This Tuesday marked my last day off before I plunge head first into a crazy schedule of working 60+ hours a week up to Christmas (well, I do have a few days off for half term, too, but then it gets really crazy). Wanting to make the most of it, rather than just lying around reading, as I often do on my Tuesdays off, Thomas and I hopped on a train to Nottingham for the afternoon.
It took me a long time to warm to Nottingham. Living in Leicester for the past 19 years, it's been a place I've visited pretty frequently but it was only when I met Laura and she showed me some of the hidden corners of the city that I started to really love it. Now I'd happily live there: it has more of a big-city-buzz to it than Leicester (or perhaps it's just that familiarity breeds contempt?). Regardless, we had a fab afternoon of vintage shopping, book buying and pizza eating: the perfect day off.
We started our afternoon in Hopkinsons, four floors of vintage gorgeousness just next to the railway station, and somewhere that's always worth a rummage. From there, we headed to purveyors of graphic novels and comic books, Page 45, and then Five Leaves, a radical and left-wing bookshop tucked away just off Long Row, where I found a really great book on import from the USA by trans activist and writer Julia Serano.
Das Kino was the real reason for our trip to Nottingham, though. Once Thomas got wind of the fact that this East German-themed ping-pong bar (trust me, as bizarre and hipster as that sounds, it actually works) offered vegan cheese on their stonebaked pizzas, a visit was inevitable.
Luckily, the pizza met with his approval (not pictured is my equally delicious one topped with mozzarella) and a couple of pints later, we rolled out and wandered down to Hockley for a quick browse in Rough Trade before hopping on our train home. Cool street art will always catch my eye, but I particularly liked this community garden in a handcart.
