30 before 30 – Progress Report

1. See the pyramids – Egypt in October booked! DONE What an experience! See my blog post here for more information on this one!
2. WILD swim (in the Hampstead Ponds) DONE Next stop, Kings Cross Lido this summer.
3. Read 30 books (I’m midway through no 20 now and it’s the middle of April!) Not 100% sure I’m going to finish this one, but I can only try.
4. Visit the Sky Garden (it’s free!) Date night plan for this one sometime soon, or date night with my sister as I know she wants to go too.
5. Sky dive (in Brazil in June?!) This is definitely happening in Rio.
6. Catch up with ALL the #Bordeladies This happened (minus Gale, but that would have been too difficult!) at Fanny’s wedding last weekend in Long Eaton. So much fun, check out my blog on local eatery, The Harrington Arms.
7. Make Aligot (amazing cheesy, garlicky French mashed potato) The blooming recipe card is STILL on my pinboard! This will be done!
8. Visit St Pauls cathedral – DONE! This was amazing! Yet to write a blog post on it yet, but will be done soon.
9. Eat at a Michelin starred restaurant. Turns out i already did this a few years back when i ate at Arbutus in Soho – their pre-theatre menu is great value and really yummy!
10. Do a centurion (drinking a shot every minute for a 100 minutes) Trying to get a date in the diary for this one…when I have a lot of sleep time the next day!
11. Eat at Duck and Waffle – Bday brunch I think!
12. Get a new phone, this one is pissing me off! Still P-ing me off, still no new phone!
13. Be more creative – this one needs some specifics! I’m thinking an actual project?? I did do melty Crayon-Art like this but I’m thinking something in the garden now that the weather is heating up a little bit. More Pallet furniture maybe? Lee does have a power-drill!
14. Learn to needle felt – Hazel was going to teach me this, still not happened!
15. Learn a song with both hands on the piano. Again this was a Hazel one, still not happened.
16. New! Visit the Tower of London
17. New! Write a poem I’m proud of
18. New! Write a new blog post everyday until I turn 30 –  could be a lot of random ones…but I can try. It could be my new lunch time activity at work. Better than reading the Daily Mail…
19. New! Go on a brewery tour in London
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25. These need filling in…!
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.

If you have any suggestions let me know!

The Harrington Arms, Long Eaton

“When one is at a wedding, one must ensure one eats adequate carbs so as to be able to drink unsociably acceptable levels of bubbles”

The Harrington Arms in Long Eaton did just that yesterday between ceremony and evening event! With a (almost ridiculously) huge menu of options, we were spoilt for choice but elected for sharing an antipasti platter to start and then I had the fish finger sandwich for mains. Home made fish fingers, amazing rosemary and sea salt fries and a salad on the side – ridiculously good value too!

The only gripe was the slightly slow service but considering we were a last minute booking of 8 and happily gossiped our way through the wait, I can’t complain too much.

10th June – Reuse, Recycle, Relove

As much as I love swapping clothes with my friends,  sometimes they’re not ready to let go of their good quality items until they’re a little raggedy. Good on them I say, but not so useful for me!

My mum has always been a bit of a weird genius – if I sent her to the high street and asked her to buy me something nice, she would buy something I would never wear in a hundred years and not at all ‘me’. Send her to a jumble sale (where even I get a little intimidated!) & within half an hour she will have a bin bag full of things that glitter, shimmer and are fricking awesome!

Maybe I got it from her originally but also going from a job where I could wear jeans and a tee to a ‘grown up office job’ with suits and ties required me re – evaluating my wardrobe a little.  And changes were needed quickly. But I had no budget.

So off I headed to my nearest charity shops (Haringey Green Lanes and Turnpike Lane in case you’re wondering) in search of some suitable clothes for work. And it’s carried on from there.  It’s amazing what people throw out! M&S,  Zara, Topshop, Oasis – all in really good nick! Why bother buying a new tailored dress for £30-40 (if not more) when I can get it for less than a tenner!?

I guess it’s people losing & gaining weight (work clothes are not the stretchiest, forgiving clothes are they?!) but I’ve had some pretty good finds over the past year.

Take this lovely black Topshop dress I’m wearing today – you would never know it cost me £6, & coupled with a cute black and white blazer cardigan from H&M (£10 in the sale) I’m not looking too shabby!    

Scarcity Waste at Somerset House

It’s Saturday afternoon and I’ve already done laundry and gone for a bRUNch (more on that another time). It’s still hours away til it’s socially acceptable to start drinking – even if it is St Paddies Day weekend.

So what do you do in this big bad metropolis that is London? When one housemate has gone shopping and the other has retired to her room for an afternoon disco nap, the city is my oyster…so to speak. So with oyster card in hand, it’s time to explore, to absorb a little culture, get some fresh air and get out and about.

I saw an advert on the tube for this exhibit at Somerset House and best of all it mentioned my favourite word in the dictionary – FREE!

Scarcity Waste is an exhibition of photographs, entries into an international competition to document and explore global challenges. With our ever increasing population and consumption of natural and man made products, the earth’s resources are under immense strain.

The collection of photos covers the world, from draughts to floods, people to animals, mines and landfills to mountains of waste. It’s truly astounding the pressure we put our world under – and we really do only have one world.  Our generation now is the first one to truly start to think about how much longer this can go on for, and how we can curb our excessive consumption.

One photo which drove it home, the only one of something in the UK was this little gem, hidden away in a corner of the gallery. A beautiful suburban garden in Bromley, South East London…With a secret at the bottom of the garden…at huge stinking pile of rubbish.  No they weren’t disgusting hoarders unable to throw anything away. Just an unfortunate location…

All of the photos had a beauty to them, sometimes hauntingly so, sometimes in the composition and sometimes simply in the eyes of the subjects but all had a clear message. Buck up your ideas people. The world needs help.

This too shall pass

I’m not sure who originally wrote the above line but apparently it’s a mainstay across many different philosophies. We were learning about it tonight in my practical philosophy class in regards to reason and what that is.

Annoyingly I wasn’t feeling very well and couldn’t concentrate so I had to leave early but I have a handout which should hopefully fill me in on some of the bits I’ve missed.

I’m really enjoying the class but still feel like everything I contribute is wrong or gets shot down. There are some REALLY smart people who immediately make links between different ideas and ways of thinking about the self and being and all that.  It’s quite daunting!

The main thing I feel I’ve taken from the first 6 weeks (it’s a 10 week course with the School of Economic Science here in London) is the need to stop once in a while.  I’m still not very good at meditating every day but I like it when I remember and find it very restorative. It’s amazing when you realise how little you just sit and think without interacting with people or your mobile phone or have the TV on in the background.  Once I thought about it it really surprised me. I’m never not doing something, unless I’m sleeping!

Beeeeeeeeep, alarm goes off, I wake, get ready for work, get my phone out on the bus, my book on the tube, do my make up,  work, eat lunch in front of my computer, book or newspaper on the way home. 3 minute wait for the train? Get my phone out, check instagram or Facebook or my emails.  Get home, turn on tv, make dinner, drink tea, check phone, watch TV, brush teeth, take off make up, check Facebook, write a blog, set alarm, sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Beeeeeeeeep,  alarm goes off…

The French have a saying “metro boulot dodo” – tube, work, sleep and it’s frighteningly true.

It’s time to take some time back from technology and from this vicious circle of do do do. It’s time to chill, to absorb, to watch the clouds drift across the sky, listen to the birds in the trees, feel the breeze on your skin, to be in the moment.  Aware of your place in the now, in the right this moment without all the other craziness going on around you.

Al fresco dining

It might not have been the most glamorous location on the banks of the river Thames and it may have just been a sandwich for tesco on a park bench but it was an achievement none the less – the first al fresco lunch of the year!

My office is based in Wandsworth,  South west London (SW18) so you can’t quite see the city but it’s still very urban. At the same time, it feels far enough removed that there’s a little space to breathe. There’s also a lot of construction going on in the area – huge new appartment blocks springing up left right and centre. If I didn’t work next door I would definitely consider the area – so close to clapham junction and with river views.

Although still a tad nippy I ate my sandwich and did a quick awareness exercise – the first time I’ve managed to do it during the day. Normally I would eat at my desk whilst browsing Facebook or researching a holiday, but it definitely felt good to just sit and recharge for a few moments.

Broken Biscuits

We have this thing in my group of girls we call broken biscuits.  It’s basically hand-me-downs of clothes, clothes swapping, swap shopping between our group. We check out each others bags before they get taken to the charity shop.

It’s a bit of a long convoluted story as to why they’re called broken biscuits but it has to do with my French friend Audrey, Brightonian Katy and Katy explaining how you can save money by buying broken biscuits in the supermarket as they’re just like posh ones…but cheaper! Apparently they don’t have this in France…and katy likened it to buying 2nd hand clothes. I think this was the logic anyway…

Today I had to pick up some papers from my friend Heathers and she was having a bit of a throw out.

I ‘rescued’ 2 pretty dresses, a pair of skinny jeans and a cardy, & in exchange said I’d take the rest of the bag to the charity shop for her. Ofcourse once I was there I had to have a cheeky look around and stumbled upon this lovely grey wool Marks and Spencer fitted dress (perfect for work), with no signs of wear and tear…and it was a bargain at £4!! I also spotted this perfect handbag sized book by Nick Hornby for my commute next week, for 50p.

=BARGAIN shopping Saturday!

I’m loving the green dress (it has a really pretty lacey back as well) & the beige and polka dot one will be perfect for summer parties 🙂

New year New app

This is like a first test update on my new app…god the things we get excited by these days haha.

So here’s to another few months (maybe longer!) of me updating y’all on the comings and goings of my life.

It promises to be a good few months because:
1. I’ve given up chocolate and sweet things for lent so have been getting a lil creative on the whole paleo, vegan, healthy cooking style stuff like date and walnut protein balls:

2. My lovely mate Lisa is running the London marathon for amazing charity JDRF on 26th April so lots of girly bRUNches to come – will explain more later.
3. I am training for the 60 mile London to Cambridge bike ride in July so lots of long, countrysidey bike rides (& photos!) to come.
4. I have holidays to Paris, Turkey, Amsterdam and skiing in Austria booked 🙂
5. Trying to book in a holiday to Santorini in September with the girls at the moment as a late 30th thingummy for Heather and Sara.
6. I’m Tinder-dating again so sure to be some lols coming out of that!

Sxx

Rome in January

Rome in early January, the Christmas trees still up, a chill in the air, the sun shining and hotels to visit (plus a few free cocktails!)