedule so you could easily pop in on your lunch break if based nearby.
You could choose from either 10, 20, 30 or 40 minutes at the prices £14, £24, £34 or £44 or you could opt for a full body shiatsu for an hour at £70. I opted for the 20 minute massage which was more then enough for me and left me feeling relaxed, refreshed and alot less tense. They also had foot rubs available for the same length of times and prices (apart from 10 minutes which they didn’t offer.) I am very interested in getting a foot rub next time I visit Covent Garden.
You keep your clothes on when you have a back rub here, although I’m not sure if you do that for the full body shiatsu massage, and the staff ask you if there’s anything in particular you want them to work on whilst you are there. I just said that I didn’t want to feel as tense and he mentioned something about using decompression which seemed to work, as I left feeling alot less tense then I did when I came in. After the massage I was offered some water and a loyalty card then went on my way to have a little mooch round Covent Garden before heading to Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium.
I was really looking forward to the cat cafe. I had previously really enjoyed visiting the cat cafe that was open until recently in Bristol several times. I found it so relaxing and therapeutic and adored interacting with the cats there.
Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium was the original first cat cafe in London. It first opened its doors in 2014 and has been a success of drawing the crowds to the beautiful cafe and rescue cats residing there since.
As I approached the cafe I saw a couple of beautiful little kitties happily sleeping and preening themselves in the window before I headed through to the front door in to the cat themed shop and part kitchen area. The shop was full of cat themed gifts for both people and cats and they had facilities to make drinks in the part kitchen area which was on show. I was offered a menu to look at whilst I waited 5 minutes to my allocated slot of 2:30pm and decided to just go for a drink as I had already eaten at Neals Yard. They had a variety of different drinks available such as hot drinks, soft drinks, cocktails, mocktails and wine. I opted for a cocktail called Mad Catters Fizz which was a lovely flute of Gold Prosecco with a small jug of blue pea tea and a mini boat of raspberry syrup which you can pour in to the Prosecco and it changes in to a lovely purple colour. It also tasted delicious and was definitely up my street with the sweet and fruity flavour. It cost £9.00.
I then got told that I could go through to the cat cafe after washing my hands and was taken through the upsairs part of the cafe and was seated downstairs to where there was a huge fake tree, bridges dangling from the ceiling and a big wheel for the cats amongst a variety of tables and seats for the customers.
The cat cafe is very pretty and almost had a ‘wonderland’ theme to it. You could play, stroke and interact with the cats and there were also toys that you could use which the cats seemed to enjoy. You get an hour and a half in the cafe which gives you plenty of time to relax, drink, eat and interact with the cats. A lady with her son near me were eating a cheese board which looked delicious, but unfortunately would have been way too much for me as it was very large and looked more like something you could share with someone. But I was happy with just having a few drinks as I had eaten earlier.
I got plenty of photos and video footage of my time there and the cats which the staff were more then happy with. The service was extremely good and the young guy that greeted and took me through to my table was very professional and friendly, as were the rest of the staff. They were very happy to answer and questions you had and were happy to help you. The cats were so sweet and loved being made a fuss of and seemed so happy there. I love the fact they take on rescue cats then when they think they see signs that they maybe ready to retire from the cafe they put them up for adoption to go to their forever home.
If you haven’t been to Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium and are thinking of going, I would thoroughly recommend visiting and it’s a great time spent whilst in London, relaxing, fun and something a bit different. It costs £15 and if you’re thinking of going you can check out the website for more information.
After a nice visit to Lady Dinah’s it was time to head to the Vaudeville Theatre to watch a musical that I’ve been intrigued by for a while now – SIX. To sum it up SIX is a modern retelling of the ex wives of Henry VIII who each tell and sing their story to become the lead singer in a pop group in a competition.
When I first heard about this musical, how I imagined it to be is nothing to what it’s like. It is funny, clever and of course has oodles of girl power. The cast were fantastic and the audience as well as myself were singing and bobbing away in the aisles.
I don’t want to give too much away, but I had a ball and thoroughly enjoyed the show. I loved everything from the plot, the songs and the costumes and it is a great original concept bursting with originality and zest.
Each character told their story including hardships and humour and battled it out to win the competition. The 80 minutes flew by and I was left rooting for these girls and thinking what a shame it ended.
I paid £67.50 for my ticket which was located at F10 in stalls and was a very good seat. Of course there are different prices for different seats it just depends what you’re after. If you’re interested in seeing SIX here’s the link for some more info.
I hope you enjoyed this blog and I hope you’ll pop by again soon.
Natalie x X
P.S Like what you see? I also did a vlog on my day in London. Check it out below.
