ENGLAND

Something you might not know about James and I is that we're both English citizens. My dad is English, born in Coventry, so I recieved citizenship through him. James on the other hand was actually born and raised in Yorkshire (Northern England) until he was 12 and most of his family still lives there. This past week, we've both been back in the old country. James is working on a house here in London and I've been working a bit too. I actually shot over by Buckingham palace the other day which was interesting. At one point everyone was sure the Queen was coming out... but sadly no, no sign of her, not even the corgi's.

When I'm in London, I usually stay around Hyde Park but this time I'm staying in London's east end. I have to say, I really like it here! There are so many boutique vintage stores around and I love the street style I'm seeing everywhere. The kids around Hoxton and Shoreditch actually remind me of characters from the TV show, The Mighty Boosh, all future retro'd out. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest you take 2 minutes out of your busy day to watch this classic Mighty Boosh clip. James and I have been inspired to randomly sing this song all week long:

Trust me, you'll get into it eventually.

The other night we were invited to Brown's 40th anniversary dinner. Browns is still owned and run by Mrs. Burstein, or Mrs. B as she is known - a classy lady if ever I saw one.  I was really interested to learn what a patron of fashion Browns has been and how, through the years, Mrs B. has championed the talents of John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and others very early in their careers.

At the dinner James was sat next to the beautiful Eva Herzigova who apparently gave him top secret travel advice for our honeymoon (which he still wont tell me!). Meanwhile on the other side, I got to chat with my pal Henry Holland about the good old days... aka, 2006. A funny story about Henry: I remember a time I was flying from London to New York, I came out of the washroom and nearly fell backwards when I saw a man with a neon pink shirt that had my name in giant letters printed on it!! I realized it was Henry right as he realized it was me staring back at him. Then came the awkward moment of whether or not we should acknowledge each other and that we were both riding in coach (oh the horror! The shame!!). Henry broke the ice and asked me why I was back there and I could only respond with "well, whats your reason?!".  Anyway, I joined him and we sat next to each other, chatting it up the rest of the flight home. He did zip his jacket up after he realized what he was wearing though...

On Saturday both James and I had the day off. Since it was so nice out we decided to take a long leisurely walk over towards the London Eye. Along the way we found the Globe Theatre which is a reconstruction of the exact theatre Shakespeare's company would perform in 400 years ago right along the River Thames. We bought tickets to Henry VIII but the only ones we could get were standing, which we did... for hours!! Still, its all part of the experience, or so we are told. After that, we continued on to the London Eye but the line up was massive so we opted not to go. 

After a photo opportunity at Big Ben (Tim Walker style camera trickery!), we found a park where this cute little squirrel started to follow us. James stopped and beckoned the squirrel over and to our surprise all of a sudden he ran straight up James' leg!!  James took it like a man... well maybe... he might have squirmed just a little bit. Of course, I need to document everything so we tried to make the squirrel do it again but he wasn't having it. Now, he seemed to want to chase after me!! A little side note: squirrels terrify me. A friend of mine was attacked by one once (its true!) and since then I'm always on edge around them. I can shoot with all sorts of animals on set, but a wild squirrel is a bit of a nightmare for me. Anyways back to the subject. I realized the squirrel wanted to see what was in my bag, so I handed the bag off to James. In the end the squirrel jumped back onto James leg and we got our picture of Mr. Squirrel and James chatting it up. After that a pigeon walked over to James and then a duck?!  Now James thinks he's the animal whisperer and that all animals of the land will flock to him...

We have one more week here in England and then its off to Toronto for 'Strut For a Cure.' Then of course there is the wedding, just 22 days away! Exciting times!!

XOXO
COCO