London Zoo

A couple of weeks ago I decided to take advantage of living on London’s doorstep and go to London zoo for the day. It was a great choice, with beautiful crisp dry weather and I had a nice time.

 

The zoo is in the middle of Regent’s Park, so it’s a bit of a walk. I got the tube to Baker St and walked through the park from there, which was nice on such a good day. Once I got to the zoo I have to say I was suprised how expensive it was, £25! That seems a crazy amount, but hey, I suppose these are London prices.

For being in the centre of London the zoo is massive and there were tons of animals there! Plus I picked a good day because it wasn’t too busy.

My favourite part of the zoo was the aquarium. I used to work in a tropical fish shop so I love looking at fish. I also loved looking at the giraffes and monkeys, as all good zoo goers do!

After a few hours in the zoo I took a quick walk into Camden and warmed up with a mint tea, my favourite when out at the moment! Camden seemed like I really nice, fun place to hang out, I really want to go back to explore, but it was getting late and I knew it would take me an hour plus to get home.

 

 

Have you ever been to London zoo? Do you like going to the zoo?

PS – Did you know camels lay eggs!

Test

<a href=”http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/4660033/?claim=nepr9kq4enr”>Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Bacon, sweet potato and kale soup

Lately I’ve been making really lazy food choices, and I think my waistline and how I generally feel reflects the bad food I’ve been eating! So I’m trying to make a bit more of an effort to eat proper meals, as much as I love Morrisons savoury rice!

This recipe is inspired by one I saw on BBC Good Food a while back. (Have I mentioned how much I love this website – it’s great!). The original recipe was for kale, bacon and pumpkin. I adapted it slightly as pumpkin and butternut squash is a massive faff to chop!

Serves 1 hungry person

-2 x rashers of bacon

– 1 x small sweet potato

-2 x spring onions

-1 x stock cube (veggie or chicken)

-2 x cups of kale

-0.5 x cups of frozen peas

Fry off the bacon and onion in a pan. Meanwhile, peel and chop the sweet potato into cubes. Add the sweet potato to the pan with enough boiling water from the kettle to cover everything. Add the stock cube and allow everything to simmer. Once the potato is softened add the peas and kale. Put the lid on the pan to allow the kale to steam for a couple of minutes until it goes really green. Serve in a big bowl and add a sprinkle of parmesan.

Enjoy!

Do you cook for yourself or do you use convenience foods?

Beautiful Creatures

(source)

Last week I went to see Beautiful Creatures with a girl from work. I didn’t know much about the film before I went, apart from that it was based on a book and similar to the Twilight style books that are so popular at the moment.

I have to say, I loved this film! I loved the story, although I love all the Twilight style stories too ! I liked that the lead actress seemed so normal, and a good actress too, especially compared to Kristen Stewart. The lead actor, playing Ethan, is gorgeous and so cute – I loved his accent in the film and the love story between the two of them. I’m a sucker for things like that, especially being a single girl!

The film left with quite a lot of unanswered questions, so I’m already looking forward to the next film.

Apparently the film is very different to the books, as always, and my work colleague said the books are a lot better, as is so often the case. I’m definitely going to read the books next too, plus it means I get to find out the whole story a lot quicker! I normally read the books before films, so I’m interested to see how I like it…

I’m a really big fan of the supernatural film craze that there is right now, so I definitely want to see Hansel & Gretel next.

Have you seen/read Beautiful Creatures? Do you prefer to read the book before seeing the film?

Sunday Times 100 Best

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Sunday Times 100 Best awards dinner. It was such a huge honour to be invited to attend, I was pretty excited!

The awards were held at Battersea Evolution, in the centre of Battersea Park. It was a beautiful drive through the park to get to the venue, so I had high hopes when we arrived.

We were greeted with a champagne reception, and photographs before being asked to take our seats around 8pm. The guest speak was Kate Silverton, the lady off the news! I didn’t know who she was until she came up on stage, but I’m not really sure why she was invited. I think they could have someone with a few more jokes .

Because I am dairy intolerant, I always make sure at things like this I tell them I can’t have any dairy. I’d much rather have slightly boring, often veggie food, instead of feeling rotten all night. Having said that, I have to say, the food was pretty bland. I never expect when you’re serving for 1,000+ people to have amazing food, but I have slightly higher standards…My starter was a beetroot salad, probably the best big of the night. For my main I had a very bland, vaguely warm risotto which I had to cover with salt and pepper to give it any sort of flavour. For pudding I had what they always seem to serve someone avoiding dairy…fruit salad. Honestly, can they not think of anything better??? I was seriously disappointed, and pretty hungry even after I’d eaten. Thank goodness I’d made sure to have a big lunch.

I also made sure to limit the amount of wine (Rioja and Pinot Noir thank you very much) I had and lots of water which definitely saw me in good stead the next morning.

The awards ceremony went by pretty quickly, and it was so inspiring to see all these people who obviously felt very proud and honoured to be there. I did too!

After the awards they had a dance floor and DJ and people let loose celebrating. Carriages arrived to take us home at 12:30 and I have to say, this Cinderella was ready to head home from the ball and turn back into a pumpkin!

It was a great night and I felt very honoured and proud to attend.

Too early?

I don’t know about you guys but I finally feel like Spring is here this past week!

//Crop trousers//

//7.30am and the sun’s out//

//Amaryllis flowers in bloom//

//Walk to work//

//Flowers from work//

 

Do you feel like it’s Spring yet?

Look at the stars, see how they shine for you

Do you remember when I said I wanted to start wearing more jewellery? It’s been going pretty well so far. I reckon I wear jewellery at least once a week, which is way more than I used to!

On a recent trip to East to pick up a scarf for my Mum I noticed loads of their jewellery was massively reduced. So in the spirit of trying to accessorise more, I picked up a couple of things. It’s fair to say I really like them, but I’m struggling to wear them so frequently. Any tips?

 

 

At the car wash, woahawoahawoah!

As some of you may know, I got a car for the first time a few months ago. I even blogged about how much I hate driving! But, slowly but surely I’ve been getting a bit more confident with my driving. I think spending 3 hours driving on the M25 on a Friday night and getting lost was definitely the ‘baptism of fire’ I needed.

This past weekend I took my car to the carwash for the first time ever! As it was such a big occasion for me, of course I have to blog about it!!

This is just a fun post, you can tell how excited I was to get my car washed!

Magic Song | March edition

This month’s song makes me feel happy, really happy. It takes me back to a warm Summer day at The Eden Project with my best friend Chadwick and The Magic Numbers Gig we were watching at the time. It reminds me of being excited, of being happy, of the beautiful light biomes, of me thinking life couldn’t get much better. It also reminds me of being in London with my Dad for a spur of the moment night to see The Magic Numbers with a string orchestra for my birthday at 19, and again, being very happy. All it takes is the first 30 seconds for me to have all those memories come flooding back. Enjoy xx

 

 

 

 

Beauty Review | Suffuse

When I went to the #Surreylbloggersbrunch (yes, I’m way way overdue a post on this!), I couldn’t help but notice how a common theme on the lovely ladies I brunch with was rose gold nail varnish. A shimmery, metallic pinky gold varnish.

So after the brunch and shopping en masse ended, I did a little shopping of my own. I really like the Topshop nail varnishes, and I ended up buying this one. It was the perfect shade I was looking for.

Two coats and it gives the perfect colour, but I think it also looks great with one coat!

What nail colours are you into at the moment?