This too shall pass

Everything will be okay in the end.

Nothing is ever as bad as I think it's going to be. I need to remember this!

La la la London

 At the beginning of July, I went to London with my boyfriend for three days so I thought I'd share what we got up to plus a few pictures. When we got there, we got the Tube to Hyde Park, sat and had some lunch and had a good dose of people watching. It was such a nice day (in fact all three days were, we were very lucky), and I could have stayed sat there much longer watching the world go by. 

 

 

We eventually moved and headed to our hotel to check in. We stayed in Kensington at the Regency. We've stayed there before a few years ago and really liked the location, and they'd recently had a bit of a refurb so we thought we'd give it another go. I LOVE staying in Kensington. It feels so much quieter and calmer than the more touristy parts of London, and the houses are so pretty!

 

After we'd dumped our stuff and freshened up a bit, we went for a wander to Harrods. We had a look at the extortionate puppies on sale (a must), and browsed the toy section where we found this little big fellow. Yours for a cool £3,000!

 

 

After this we wandered around a bit more and then went to Wahaca for some food. I'd been wanting to try this for a while because I'm a big lover of Mexican food and the menu looked pretty promising. I was SO impressed! The food was so good and the service was really quick and friendly. I had a chicken burrito and a virgin mojito (hey, that rhymes!), and me and my boyfriend shared some nachos with THE NICEST GUACAMOLE EVER! I'll definitely be going there again when I'm next in London.

 

With our bellies full, we had a wander to Leicester Square and stumbled across a movie premiere that neither of us had heard of. It was for a Status Quo movie with what looked like a tropical theme... hmm... Anyway, we hung around to see if we could spot any celebs. The only ones I actually recognised were Chris Tarrant and Vanessa Feltz, ha! After this excitement was over we had a wander down Regent Street. We sat down on some benches, enjoying our iced Starbucks. After spotting a man rummaging through the nearest rubbish bin, we decided it was probably time to head back to our hotel.



 

The next day we had a bit of a naughty lie in and then headed out to get breakfast at the Breakfast Club in Soho. Again, I'd heard good things about this so I wanted to give it a go. After queuing for about half an hour we finally got in. I loved the look and feel of this place. It had lots of photos and notes that people had pinned to the wall, and generally a "well-loved", worn kinda feel to the whole place. I ordered pancakes and berries and my boyfriend went for the All American. Personally, I find the idea of bacon and maple syrup gross so his didn't look too appealing to me. Mine was really yummy but the portions were so big! Those four pancakes defeated me. Needless to say, we didn't need to eat again for quiiite some time afterwards.

 



Next we hit the shops for a few hours, gradually retiring to Covent Garden because sometimes Oxford Street is just too much. I find Oxford Street Topshop both amazing and overwhelming at the same time, although I usually come away from there with nothing because there's just TOO MUCH (and I feel bad making my boyfriend wait for me to look at everything). Covent Garden was also heaving but I like the atmosphere there a lot more than Oxford Street. Later on in the day, we decided that we wanted to see a show that evening, so we scouted around the ticket booths in Leicester Square and eventually decided on Rock of Ages. We're both a big fan of the movie so thought this would be good fun, and it was a reasonable price. We had pretty good seats with nobody sat in the seats in front of us (a bonus for the vertically challenged like me), and it was really good fun! I'd recommend it to people who love the movie, or who aren't opposed to a bit of 80's cheese.

 

 

The next day, we dropped our suitcase off at Kings Cross and headed into Chelsea for a wander round. I found a cute shop called Brandy Melville which stocked really nice clothes all in "one size fits most". I bought a cute tank top with an embroidered elephant on the front and a really nice cropped khaki jacket. After a bit more wandering and making shocked faces at the rent prices, I was then dragged around several music shops *groan*. Fair game though for all my clothes shopping!

 

We went for some food at Hard Rock Café before having to make a dash back to the station to collect our suitcase and catch our train home. Couldn't believe how quickly the three days went, and we still didn't do everything we wanted to. I will go on the London Eye one day! It was quite nice to just wander around at our own pace and not feel like we had to do this or that at a certain time - we just did our own thing. Looking forward to the next trip already.

 



What's your favourite thing about London?

 



All that glitters IS gold

Another little treat I got for my birthday was one of the new stylo eyeshadows by CHANEL, from my friend Julia. I'd seen these a few weeks ago and was drawn to them like a magpie. They were part of the new summer collection and I also "oooh"-ed over the new metallic/pearlescent blue nail polishes they'd just brought out.

The collection is inspired by butterflies, and the colours are very shimmery and tropical. The stylo eyeshadow I got was in Cool Gold. They can be used on the eyelids or as an eyeliner and you can be as bold and experimental as you like. I love gold eyeshadows. I have green eyes and I think gold really compliments their colour, and it's a shade that works just as well in summer as in winter.

 

The first thing I noticed when I applied this was the lovely cooling effect it had on my eyes. It felt refreshing, like a little wake-me-up for tired eyes. The pigmentation in this is very good and when I first smoothed it over my eyelid it came out so bright I panicked a little. But after a bit of blending it was a lot less dramatic. I think you could have lots of fun with these and create a great statement eye look, or you could play it safe like me and blend until you feel happy.

Overall, I'm very pleased with this. Has anyone else tried any of the Chanel summer make-up collection?

Feeling too hot hot hot!

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Oh this warm weather is getting a bit too much for little ol' me. Don't get me wrong, I love a sunny day but I actually much prefer a sunny Autumn day to a Summer one - those kinda days where you're not too cold but you can still layer up a tiiiny bit. Is that just me?

I get irritated when it's too warm, I never know what to wear and I can just never be bothered to do ANYTHING. It's kinda hard to believe I was born in Australia because I really was not built for this kind of weather. I've forgotten what it feels like to be cold!

Go easy on me, Mr Sunshine.

Jo Malone Nectarine Blossom & Honey Cologne

One of my birthday presents was this laaarvely Jo Malone perfume. I've only recently got into these - my Mum has been raving about them for months but I was always too blinded by my love of all things Chanel to see (or rather, smell) how good they are.

I went into the shop in York a few weeks ago with my Mum, fell in love and picked out a favourite - Lime Basil & Mandarin. I decided I wanted a fruity summery scent as all of my perfumes are floral or musky. I found it surprisingly difficult to find a fruity scent but Jo Malone have a lovely selection of fruity and citrus fragrances. This one smelt like a tropical island (description stolen from my Mum). I couldn't get enough of it!

I dropped a few subtle hints to my boyfriend as it was pretty close to my birthday although I wasn't sure he'd be able to remember the name and thought he'd probably get a little overwhelmed trying to choose one by himself. So I really didn't expect the pretty Jo Malone bag with black ribbon to be placed in front of me on the morning of my birthday. Eeek!

The first thing I noticed when I opened the cute box was that he'd bought me the bigger (and rather expensive) bottle, and then that he'd got a different one to the one I'd originally picked out. It was the Nectarine Blossom & Honey cologne. He told me that he couldn't remember which one I'd said that I liked and so chose one himself and BOY was I impressed!

I think I like this one even more than the one I chose first. It smells SO yummy and makes me feel so happy whenever I spritz it on. It's quite a light, refreshing fragrance with just the right amount of fruitiness. It just smells like Summer, fruit salads and cocktails on the beach. I think I'm a little addicted and have worn it every day since my birthday. As an added bonus, the bottle looks SO perdy sat on my dressing table.

So the moral of this blog post is to trust your boyfriend's perfume choices (sometimes over your own), and get this bottle of summery goodness in your life now! It'll last much longer than the brief English Summer.

Anyone else have any Jo Malone favourites?