Pamela came down to visit for the weekend, so we headed out to explore East London, starting in Hoxton.
We went for lunch at Arepa and Co, a Venezuelan restaurant on the canal at Haggerton.
We were seated at a table looking out on the canal and I ordered a Beso Del Diablo Martini with vodka, foam, lychee, apple and chilli syrup.
We started off with some tequeños which were pastry sticks filled with cheese. They were served with a fruity dip and were delicious.
Tom and Pamela then had some arepas which were cornmeal sandwiches.
I had a cachapa which was a cornmeal pancake filled with plantains, cheddar and black beans. It was delicious and I'm going to try adapting my pancake recipe to use cornmeal so we can try them at home.
Though everyone seemed a little scared, we decided to visit the Clown Museum which is open on the first Friday of every month.
The museum is free to visit and based in the backroom of the Trinity Church in Dalston.
Upstairs, the walls are filled with clown memorobillia and photographs.
Clowns can copyright their faces by having them painted on eggs as part of the The Clown Egg Register.
We then went through into the church where there was a clown stained glass window.
Just as we thought the tour was over, Taffy invited us down to the boilerroom in the basement to see his clown shoe collection.
To get to the boiler room, we had to descend the narrowest winding staircase which was about the width of a person.
One lady asked how difficult clown shoes are to walk in and before she knew it, her boots were whisked off, and she was walking across the floor in a pair.
We were in need of a drink afterwards, so we headed to Farr's School of Dancing.
A glass of wine and a game of Dr Dude pinball later, we were ready to face the world again.
Pamela spotted the intriguing looking entrance to the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, so we popped in to take a look.
The garden was like something from Pinterest with chandeliers made of wigs, strings of fairy lights, lantern lit tables and disco balls.
There was a sheltered seating areas with sofas and blankets but we warmed up next to the fire pit.
We then popped into H.J. Aris, an antique store next door.
As well as an antiques store, it was also a coffee shop with all the tables and chairs for sale.
We were getting hungry so we stopped off at Arancini Brothers for some mozzarella and mushroom risotto balls.
We then jumped on the Overground to middle-of-nowhere Bermondsey to hunt for the Four Pure brewery.
It was just in a shed in the middle of an industrial estate but they did flights of beer and tasty cider.
We continued our beer crawl to Partizan Brewing, a new brewery on the beer mile which hadn't even officially opened.
They had the cutest wooden beer taps.
We then caught the Overground back into London Bridge so we could go on the hunt for dinner.
We ended up at The Breakfast Club for late night breakfast and I had Elvis Waffles topped with caramelised banana, creme fraiche and peanut butter.