Coffee Shop Journals | The Little Green Van, Portobello

I was feeling a little uninspired lately. I’ve been desperate to be creative and really felt like I needed a reason to pick up the ‘big’ camera lately. It’s been so cold and dark and as lovely as the winter can be, it just makes me so sad and grumpy most of the time.

So, after a lengthy chat at all hours with Amber, from Meet The Wildes, we decided to do a little project together, something we could add too, just pop on when ever we wanted.

And so, Tea Shop Journals was born.
We live far too many miles from each other and wanted to work on a little something together. Something we didn’t have a deadline or a certain day of the month we had to post. Just something we could work on whenever the fancy, or the time worked for us.

I adore visiting coffee shops, tea rooms and little hidden nooks. Sitting there with a hot cuppa that someone else has made with a tiny biscuit on the side. I love it when they are kid friendly and serve tiny little babycinnos in mini mugs, making them feel grown up too.
I love when we fit it, we can relax and no ones worried if they are a little over active with the toy dinosaurs.
I used to take these moments for granted, when Ruby was little we sat in coffee shops often and just watched the world go by, I’d blog if she had a nap and it was just blissful. It’s not as blissful with a set of twins, theres no naps or blogging but its lovely all the same.

The Little Green Van is one of our favorites. I’d go as far to say it does THE best hot chocolates in Edinburgh. It proudly sits on the prom in Portobello over the weekends, all green and shiny.
The twins are allergic to milk, which totally sucks most days but there are so many soy/dairy free options around now. The LGV kindly made some warm Ribena in some take away cups for them to warm up. A trip to the beach on a day where the weather was -6C wasn’t the best idea we had all week.

We couldn’t stand the cold much longer so we headed to a local spot we had heard a lot about. The Skylark. Its the loveliest little place, it’s brick walls and fairy lights were the perfect little winter setting to help us feel cosy again. They had dairy free babycinnos for the smalls and I got to sit down and warm up while they chatted away about how grown up their spoons were.

It feels like its been a while since these guys have been friends. They fight a lot at home, not always, but enough to drive me a little batty, theres another two in the mix and in such a small house I feel like we get on top of each other a little. It’s the first time we’ve ventured out without Baby Lucy too, so they had my full attention.

They say you can’t beat that first sip of tea in the morning, ‘they’ obviously haven’t sat in a tea shop with a set of twins that have behaved in public long enough to let you have a hot cuppa.