Tuesday 30 October 2012

Tick tock.

So, remember how it was my birthday a billion years ago? Well, my lovely siblings promised to buy me a watch for my birthday, and even gave me the money for it. But... I am fussy. Mega fussy. And my life is consumed with looking at watches, and I still can't find one that is PERFECT. But I will. Oh, I will.

Anyway, in my perusal of the internets, I found Fashion World, and they sell a whole ton of stuff including some really lovely ladies plus size clothing and accessories... and that means WATCHES! What do we think, gang? Shall I choose one of these?



one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten

Written in collaboration with Fashion World.
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Monday 29 October 2012

Who lives in a house like this?

It wasn't until I saw Sarah's post the other day that I realised you could get more than just ladies plus size clothing and larger sized shoes from Marisota. I am such a homeware junkie since moving into my own place (oh, who am I kidding, I've always been like that) and their homeware department... WELL. I am just a bit in love with all of these things.


Finally, my housemates and I are getting rapidly more and more obsessed with Christmas. I think I'm going to get all of these stuff. Overkill? NEVER.


Written in collaboration with Marisota
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Sunday 28 October 2012

Red, red wine, go to my head.

This is Barry, the Happy Pumpkin. He has nothing to do with this post, but he says hi.

Basically, I think getting old has a lot going for it. Because, okay. I like going out and all, I DO. I like sticking on false eyelashes and pouring myself into a party dress and having a boogie somewhere. But the weather is getting nastier, and the evenings are getting longer, and if you gave me the choice, I'd much rather veg out on my sofa with my besties, drinking red wine and eating comfort food, and watching terrible TV. Yes, X Factor, you DO count as terrible TV. But if you were good, it wouldn't be as fun.

I don't know, I sort of think our veggy Saturday nights in should be a bit more structured, maybe with some kind of intricate poker games or something (is there such a thing as an intricate poker game? The only alternative to poker I know of is strip poker and I do not think that is very intricate) but we are lazy, and as long as there is nice food, nice drink and somewhat filthy discussions about Joseph Gordon Levitt or Channing Tatum (and that Sha's lovely fiance has something to amuse him whilst we are having these non boy-friendly discussions) then we are happy.


ANYWAY. Here is my recipe for comfort food pasta yumminess!

Sausage & Tomato Pasta With Oodles Of Red Wine
This is basically one of those 'Use up all the ingredients you have' meals so it is very slapdash. In this case because I had a ton of sausages in the freezer and then we had a power cut and everything thawed in the freezer and I had to cook everything.

But it's also very nice! I use a wok because I like to make LOTS.

You will need:
Sausages (preferably chorizo) or bacon would also be really good
Passata/Creamed Tomatoes
Red Wine (like 1/4 of a bottle or so)
Vegetables of your choice (Onions/Peppers/Mushrooms for me)
Balsamic Vinegar
Sugar or Sweetener
Paprika
Garlic


1. Chop up your meat and fry in the pan until it's cooked.
2. While it's cooking, chop up your vegetables and chuck it in the pan once the meat is cooked through.
3. Throw in some red wine and let the ingredients simmer in it for a bit and absorb the yummy flavour.
4. Pour yourself a glass of red wine. I mean, the bottle's OPEN.
5. After a few minutes, pour in the passata and stir.
6. Add 2 caps of balsamic vinegar and a tablespoonful of sugar or sweetener.
7. Add the spices of your choice - I added a teaspoon of smoked paprika and a couple of cloves of garlic, and a splash of sweet chilli sauce.
8. Stir well and then leave on a medium heat to bubble away and simmer for about 10 minutes. Put your pasta on whilst it's doing that.
9. Your sauce will be really liquid at this point but if you leave it, it will reduce down a lot and thicken nicely. Keep an eye on it - you don't want it to stick.
10. When your pasta is done, drain it, stir it into the sauce and serve with lots of cheese on top and garlic bread on the side. Nom nom nom.

Warning: You may get red wine lips as a side effect. It's perfectly normal.


Written in collaboration with Pamela Stewart.
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Friday 26 October 2012

Love in the ruins.


More adventures, this week! When Nic was staying, she suggested we visited Houghton House, which both intrigued and scared me because the address was simply listed as 'Bedfordshire'. WHAT THE FRIG DO I PUT IN THE SAT NAV. You have to understand that I never know where the hell I am. Like, right now? I'm pretty sure I'm in my room? But it could just be a room that looks just like my room, 50 miles away from my actual house.

(It's not, though.)

But we googled and I drove, and we found it! The reason it's without a postcode is... well, actually, there are houses right by it. Surely THEY have postcodes. Sort it out, English Heritage. But if it wasn't for that, I'd say it's because it's a ruin - there's no opening hours, entrance fee or staff. Which I quite liked - it's nice to explore without people milling about. As much as I love trying to emulate bloggers who take outfit photos in pretty settings, I'm actually kind of self conscious about people seeing me taking outfit photos - I know, it makes no sense, but it's FINE when it's you lot. But here, I would have been cool with setting up my tripod and remote and posing away like I was in my garden. Nice and quiet.

I actually loved having a wander - it was slightly dark and spooky inside, so we had to rely on the flash for many of these pictures (which brought up exactly 0 ghosties, sorry) and the fact that it was so hard to find added to the whole effect. So, if you want to visit Houghton House... er, good luck! It's near Ampthill, although I'm pretty sure I'll never be able to find it again.


Dress c/o Miss Ikon | Bag & Meline Flat Shoes c/o Spartoo Shoes | Cardigan - Debenhams | Belt - New Look | Coat - Primark
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Monday 22 October 2012

This is Halloween, this is Halloween.


Look Scary was a fantastic event last week, thrown by Zoe and Lily (with a little help from Blackberry, o2 and the London Dungeons). It combined SO many of my loves: dressing up, Halloween, wine and a whole bunch of bloggers to gossip with and fangirl over.

The gist of the event was that the London Dungeons let a bunch of bloggers loose in their depths to, er, be thoroughly petrified. I brought my friend Nic along, who was staying with me all last week - it was only halfway to the station that I realised I'd left my camera at home, so I had my very own personal paparazzo for the night! This is not always a good thing though... I'm just glad she let me vet the pics first. She caught some great ones though. :)

It was SO great to see all my blogging friends! I was completely in awe of Laura's costume - she looks terrifying and awesome all at the same time. Terrifyingly awesome, even. The rest of the girls were a real mix - I didn't get a pic, sadly, but Zoe and Lily went as two different GaGa incarnations, and both looked stunning. Amy went as her own unfortunate twin sister from the wrong side of the tracks, and Lauren looked totally foxy as a black cat. Oh, and I loved Sarah's dress (but then I always say that!).

I went for low-effort, as a witch, in a simple black dress and cute hat - I like to call it the 'caution' fancy-dress technique, but once I saw that other people had really gone for it with dressing up when we all met at the pub beforehand, I dashed to the loo to don my stripy tights and backcomb the living heck out of my hair. Honestly, I would have OWNED the 80s - it took no time to make my hair 5 inches high! So much easier than a 'real' beehive. Looked terrible, but that was the point.


If you saw the tweets last Thursday, I'm sure you'll get an idea of what a fun night it was. And if you kept reading into the morning, you may get an even better idea of why I shouldn't drink wine all night. Um.

I'm not proud.


Dress - New Look | Hat - Accessorize | Tights - Costume Store | Friis & Company Flat Shoes c/o Spartoo Shoes
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Sunday 21 October 2012

Shiny, shiny shoes.

One of the things I like most about being part of the Spartoo blogger's programme is discovering new brands I might not otherwise know about. Sarah turned me on to Betty London after posting about their glittery court shoes on her blog, but having a sneaky look at their brand page has just given me a million other pairs of shoes I'm coveting. I think a few of these may make it into my basket at the end of the month.



I keep telling myself I need more practical, work-appropriate shoes, but look at the glittery ones. So pretty!

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Thursday 18 October 2012

Blue suede shoes.


I'm back! I'm really back! I've missed blogging so much, it's been really frustrating being laptop free for the last month or so. And I just can't blog from my iPhone. I just CAN'T.

The good thing about such an extended break is that I've got about a million posts backed up, and so the next few weeks are going to be jampacked with posts about my adventures. At the moment, I'm just coming to the end of a week spent with my friends Nic and Ali. Whenever we get together, we have a bit of a ritual of going to visit interesting places such as Calke Abbey or Haddon House. Ali lives in Derbyshire, and there's no shortage of beautiful old stately homes around there for us to visit and take copious amounts of photos of.

We wanted to visit Hardwick Hall, mostly because we are massive nerds and it was used as Malfoy Manor in the last Harry Potter film. Like I said: massive nerds. It's pretty, though! Unfortunately we didn't get much of a chance to look around the gardens as by the time we left the house, it was closing, but we did get to see the ruins of the old house on the grounds (and nearly got locked in). I actually preferred the ruins to the manor house though - I like having the freedom to explore, and a crumbling building is so much more interesting to me than a beautifully kept stately home. This is probably because I identify more with the slightly scruffy places.

I took the chance to debut my new Clarks booties which I was kindly sent by MyVoucherCodes. I'm always suspicious of the comfortability of such structured shoes for a day of wandering (especially those with a heel - albeit small) and threw a pair of ballet pumps in my bag just in case, but I didn't need them, these didn't hurt at ALL.

Quite tempted to buy the black ones now, too, although I may wait until 14th November when they are running another Clarks discount codes (20% off + free delivery until 20th November) - my boots were initially £59.99, but using the MyVoucherCodes discount made them £47.99. Awesome. I am a bit of a discount code groupie anyway, so am always checking the MyVoucherCodes site before I buy online or in-store. Discounts for everyone!



Shoes c/o Clarks | Coat - Primark | Dress - New Look | Roxy Shopper bag c/o Spartoo
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