Thursday, December 1, 2011

October Recap: London Part 2

So I’m pretty late with this one but better late than never!

My second recap starts on the Wednesday, which was my birthday! After waking up obscenely early, I travelled to Covent Garden to meet my boyfriend, who had flew in that morning. After failing to get cheap musical tickets, we went for some breakfast and then I went to get pampered in the Lush Spa!

I love Lush stuff and even though the treatments at the spa are fairly expensive, I decided to splash out on my birthday. I decided to go for the signature treatment, the Synesthesia. When I got to the shop, I was brought downstairs to the spa which looked like a lovely country kitchen.

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I was given a glass of water and told what to expect of the treatment. I was shown the board full of words and told to choose one, which would be the theme of the treatment.

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I chose uninhibited, it just seemed to pop out at me. I then had to go to a table full of glass bottles of different shapes, sizes and colours. Attached to these were little tags with words and I had to chose one of the bottles based on the word and which one stood out, without smelling it. This was also used in the treatment. The bottle I picked had the word free and after my massage, my therapist told me free was supposed to go with uninhibited, that they compliment each other.

The massage was wonderful. When I walked in the room, it was beautifully lit. I had a shower, where I got to use loads of different Lush products, then settled on the table and when ready rang a bell and the therapist came in. The massage was 80 minutes long, started at the face (including hot and cold stones), my arms, chakra stones, my feet, my legs and my back, which was done to the specially composed soundtrack that had lots of bird and countryside sounds. The time flew and after it was finished, I went back out to the kitchen table and was given Uninhibited tea and I also got a massage and bubble bar in the same scent.

After the massage, my boyfriend and I went to the Oxo Tower along the Thames for Not Afternoon Tea. Instead of tea and scones, we got a cocktail and desserts. I chose the chocolate nuts desserts with the matching cocktail.

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My boyfriend got the fruity desserts with the matching cocktail.

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Everything looked and tasted so exquisite and we picked the perfect time to go here, as it was sunset and we got to go out on the balcony and look at the beautiful view.

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After we walked along Waterloo Bridge towards Covent Garden as I was told by my aunt this is one of the best places for views.

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St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Oxo Tower at one side of the bridge.

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The London Eye, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben to the other side of Waterloo Bridge.

At Covent Garden, we went to The Top Secret Comedy Club (we got in for free as we went before 7.30) and here we saw INSERT NAME AND INSERT NAME. We unfortunately had to leave before the last act to get to The Ice Bar at INSERT but I would definitely go back again if I had the chance.

As we walked towards the Ice Bar, we passed the M&M Shop at Leicester Square and couldn’t resist going in. Despite it being 10 at night, the place was still really busy and full of life. We had fun wandering around and looked at all the different merchandise and taking pictures at the statues.

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The Ice Bar was great fun, a novelty once off though. Set in an old industrial meat freezer, the entire place is made of ice. The bar, the seats, large ice sculptures which change colours due to the lights behind them changing. When you get there, you’re given a cape and thermal gloves and voucher for a drink. You get one cocktail included in the entry price but after that, they’re pretty expensive. If you lose your ice glass, you have to pay £4 to replace it! You’re in there for 45 minutes, which actually flew by, mainly taking photos and swishing about in your cape (well, it’s what I did).

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Finally, as a final surprise that night, when we all got back to the apartment we were renting, my friends had organized a surprise party for me! Including this awesome cake.

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And then I collapsed in bed as we had to be up early the next day for Thorpe Park! Which despite the not so great weather (and the puking boyfriend), I really enjoyed, Stealth or Inferno were probably my favourite rides. And as it was Fright Night at Thorpe Park, they had loads of Halloween mazes and people dressed up ready to jump out and scare you. The mazes were so funny, as everyone got so scared.

After Thorpe Park, we went to Brick Lane for the two main things it famous for: Curries and bagels (with some drinks and dancing in between).

Friday morning we were up early again (and half relieved it was the last day!). My boyfriend and I went to Primark on Oxford Street and then to Camden Market. It was the boyfriend’s first time there and he loved it, as he got to barter to his hearts content. We headed to the airport early enough, so we’d have time to eat and do some more shopping there. A great great holiday and since I love London so much, I’m heading back there in 2 weeks time!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

October Recap: London Part 1

I got to go to London the last week of October. Let me say I love London, so so much. I don’t know why but it’s a place I could visit over and over again and not get bored.

Anyway, I spend 5 days in London. Well, 4 really as I spent my first night and second day visiting friends in Oxford! Here’s a quick recap of my first 2 days.

After roughly 3 hours of sleep, I got up and headed to the airport with 4 friends (and a fifth met us at Stansted). From here, I went onto Westfield’s Stratford and met up with Lex, from bonjour, l’amour. We had a great day shopping, laughing and having fun, even though we did have wait 45 minutes for our lunch from GBK. Best shop was probably Forever 21, you could get lost in there looking at everything!

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Lex on the giant shoes in New Look!

After Lex caught her train I did a bit more shopping and then headed to Paddington Station to catch a train to Oxford! When I arrived, Beth had made me a yummy dinner (as well as some delicious brownie cheesecakes!) and after we had some wine, chats and old music. And then to bed, which looked like this

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The next day we did some shopping and went to lunch with Angela, looked at some of Oxford’s pretty scenery, had some Krispy Kreme donuts, saw a hotel that was once a prison and took advantage of Happy Hour! I was sad to leave Oxford as I was having a great time. And I wish our friend Donna could have been there too.

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Yummy lamb burger for lunch; Pretty Oxford

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Donuts! And the prison hotel

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Beth, Angela and me.

That afternoon I went back to London to meet my cousin and my friends for a Jack the Ripper Walk! We went with Ripping Yarns and had a great time with our tour guide Dickie. The walk was about 2 and half hours long and brought us around a lot of the East End, through places like Brick Lane, Whitechapel and Spitalfields, showing us places where Jack the Ripper victims lived, worked and died. It’s very entertaining and well worth the £7. After we ate and then I headed back with my cousin to her house to catch up on some sleep!

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St. Boltoph’s Church, Aldgate. Also know as “Church of Prostitutes”.

(last picture from http://www.jack-the-ripper-tours.com/)

Friday, November 11, 2011

11.11.11

Ah, what an interesting date! Looks so odd but at the same time looks so nice. So many people believe in the power of 1s. I know people who love it when they just happen to look at a clock and the is 11.11. Or their bill in the shop is 11.11. They make wishes when this number occurrence happens. I know 11.11.11 is probably a popular request for a wedding day and that so people will hope their baby is born this day.

I tried to research if anything interesting happened on 11.11.1111 (ah, the ultimate of 1 dates!), but nothing came up. However, 11th November is an interesting date of itself. Lots of interesting things have happened over the years.

- 1918 Official end of WWI, at 11am (11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month)

-1926 Route 66 in USA is established

- 1880 Bushranger Ned Kelly is hanged

- 1675 Gottfried Leibniz shows for the first time the area under a graph using integral calculus y = ƒ(x)

- 1992 Church of England vote to allow female priests

Leonardo DiCaprio, Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore and Calista Flockhart all share birthdays today. Today marks the death of Ned Kelly, Mary Mallon (a.k.a. Typhoid Mary) and Yasser Arafat. Today is also Remembrance Day (Poppy Day, Veterans Day, Armistice Day in other countries), a remembrance to the end of WWI and a mark of respect for those who fought and lost their life.

Do you have any special plans for today? Do you have any dates or numbers you think are luckier than others? If so, I’d love to hear!

 

(P.S. I got most these facts on Wikipedia, so please don’t be too hard on me if something isn’t entirely true!)

Thursday, November 10, 2011

It’s that time of year again!

I’ve been watching some YouTube videos recently and quite a lot of them have said ‘I can’t believe it’s November again’, ‘Can you believe it’s November?!’, ‘Wow, it’s November!’. It reminded me of Michael McIntyre and this particular sketch on it being November. Never fails to make me laugh.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Halloween Treats!

I know this is a bit late but here’s all the treats I made on Halloween for my family! I might edit it later and put in recipes, but for now just pictures.

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Chocolate orange cake made in a pumpkin mould I got in Aldi! Next time I use it, I’ll probably ice the cake too.

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Ghost muffins! Or as we called them Ghost Toast! Made from another mould I got in Aldi.

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Mummys (Just home made sausage rolls, using puff pastry wound in strips to look like a mummy). Not the prettiest of foods I’ll admit!

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Witches brew soup! (Pea, broccoli and bacon soup). Was surprisingly yummy!

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Fudgy popcorn balls. Which I ate, a miracle considering I don’ like popcorn!

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Skull and pumpkin white chocolates (pumpkins just have some food colouring in them). And the dark ones are made from left over fudge sauce from the popcorn. Another mould I got from Aldi (wish I bought them all now!).

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Orange jelly with gummy worms and skulls inside. Made using the mould from the pumpkin cake above. I’m particularly happy with how this looks, my mother said it looked horrible (I took that as a compliment).

Of course, there was lots of sweets from trick or treating (with the odd bit of fruit too!).

Bonus cat picture!

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Woody trying to steal some of the ribs from dinner (he got into the Halloween mood by getting out his creepy eyes!).

Friday, November 4, 2011

October Recap: Ballet

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So for the second weekend in October, I got to do something I had never done before: Go to the ballet! The UL Concert Hall was showing The Moscow Ballet’s ‘The Nutcracker’ and I went along with my mother, aunt, 2 sisters and a cousin, one big girlie night out! We got seats right in front of the stage, which is great in that venue as the stage isn’t high up. It was a beautiful production, the strength and stamina these men and women have is amazing! And the costumes are just so pretty. I got to take a few pictures and one video of the last half of The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Although it was a little early in the year to be showing The Nutcracker (traditionally a Christmas show), I’d recommend going anytime. I love Tchaikovsky’s music and you’d be surprised how much you know (I think I knew most of it from Fantasia!). I’m really looking forward to getting the chance to go again to the ballet.

 

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Sunday, October 30, 2011

October Recap: Beaut.ie to Go Book Launch

So, I decided that I’d try and make October a jam packed month and I think I’ve succeeded! Here’s the first of my October recaps.
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The first weekend was the launch of Beaut.ie book ‘Gorgeous to Go’ by Aisling McDermott at Brown Thomas in Dublin. I managed to get a cheap hotel room and travelled up the night before with the boyfriend. There was a large crowd at the launch so we had to queue for while but luckily I made some new friends while queuing. Aisling and Kirstie were looking beautiful and were so welcoming and friendly, as per usual! And we got a lovely goodie bag too. I had a great time with old and new friends alike and a special shout out to CherrySue, Emz, Lisa from Bride & Joy and Claire, who I enjoyed some food and drinks with after along with Aoife, Judith and someone else who’s name I’ve regretfully forgotten (sorry!). I had to leave early to get back home,otherwise I’m sure I would have enjoyed the rest of my evening with these lovely ladies!
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Back to the book! Dinky size, perfect for carrying around. Well laid out, gives price ranges from cheap-as-chips to mega pricey and also even has pages to write notes too. Perfect present for Christmas methinks!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Halloween Baking: Witches Fingers

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I love Halloween. It’s hands down my favourite time of the year. Chilly weather that’s great for snuggling, costumes and an excuse for good foods and parties!

Despite this, I don’t usually bake much for Halloween, even though I’d love to have a big party and try out loads of different things. Last year though I made these for my brothers and sisters and they worked out great! I’m definitely going to make them again this year.

Witches Fingers

Adapted from BBC Good Food

Ingredients

100g caster sugar

100g butter

1 egg yolk

200g plain flour

½ tsp Vanilla essence

Salt

20 blanched almonds

red food colouring

Method

1. Mix the caster sugar, butter, egg yolk, flour, vanilla essence and a pinch of salt together until a bag of dough is formed (best done in a mixer but it can be done by hand, which is what I did).

2. Break off golf-ball sized pieces of dough and roll into finger shapes.

3. Line a baking sheet with grease proof paper and place fingers on, making sure to leave some gaps between them. With a knife, make cuts in the dough to form knuckles.

4. Place almonds at the end of each finger. Place the tray in a fridge for 30 minutes and then bake in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 10-12 minutes, until just firm.

5. Leave to cool to little and then if desired, paint the almond ‘fingernails’ with food colouring. You can be neat about it or else a bit sloppy like me to make it look like blood!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Monday, October 17, 2011

The Good and The Bad

It seems that recently, most my posts have been apologies about not posting that often. Sorry about that. I don’t know what it is, I’ve lost my mojo or something! I’ll try and try again to get back in the swing though.

This time of the year is probably my favourite and also least favourite months. I have the bad things:

-It was around this time that my Nana died. I was very close to her and it still upsets me.

-It’s also coming up to the anniversary of my friend Mags.

-The weather getting worse and the days shorter don’t help with my mood really, it really brings me down.

-All this is made worse by not having a job.

Though on the flip side, there’s generally lots of good too! Like:

-It’s my birthday soon!

-The weather is great snuggling and cosy weather.

-Halloween! (my favourite holiday but I’m not sure what my plans are this year *sadface*)

-Christmas is just around the corner.

-I love autumn and winter foods!

So I’ll try and buck up a bit more. I still have a backlog of stuff to right about. And please, if you have ANY Halloween costume ideas, let me know in a comment below!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Two Birthday Cakes!

So I’ve been a busy bee recently when it comes to baking! I made a cake for my brother’s late 21st party (due to him gallivanting around the U S of A for the summer) and one for my other brother’s 18th birthday. And I have another one to make this week for yet another brother! (I have many brothers!).

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Only had time to get a quick shot of this in the fridge and no time at all to get a picture of it sliced as it was devoured immediately!

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I used the big cupcake mould as I did for the Pig Cake. For both cakes I used a chocolate Madeira recipe (similar to this one here, but double to amounts).

For the 21st cake, I made a dark chocolate ganache, similar to the one made for my Chocolate cook-along, used some silver sparkly gel icing pen for the writing and some silver balls.

For the 18th giant cupcake, I made a white chocolate butercream icing (like this one here), added a tiny bit of butterscotch sauce in between the layers as well and decorated with Toffee Crunch chocolate fingers, Smarties, Malteasers and Magic Stars. It was fun to decide what went on the cake!

August Using It All Up!

I posted on of these in June and didn’t bother with one in July as I didn’t actually use much up at all. Though I managed to finish loads in August! And glad of it too!

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What an amount to get through!

Boots Lavender Shower gel, Boots Strawberry Body Creme, L’Oreal Curl Power spray, Yes to Carrots shampoo, Suave Aloe Vera shampoo, Neutrogena Multi Defence scrub, Boots Tea Tree and Witch Hazel Moisturiser, Lush Oatifix, Pearl Drops Toothpaste, Body Shop Vanilla Perfume, Wella Sample Sized Shampoo, Yes to Carrots Face Mask, Lush Grass and Tramp Shower Gels, Body Shop Mini Olive Shampoo, Neutrogena Multi Defence Day Moisturiser, St.Ives Scrub, Boots Eye Make Up Remover, Lip Balm and Pantene Aqua Light sample conditioner.

Phew! Still getting through stuff for September but won’t do half as good as this.

September Photography Challenge- Day 14

Day Fourteen- Eyes

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Creepy bright eyes thanks to flash!

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As seeing as it’s eyes not eye, photo of eye without flash.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

September Photography Challenge- Day 13

Day Thirteen- Yourself with thirteen things

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13 bracelets! From left to right

Shell bracelet (a present), ladybird from Prague, turquoise heart 21st birthday present, random thin silver bangle, blue sparkly jelly from Claire’s Accessories, thin blue metallic bangle from Penneys, brown and white elastic band from Kenya, black beads from Penneys, large red bangle from Claire’s Accessories (was used in a Queen of Hearts costume), black beads from Penneys, silver bangle from Newbridge Silverwear, red Masai bracelet from Kenya and charm bracelet from Claire’s Accessories.

September Photography Challenge- Day 12

Day Twelve- Sunset

This is also late as it was stormy yesterday and no sun out so I couldn’t get a sunset. Luckily, I managed to get a snap of one today, I thought it would be nicer but the clouds on the horizon hide the sun early.

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September Photography Challenge- Day 11

Day Eleven- Something blue

So this is late as I spent most of Sunday at my boyfriend’s house and couldn’t be bothered to take a picture when I got home. I wanted to take a picture of the sea but it was so stormy that day it looked more grey than blue.

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My bed, with lots of different shades of blue.

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