Wow! The hubster and I had a fantastic #ShopLocalSaturday in St Albans yesterday!
It all started at Cositas – Emma Bustaman’s brand new shop on Holywell Hill opened by the gorgeous Fiona Wade aka Priya from Emmerdale, who also appeared in Grange Hill!!! A long term pal of Emma’s!
We were greeted with a glass of bubbly, and also by Ele Stevens, Digital Jen, Eileen Morrison, Lucy Peachslice, Digital Nat, Suzy Moody of Home-Start fame (don’t forget to join Suzy and the team at the Pancake race on Tuesday from midday at the Town Hall St Albans), with her gorgeous grandaughter who had the most amazing coat (I want one! – the coat that is, not the grandparent title! ;).
Cositas is a gorgeous lifestyle shop, from cool furniture, to gifts, to homeware, to gorgeous clothing and accessories, as well as active workshops on how to create your own amazing furniture!
I first met Emma at one of the King Harry jellies – we bonded over brushing hair with a potato brush (long story) – and it is amazing to see her dreams come true! As Digital Nat said via this gorgeous gift “She believed she could, so she did” – we must get a SAB quote done by Digital Nat!
So, after a lovely time at Cositas, hubby and I headed off to Hatch (still on Holywell Hill) – OMG – absolutely loved it! What a fantastic place – rustic, friendly, buzzing and we bumped into Chris Pike of Hey Burt fame! We ordered a bloody and virgin Mary (guess which one was for me – bet you get it wrong) and had a fab late brekkie – deeelicious.
Then it was off to White Mint run by the lovely Christopher Dell (who apparently blanked me in the street – only joking Christopher) – we’ve yet to meet. Hubby had a giggle looking through their “over 18s birthday/greeting cards” and I bought a tattoo and a couple of “notebooks” 😉
Then we just had to pop in on Ana and Ian Daniels at Rock Pop Candy (Holywell Hill has it all you know!) – where they were sold out of chocolate bananas (I’m promised they are on order) so just had to “make do” with their gorgeous pineapple chunk choccie things from New Zealand – deeeelicious.
Next we popped in on Donna Nichols at Chloe James and met the famous “Chloe” from Chloe James – can you guess what Donna’s son is called? What an amazing shop! Definitely worth a visit – from cool clothes, to gorgeous rings, to greetings cards to sumptious accessories – and all affordable – Donna said that people seem to think they are more expensive than they actually are – so do pop in and say hi and have a nose – amazing building and fabulous peeps!
Next it was off to the Maltings where we bumped into Denise Parsons of The Parsons Nose fame at Radio Verulam – great to see the gang 🙂
All that walking on my cracked foot 😉 made us take a well earned rest in the White Hart pub – OMG – love this pub – cosy, friendly and great view of Cositas – plus they have a Ghost night this Thursday – 3 course meal and ghost talk and tour of the pub – £24.95 – result – hoping to get along there this week – did you know that a little girl “plays” around the hotel who apparently died in a fire there? And how about the lady with the broken neck who didn’t “duck” when the horse and carriage rocked into the yard – ewwww!
Then, walking home through the gorgeous Verulamium park, we just had to stop at Ye Olde Fighting Cocks to see Christo and the gang – it would have been rude not to really! Cosy fire, cosy glass of red and a nice sit down after all that walking 😉 Doesn’t get much better than that!
So, all in all, a fantastic #ShopLocalSaturday – we’d love to know about yours!
Sue and Gav Wybrow
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