All Things Single...

That would be me then.

After just over a year together, Sam and I have split up and I've kicked him out of the flat.  So what does a girl do in this situation?  She goes away with her favourite girlie.

Last week we packed a bag and headed off to Birmingham to see the Clothes Show Live and shop our hearts out.  And that we did.  After a Megabus up in the morning, we arrived in Brum just as the shops were setting up so we went for a cheeky breakfast at Cafe Rouge.  (I say breakfast, but the price we paid I'm pretty sure we have shares in the company now).  

After that we attacked the Bullring.  For those of you that don't know, the Bullring is an awesome shopping centre in Birmingham.  We attacked the basics; Forever 21, New Look etc.  Before moving on to lingerie; La Senza and Boux Avenue didn't know what hit them.  We must've spent about £200 each over the course of the day.  

That night, we threw on our new clothes and went clubbing; Brummie style!  The picture above is us just before we headed through the door.  We summoned a cab and told him to take us to "where there will be people".  So we headed to Spoons.

In spoons a couple of guys took a shine to us and decided that we would make a foursome.  We weren't happy about this but tottered up the road to the next club which was really busy and had some good drink offers on.  I have no idea what it was called but the music was good and our newly adopted 'friends' bought us drinks which saved waiting at the bar.  

After a couple in there and a trip downstairs to the questionable toilets, we decided to head on.  The next club was desperate to get people inside so I bantered with the promo guy until he offered me a bottle of "champagne" for going in.  (By champagne read: Chateux Shit...)

There weren't many people in there but the music was awesome (Fresh Prince of Bel Air, anyone?)  It was really good just to have a night to ourselves where we could do whatever we wanted.  A cheeky drink and good slutdrop to Jason Derulo can make everyone feel fantastic.

Somewhere around the 4am mark our feet were killing so we tottered into a taxi and back to the hotel where we had a footbath before heading to bed.

The next morning we got ready and headed for some lunch before going to the Clothes Show Live.  I've loved the Clothes Show ever since I went on a school trip when I was about 15.  This time however, I'd bought presale tickets so we were front row!

And by front row, I mean FRONT ROW!

It was amazing! And definitely helped take my mind of things.  I mean, look at all of those topless men!  I can't wait until next year.

After we'd had our fill of the sassy men, we headed back to reality and got a ride home.  I had such an amazing time that I've decided that I belong on the front row now.  Maybe I can convince the Clothes Show to run every month in future...

All Things Scotland...

Wow, what a mad week it's been! There have been highs and lows and some unexpected ventures all in the space of ten days or so.  The highlight however, has to be my (long-awaited) weekend away to Glasgow for BlytheCon.  It was brilliant!

We left Thursday morning for our long drive, its approximately eight hours to Scotland from home so we left at about 4am, to try and arrive at lunch time.  I'd been working all week so I was exhausted and I'm ashamed to say I slept for most of the journey - leaving Sam with just Radio 1 for company as he drove.  Some road trip eh?

Now a little back story is necessary here; I had woken up in the middle of the night on Monday with really bad stomach cramps which had been coming back on-and-off all week.  I'd taken all of the painkillers and Rennie's a woman could handle and had no idea what was wrong but knowing I couldn't fit in a trip to the doctors before we left, I decided to ride it out and I'd book an appointment when we got back if I was still suffering.

So we pull up to the hotel, it was a gorgeous little place called The Swallow.  It didn't look much from the outside but on the inside it was decorated beautifully and seemed quite up-market.  I was really impressed.  Sam woke me up to say we'd arrived and the cramps started getting much worse, to the point that I was almost in tears.  We decided to head inside for directions to the nearest hospital to get it checked out, plus we were two hours early to check-in anyway.

While Sam got the directions, I popped into the toilet which again was decorated gorgeously.  If I hadn't have felt so awful I'd definitely have been taking a few selfies in there!  Everything was purple and luxe looking.  There was even a bench which I lay on for a few moments as I came over really faint.  Once I'd gotten myself together we drove to the hospital.

I threw up twice as we got there.  Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long until I was called in.  The doctor in charge ran one test, molested my stomach for a bit and brushed it off as my muscles spasming.  He gave me some tablets to take over the next two days and sent us on our way back to the hotel.

The pain had subsided a little bit so I got some sleep and the next morning we were able to head out into Glasgow.  We took the Underground into the city. *Fun fact: Glasgow has one of the UK's oldest underground systems.  However, everything looked completely brand new and it was such a smooth ride it was great!  I would definitely recommend it to get around.

We pottered around the city, doing some shopping and stopped off in a bar for some lunch which was really nice.  We decided to go back to the hotel about 5ish, to get changed and then head back into town to have a night out in one of the clubs, because who doesn't love a drink when they're on holiday?  When we got back I had a cheeky nap as I felt really drained, but when I woke up my stomach was hurting again.  So with heavy hearts, we decided against clubbing.  Instead we went for a drive to find a restaurant.

We drove in the opposite direction of the town and found a little street that had some boutiques and take-aways on it.  Right in the middle was a really sweet looking Italian restaurant - my favourite!

We were sat in a little dug-out in the wall that acted as a booth.  It was really quirky - the lampshades were even covered in newspaper and beads!

The meal was gorgeous too.  If I ever return to Glasgow I'd definitely revisit.  The waitresses and the chef were really friendly and giving fun banter to each other.  It was just my sort of place.

These were the awesome plates our meal came out on.  Custom plates - how cool and professional is that?!

So after dinner we headed back to bed because we had an early morning Saturday for BlytheCon!  We got the underground into town again and went to The Lighthouse - which was the name of the venue.  It was quite sleek and sophisticated... until you got upstairs, where it was over run with dolls!  It was fabulous!

We both got a goody bag when we arrived and were ushered into the main room, which had all of the stalls in.  There, I was able to buy lots of little outfits and accessories for Celia, (my Blythe doll which Sam had bought me for my birthday, knowing how desperately I wanted one - he's really rather well trained.)  I also bought lots of cute fabrics so that I could try making outfits of my own. 

People had their Blythe dolls on display; some to show off what they had done and some to sell.  It was amazing to see how far people go with this hobby...

 How gorgeous is this African lion princess??

 I love the detailed paintings on her eyelids

They were all adorable.  I wish I was nearly this talented!

There were workshops running all day that taught techniques for customising Blythe and making her clothes.  I only made it to one of these, which taught us how to make her a cute pencil skirt.  It was fun to come away having produced something, rather than just shopping.

At the end of the day they raffled off literally hundreds of Blythe related prices which unfortunately I didn't win.  I'd started feeling a little rough again so we decided to head to the hotel so I could nap.  Then hopefully we could go to the BlytheCon after party that was being held that evening.

It was an amazing day and I literally can't wait for next year, when hopefully I'll be healthier and up to meeting more of the other collector's that were walking around.  Scotland is rapidly winning a place in my heart.

All Things Nautical

So some of you may be aware that I have moved into a flat with my boyfriend.  It's a really nice flat so I've been acting like an adult about it and choosing colour schemes and suchlike to keep it that way.  I've decided not to put up any posters (which is very hard for me - in my parents house I wall-papered my room with pictures of celebrities; a habit that I continued throughout my various University flats.)  So I have to discover pretty canvases to adorn my many bare magnolia walls...

The first room I've started to decorate is the bathroom.  When I moved to University, everything I bought had a green colour scheme, but it seemed a bit much keeping it up in every room, so I reigned it back a bit to just the bedroom and kitchen.  

This meant that I got to start from scratch for the bathroom which was exciting.  I decided on a theme that's been everywhere lately and has grown on me a lot... nautical.  This meant dark blues and creamy whites, and stripes everywhere.  I started with towels; a new towel rail meant that they would be on display and therefore had to set the tone of the theme.  I lucked out in Asda and found the perfect ones to get started.  I then found some more subtle white ones with blue detailing in Matalan to balance them out on the rail.

Next, I had to find some storage to hide all the various beach towels and old green towels I had, and didn't want to get rid of because, you know, towels are always useful.  I found some nice boxes in Tesco, but they were a bit small.  Luckily I found similar ones in Asda that were bigger.  There were only two, compared to the three in Tesco, but it was enough space for me so I grabbed them pretty sharpish!

The last big thing I wanted was a way to store my toiletries without having hundreds of bottles everywhere cluttering up the room (my pet peeve).  I'd seen some nautical storage baskets with quirky rope handles in Wilkinsons that I really likeed, but I needed a way to store and display them.  After some brain-storming, I decided that I wanted a pine shelving unit because it would show them off whilst being in-keeping with the theme.  (I've put a lot of thought into this, god help me when I do the other rooms!)  I searched every square inch of the internet and kept coming up blank, which is the main reason the room was unfinished for so long.  

Eventually, I was searching the internet again out of formality, when I lucked out!  B&Q had exactly what I was looking for, and better yet - it was on sale!  However, the nearest store that had any left was the other side of Cardiff.  So I marched the boyfriend to the car and we went off in search for the unit.  When we got there we were told that it was on one of the pallets in the top of the Warehouse, which they only get down at night, so we would have to come back the next day.  I was not pleased, as you can imagine.  So the next day, we headed off again and finally returned with the shelves.

I built them according to instructions and put them, pride of place, in the bathroom.  Then headed off to buy the baskets, which I hadn't gotten yet in case I couldn't get a shelving unit to show them off.  Well just my luck, they were sold out.  They continued to be sold out for weeks after that.  Just when I was about to give up hope, my mum called me at work to say she was in Wilko, and they had just gotten fresh stock in.  As you can imagine I rushed there the next day and picked them up, and so my shelf was complete!

It doesn't look much for all of the aggro that I went through, but I love it so it was definitely worth it in the end.  All that was left to do was decorate the bare walls with some nice pictures:

I think they're really me, so I love them.  I also got a big image to sit over the bath, which is a bit lighter so it brightens up the room:

However, I've since seen some nice canvases (canvai?) that are similar in size, and have pictures of beach huts on them that I think would be perfect.  I need to find someone willing to switch to try and save my wallet!

Anyway, that's enough for this interior design session, I'm off for a bubble bath!