Today is my Mum and Dad’s birthday, so I thought I’d dedicate a post to them both to say Happy birthday! My Mum and Dad are pretty awesome, and I have to say a massive thank you to them both for everything they’ve done, including taking my brother and I to New York last week! I hope they both have a lovely day celebrating, and I’m looking forward to seeing them soon for Easter!
Every year since we’ve left Uni my muffins and I have congregated to celebrate my birthday and my wifey’s birthday Fi. For the past two years we’ve celebrated in Birmingham, so I think it’s ok to call it annual now, right?!
I travelled up Friday evening after my work Christmas do, and was so excited to be greeted at Fi’s house with the rest of the girls. Friday night we tucked into lots of pizza and caught up on all the goss, which made me realise how much I miss these muffins when I don’t get to see them.
Saturday morning was a lazy one, watching back-to-back cooking shows, gotta love a bit of James Martin on Saturday Kitchen. By the time we were all ready it was probably nearer 2pm, and we bundled ourselves into taxis to head into town, sample the delights of the market, and have dinner at our favourite restaurant.
Town was busy as predicted, but I just love the Birmingham Christmas markets, way better than the winter wonderland in my opinion. Once we got into the market we headed straight for the mulled cider stall, a firm favourite!
Of course I sampled all the different mulled ciders they had to offer, including apple (which tasted like curry), raspberry, and strawberry and lime. My favourite was the raspberry. Yum!
Lots of yummy cider was consumed, and lots of giggles were head reminiscing about funny stories!
The very best friends a girl could ask for!
After plenty of cider we headed off to Bodega for a late lunch. The girls and I stumbled across Bodega a couple of years ago, and ended up having an incredibly boozy lunch. Since then it’s been a firm favourite of ours and we head back every time we all meet in Birmingham. The food was delicious as always, and was of course consumed with plenty of cocktails, and more cider!
Mojito for me
Starters of chorizo, halloumi, and cheesy potatoes.
Fi and I shared nachos and chilli. Sorry for the blurred chilli photo, I think I’d had too many mojitos by this point!
After dinner we made our way through the market back to Fi’s place for X Factor and the promise of a nap. Post nap we decided that rather than go to the pub we’d prefer to just stay in and chat, which was probably a good idea in hindsight as we were all asleep pretty early. That’s what early drinking and getting old will do for you I suppose 
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I had a lovely weekend celebrating mine and the wife’s birthday up in my old Uni stomping ground, and I can’t wait for us to all meet up again in February! I’ll be counting down the days!
Not only is December my birthday month, it’s also Christmas (duh!). I always have think really hard about what I want for presents, so if you’re a bit like me, you might like these suggestions!
1. Race entry. I’ve been given entry into London duathlon next September, which I’m really excited about! I think for someone who loves racing, a race entry is a great gift as they can all add up.
2. Sewing machine. I’ve really got into sewing and crafting this year, but my quilt is taking me forever sewing by hand. A sewing machine would really speed things up!
3. Jewellery tree. As I’ve started to buy more and more jewellery it would be nice to have somewhere to show it off, and remind me what I’ve got. At the moment it’s all stored in a shoe box!
4. Runner’s world cookbook. I like cooking, I like running. This seems a perfect match, no?
5. Girls night in book. I like girls nights in more than heavy nights out at the moment, and think book has plenty of suggestions of things to do on cosy nights in with your girlfriends.
6. Foam roller. A must for any runner, I could do with one of these to stretch out all my tight muscles after my long Saturday morning runs.
7. Running t shirts. The sweatshop has plenty of really cool tshirts for running lovers like me, and I love this one in particular! Plus they’re in the sale at £5 right now.
8. Benefit cha cha tint. I bought some of this over a year ago, and mine has run out now, so I definitely want some more. I love the colour on my lips and the stain lasts ages!
9. Medals display. The perfect gift for someone like me who enters races just for the medals! I’d love somewhere to display all my medals and show them off!
10. New work out gear. I love all these pieces from Sweaty betty, and Nike. I’m hoping to pick up a few bits in the sales, and when I go to New York.
11. Yurbuds headphones. These are made just for girls, and they should fit in my little ears perfectly for when I’m out pounding the streets.
12. Running sunglasses. Not just for running, I can use them on my bike too and they’ll stay on my face and not get all slippy and ruin my Raybans.
What’s on your Christmas list?
Today I turn 25. I going to spend my birthday with my friends watching my favourite musicals, with my favourite food, and my favourite wine. Then at the weekend I’m off to Birmingham to celebrate with my lovely Uni girls, featuring the Christmas markets, a trip to our favourite restaurant, and of course, lots of drinks, and laughs!
The weekend just gone was my little blog’s second birthday, I can’t quite believe I forgot about it! I just wanted to say a ‘thank you’ to anyone and everyone who has ever read my blog, and a hello to everyone who’s blog I love reading!
Last weekend I celebrated Shakespeare’s birthday in style at The Globe. It was a pretty awesome night filled with magic, mayhem and music.
We started the celebrations with dinner at Tas restaurant on Borough High Street. Originally we had planned to go to Wagamama’s (my Mum’s favourite), but when we realised a Wagamama’s was opening up near where they live very soon we decided to try somewhere different and non-chain. After searching round on Google and TripAdviser we settled on Tas as it is so close to The Globe.
There is so much choice on the menu I found it really, really hard to decide what to have.
The ginormous menu!
In the end I was torn between two chicken casserole dishes and the sea bass with lentils. I ended up getting talked into sharing the chicken kebab and one of the chicken casserole dishes – both delicious!
For our starters we all decided to share lots of meze dishes. They were all delicious, but I particularly loved the hummus and the halloumi. Yum!
Hummus, halloumi, tabbouleh, bread, bulgar wheat
My little meze plate
Chicken casserole, chicken kebab, lamb and puree aubergine
My plate! I had this x 2. Oops! 
The food at Tas was really very good. The chicken kebab was so succulent and tender, and the chicken casserole had whole almonds in it which was a really good addition. I am glad I got to share both dishes, they were so tasty. I tried a little bit of my Dad’s lamb and aubergine puree which was very good too. I’m not sure what they did to the aubergine’s but they almost tasted barbequed and smokey. Unusual but pretty tasty.
After dinner at Tas we made the short walk over to The Globe. We really couldn’t have been much luckier with the weather, it was dry, sunny and warm. Perfect for spending a few hours outside having a good time!
I’ve always wanted to go to The Globe and the inside of it is just as spectacular as I imagined. It really felt like stepping back in time and there was such an atmosphere inside, it was truly magical.
Isn’t it beautiful inside?
The evening started with Barry and Stuart from the TV show The Magician’s. I haven’t seen their TV show before although I think I did recognise them a little from adverts or something. Anywho, they were absolutely brilliant! Their tricks and jokes were a little skin crawling at a time, but in a good/funny way and my whole family were laughing at all their tricks!
Next up was a musician and actor called Johnny Flynn. Now, I had never heard of Johnny Flynn before but it appears he had a big following as there were lots of girls in the audience who knew all the words. To be honest, his type of music wasn’t for me. It was a little mournful and a bit ‘samey’. If you like his music, I apologise!
Next up was another magician and mind reader, Chris Cox. I didn’t find him all that funny and I didn’t take any photos I’m afraid. Meh!
Afterwards was Piff the Magic Dragon. Piff reminded me a lot of Jack Dee, and I really enjoyed his act, particularly his little dog Mr Piffle!
And finally on the stage came my favourite band – The Magic Numbers! I think I’ve seen them a grand total of 10 times now and they never fail to disappoint me. They played music from their new, unreleased fourth album and some old classics too. The venue was absolutely amazing to see them perform in, it was truly magical.
Sorry for the poor photos of them, it was pretty dark by this point at night! I have plenty of photos of the band jamming from previous gigs I can share with you at another time. But I have to say, they were all fantastic and I am so excited for their new album to come out. As soon as they release tour dates in the South East you can bet I’ll be there!!
So that was Shakespeare’s birthday, it was a pretty cool night. Although for a Sunday I was pretty tired getting back to work at 1am. Totally worth it!
Last weekend I went to London with my friend to watch Viva Forever as part of my birthday celebrations. We booked the tickets way back in June when they announced the show, so needless to say I had been looking forward to it for ages!!!
We got up into London around lunchtime and headed to Picadilly Circus for lunch and a mooch round the shops. We ended up having lunch in the health foodies mecca – Wholefoods. Yum! I had a chicken burrito and it was yummy. It really filled me up.
Then we got ready to go and watch the show!
I know that the show hasn’t had the best reviews but I really enjoyed it. I thought the singing and choreography was brilliant as were the costumes.
The storyline was a little weak in places, I’ll be honest and at times it felt a bit panto-y with lots of cheap jokes, but it was so much fun! At the end everyone got up and danced. They covered pretty much all the hits and a few album tracks and solo numbers too, so I was impressed. Plus I scarily remembered pretty much all the words!!!
After the show we headed to Covent Garden to have a mooch round the market and get some dinner. Covent Garden was looking so beautiful, it really got me feeling Christmassy. Although it was so busy, but that’s not surprising.
We went for drinks in Dirty Martini. I went there a month ago for a friends birthday and really loved it. They serve Plymouth Gin – a winner in my eyes! Plus from 5-8pm on a Saturday it’s happy hour and very cheap. Well, cheap for London! I had a Sloe Berry Martini and it was delish!
What’s going on with my arm???? It looks like I’m a bit jolly hockey sticks – hooray!
For dinner we decided to go to Byron in Covent Garden. I’ve seen a lot of people having burgers in blogs and on instagram lately and it was totally what I was craving. The burger was absolutely delicious, and the onion rings were incredible. God I love Byron. Yum!
The photo does not do this burger justice. I need to get back there and take better photos, obviously 
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Once we got home we both crashed out and ended up sleeping for 13 hours. Two very tired girlies indeed, but a great end to my birthday celebrations!
Do you like the Spice Girls? What’s your favourite Spice Girl song?
Sorry I’ve been a bit absent from the blog the past week – I’ve been busy celebrating turning 24! I’ve had a fab birthday celebrating with all my close friends and it’s been great!
Last weekend I went to Birmingham to visit some Uni girlies, my ‘muffins’ as we call each other. We went to my favourite ever, ever, restaurant in Birmingham – Bodega. It does the most incredible South American food. Everytime I go there with my girlies we drink lots of wine and have so many giggles. I feel like I’m part of SATC when I’m sat there with them. Plus the staff are great and don’t bother us or make us feel like we’re being rushed. I recommend the nachos and the patatas fritas. It’s the main reason we go!
Afterwards we went to the German market in Birmingham. It’s absolutely massive, filled with sausage, mulled ciders and wines, and craft shops. I had a pint of mulled cider and it was delish!
Afterwards we went to another great bar in Birmingham, The Old Joint Stock. It’s beautiful inside and the ceilings are incredible. It even has a real theatre upstairs, and I saw Patrick Monahan there a couple of years ago with Ryan. The girls and I enjoyed a couple more glasses of mulled cider and had plenty more giggles. I love my muffins, and we love to sit there and put the world to rights!
Afterwards we went to a Champagne bar in the Mailbox and shared a couple of bottles of wine. Can you sense a theme here? It was alcohol!!! After spending around 9 hours drinking in Birmingham centre we headed to the suburbs and continued drinking in Harborne. What a Saturday! Although I’m pleased to say I woke up Sunday hangover free, and enjoyed watching Magic Mike with the girls!
My actual birthday was on Tuesday and I was very lucky and had dinner cooked for me by my housemate. It was my choice and I chose fajitas. They always feel like a special meal to me, which is silly because they’re so easy! Yum! We had a really girly night and enjoyed watching Made in Chelsea and Gossip Girl.
I had a really lovely chilled out birthday and got a fab few presents, I felt very loved! This weekend I went to see Viva Forever, but I’ll do a separate post on that!
Have you all had a good weekend?
![92253492336541176_GN7BOF7a_c[1]](https://stripesandsnapshots.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/92253492336541176_gn7bof7a_c1.jpg "92253492336541176_GN7BOF7a_c[1]")
(source)
It always strikes me how time flies when it gets to December because I get another year older! December is a busy time for everyone but I’ve got some exciting things planned as always!
**Go out for a friend’s engagement party
**Start my new job
**Go to Birmingham for a weekend with my girlfriends
**Celebrate my birthday
**Work Christmas party
**Watch Viva Forever!
**Go home and spend time with the family
**Spend NYE doing something crazy!!!! Details to come…..
What are your plans for December?
It’s less than a month until my birthday and not much longer until Christmas, and friends and family are pestering me on what I’d like. I’m in such a fortunate position that I was for nothing, so it’s always tough for me to choose what I’d like to receive. As good timing would have it, I was recently contacted by the people at Ask Her Friends to let me know about their site.
Having been the victim of several dodgey presents from friends and family (errr, genuine possom fur nipple warmers anyone? – from my Gran!!!), I totally get the premise of this site! It definitely would have saved me from a few forced ‘Thank Yous’. I struggle knowing that friends and family have spent their hard earned money on something that I wouldn’t choose for myself.
I’ve had a look round the site and if I got to pick for myself this year for my birthday here’s what I’d pick:
![Fake_Bake_Original_Self_Tanner_Kit1275471582[1]](https://stripesandsnapshots.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/fake_bake_original_self_tanner_kit12754715821.jpg "Fake_Bake_Original_Self_Tanner_Kit1275471582[1]")
Fake Bake Kit from Feel Unique
Champagne and Chocolates from Fortnum and Mason
Cheese and Wine Box from Fortnum and Mason
Spa and Beauty Treatments (My favourite bit!)
Deluxe Spa Day from I Need Pampering
Indulgent One Day Pamper Package from SpaBreaks
Have you ever received a dodgey gift? Would you use the site?
Stripes and Snapshots 
