London and the Poppies

Last weekend we decided to take a trip to London to see the poppies that have been placed there for the 100 year anniversary of the First World War, in memory of all the soldiers who lost their lives.

Unfortunately, they had started taking the poppies down the day before, so when we got there a lot of them were already gone, but it still looked amazing and gave us a good idea of what it looked like when they were all still up.
It was also amazing seeing the Tower Bridge, as I haven't seen it for about 10 years I think, and it's such an iconic landmark it's just beautiful, so safe to say I took ALOT of photos!

                           

                                        

                           

                           

                           

I actually really enjoyed just being a tourist in London for once, as whenever I'm there it's usually for a specific reason and I don't get to do any sightseeing, so I decided to take advantage of it and take a trip to Harrods! I was actually planning on going to the big pets department to get some christmas pressies for my gorgeous pup, so I was really disappointed to find they've actually gotten rid of the pets department completely! Apparently there was a big uproar about them having live animals in there, which I totally understand, but I don't see why they had to get rid of all the accessories too! :(
Anyway, it was still a great trip, lusting over the designer bags, the gorgeous shoes and the huge make up and perfume section, and of course they had all their christmas stuff out, so that was like a winter wonderland, I was in heaven! We also went for tea in their cute little teashop, which was lovely with the china teacups and delicious desserts.

                                       

                                       

                                       

After shopping we hopped back on the tube and went to a little Mexican place in Covent Garden called Cafe Pacifico on Langley Street, we had to wait a little while for a table, but since it was a Saturday night that was hardly surprising, and they had a bar serving amazing cocktails to keep us occupied so we weren't bored! The menu was pretty pricey but the portion sizes were HUGE, you could easily share a plate between two people, unless you have a particularly large appetite of course!

We originally planned to go there and back in one day, but decided against it and booked a hotel so we could just relax instead. We stayed in a staycity apart hotel next to Deptford Bridge DLR station and it was lovely. It was clean and modern, not a particularly big room but big enough, and had self catering facilities should you want them, plus the shower gel and shampoo they provided smelt amazing, it was literally like a bottle of honey! The only downfall was that they don't do breakfast on site, you have to go to Cafe Rouge in Greenwich with a voucher from them, so we decided to just go to this little place in Canary Wharf that my mum knew about instead, which was lovely so it didn't really matter, but if you booked it expecting breakfast, you would've been disappointed!

                                       

Anyway, I could go on and on but that's the main stuff I did in London, I even bought my very first oyster card as a vow that I will go back more regularly as a tourist instead of just when I need to! Hope you enjoyed this post, please leave me a comment if you've been to London recently or letting me know what you think, thanks for reading! xxx

Birmingham's German Christmas Market

If you've ever lived in the West Midlands, chances are you'll have heard of the German market that's on every year in Birmingham, in the lead up to Christmas. For those of you who have never been, it's basically a load of wooden chalet type stalls, some selling gifts and christmas decorations, but mostly there are a lot of stalls selling all kinds of delicious things, sweets, baked goods, german sausages (which are huuuge!) and burgers, and lots of tasty drinks such as german beer, mulled wine, winter pimms and hot chocolate.

We decided to take an impromptu trip last night since I only live a 15 minute train journey away from Birmingham, and I wanted to nip to selfridges to get some personalised nutella, seriously everyone I know is getting a jar of nutella for Christmas this year! Hehe!
Whilst walking round at first I must admit I was slightly disappointed, all the stalls were exactly the same as last year, so I'd seen it all before, and there's not a huge amount of items for sale, so you aren't likely to get your christmas shopping done. However, we realised after ordering hot dogs and working our way through a pint each of yummy German beer (see pictures below) that people obviously go for the amazing food and drink! So it's certainly worth a visit, especially if you've never been before.

it looks huge as it is, but notice the sausage is broken in half, it was even bigger than that before!

some proper German beer!

christmas lights selfie!

christmas in Birmingham :)

Thanks for reading! xxx

Film Review: The Judge

Last night I went along to our local Odeon to see Robert Downey Jrs new film The Judge. 

I will start off by saying that I'm a huuuuge RDJ fan (come on, he is Iron Man, how could you not love him?!), so yes, that was the main reason I chose this film as we also wanted to see Gone Girl, which I've heard is good, but I always feel guilty watching a film adaptation of a book before reading the actual book. Leighton Meester is also in this film, although she doesn't play a huge part in the script, we only really see her twice, so Gossip Girl fans shouldn't get too excited! 

Without giving too much of the plot away, RDJ plays a lawyer, who gets a phonecall to say his mother has died. He then goes back to his hometown for the funeral, where we're introduced to his family and an old flame/childhood sweetheart. He makes a few startling discoveries about his father (the judge) who he doesn't really get on with, and he's told a few home truths. I'm not going to say any more than that because it's no fun if you know what's going to happen! 

So anyway, I really enjoyed this film! When it first started I must admit I thought it was going to be a low budget flop, but as the story progressed it got deeper and the plot actually got really good, it wasn't just some basic, predictable storyline (or at least I didn't think it was!). It's probably not really the sort of film I'll rush out to buy when it comes out on DVD, but I'm glad that I've seen it and I would probably watch it again if it was on the telly. 

I feel like I should also mention that this film is produced by Susan Downey, who is RDJ's wife. I didn't realise until earlier this week when I read an article about the couple that she actually produces most of his non-marvel films, such as Due Date (hilarious), and the amazing Sherlock Holmes films. So naturally I'm her new biggest fan. 

My rating for this film is 8/10, it's definitely worth a watch but it's unlikely it'll end up being your favourite film ever! 

Thanks for reading! Xxx

Book Review: The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike)

Last week I finished reading The Silkworm, the second book in the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith. For those who don't know, Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym J.K Rowling decided to use for these books to see if they would sell without her name attached (which obviously didn't work as some idiot rumbled her and revealed the secret!). 

This book is the second in the series about a private detective called Cormoran Strike. In the first book, (The Cuckoo's Calling) we were introduced to Cormoran and his new assistant Robin, as they investigate the suspicious suicide of a famous supermodel, Lula Landry. I would definitely suggest reading this book first, as not only is it a good read that keeps you guessing, but it gives you much more of a background to the characters, which is useful for reading the second book. 

In The Silkworm, Cormoran and Robin are on the hunt for a missing author who they soon found out has been murdered (don't worry, that's not a spoiler it's in the blurb), so naturally, they then try to track down the killer. Problem is, the guy wrote a book which pissed a lot of people off, so there's a lot of suspects! 

I really enjoyed this book, I think maybe I liked The Cuckoo's Calling a bit more, but The Silkworm is definitely worth a read too. I finished this book pretty quickly because I really wanted to find out whodunit so kept picking it up whenever I had a free moment (yes I may have had a sneaky read at work once or twice, shhh!)

Rowling/Galbraith's writing is excellent, as you would expect, and these books will make you want to become a private detective after you've read them so be warned! I've read that Galbraith has at least six more Cormoran Strike books planned, so I would definitely suggest getting in on this, who knows, they could end up being as big as Harry Potter! I would imagine there will be lots of underlying storylines that will come to fruition later on in the series as Rowling certainly doesn't keep things simple! 

My rating for this book is 7/10, it's definitely worth a read! 

Thanks for reading :) xxx

Grand Designs Live 2014

For those of you who don't know, I'm studying interior design at university, and I love anything related to architecture, home renovation and of course interiors. 

Last Sunday I visited Grand Designs live at the NEC in Birmingham, for the third year running, since it's only a 15 minute train journey from my university. 

Unfortunately I was limited on time this year so had to choose between getting round all the exhibits or listening to the talks. I decided I'd rather go round the exhibits to see if there was anything new I hadn't seen before, and of course for the freebies! However, I absolutely loooove George Clarke (Amazing Spaces and Restoration Man) so I couldn't resist listening to a bit of his talk as he's always so inspiring! Every year I come away from the show wishing I had the money to start my own dream project, I even seriously considered buying an old 1950s bus earlier in the year to do up! His guest had actually built himself a home office from a shipping container, and had made chairs out of old shopping trolleys! 

For anyone who's interested in this sort of thing, check out some of his episodes on YouTube, particularly Amazing Spaces. It's really inspiring! His new series also starts this Thursday, so if you're in the UK, be sure to check it out! 

Thanks for reading! Xxx

London Islington: Hen Party and Chocolate making!

Last Saturday I hopped on the train to London, my second favourite place in the world, to go to a hen party. It was for my Mum's friend who's getting married for the second time, so she didn't want any of the cheesy tacky stuff that you would expect from a hen party, and instead it involved a 'treasure hunt' around Islington followed by afternoon tea and a chocolate making workshop!

We started the day off by meeting up at Pizza Express for lunch and having a good old natter. I didn't know many of the people there but they were a really friendly bunch so we soon all made friends! I ordered the Pollo ad Astra pizza (basically chicken and veggies) in the Leggera, which is a smaller pizza, with a hole cut out the middle and replaced with a portion of salad. You're probably thinking 'why on earth would you want salad instead of the middle of your pizza?!' but I think it's yummy! Plus I can never manage a full  pizza on my own.

After this we headed off to start our 'treasure hunt'. I thought it was going to be a bit of an easter egg hunt type of thing, with chocolates hidden for us to find, but it turned out it was just a load of clues, and questions such as 'which famous actress used to live here, and between which years'. I was a bit dubious at first because I don't know Islington that well, plus it was raining a little bit and we had already walked quite a way to get there in the first place. But once we got started I really enjoyed it, they split us up into two groups so my competitive streak came out, and I really enjoyed learning about all the local history and the feeling when you finally found the answer to one of the clues!

When our treasure hunt was finished we headed back to the chocolate makers for our afternoon tea (which was very welcome!) and to start making chocolate!

the table before we made a mess of it!

that's me in the middle :)

We started off by learning about different types of chocolate and the history of chocolate, it's interesting how little I know about something I eat so much!

deep in concentration!

Then we started to make our own giant chocolate buttons, which we could make whatever shape and decorate with anything we wanted. When I poured mine on the baking paper it just so happened to look like a face with ears so I worked with it and made this...

We then made truffles by using 6 tablespoon scoops of melted dark chocolate and 3 tablespoons of double cream and mixing them together, then putting them in a piping bag and squirting little dollops onto the table - queue hilarious laughing from half the table because they slightly resembled the poo emoji - which we left to set for a little while before rolling them into balls and dipping them in melted chocolate and coating or topping them with something - delicious!

When we'd finished making our delicious goodies they gave us gift boxes and cellophane bags with ribbons, so that we could make them look presentable and take them home, which I thought was really cute!

It was a really good day, and I'd certainly recommend it for a hen or birthday party, but you WILL feel sick by then end of the day, because you can't resist having little tasters as you go along!

look at that mess! I look exhausted!

me and my lovely mummy :)

champagne!

If anyone fancies doing the same for an upcoming celebration the company we went with were called myChocolate, the one we visited was in London, but they have workshops in Brighton and Manchester, and I believe they also come to your home, but it probably depends on where you live so it's worth giving them a ring! They aren't the only company who does these sorts of classes, however the girls were really friendly and fun, and of course they do the treasure hunt before hand! So I would certainly recommend them :)

Thanks for reading! xxx

BooTea Teatox

Hey guys,

I just wanted to share with you all a little weight loss miracle I have recently found that is the 'teatox'. These alternative detoxes seem to be taking the world by storm at the moment, with many companies producing similar products. The one I have been using is by a company called BooTea and it is GREAT. In my very first week I lost half a stone, and it's all through natural ingredients that 'cleanse' your body. You have a cup of tea every morning when you get up, and then every other night you have a bedtime cup which I must warn you acts as a laxative for the next morning, hence the cleanse! I've now been on this cleanse on and off for a couple of months and I feel so much better and way less bloated all the time.

You're probably wondering what these teas taste like? Well they only come in one flavour, but if you're used to herbal teas then you'll probably like them, the morning one has what I can only describe as a 'spicy' taste, as it has ginger, lemongrass and nettle leaves in the ingredients. I absolutely love the taste of the evening tea, it has a hint of peppermint so leaves you feeling really refreshed before bedtime. They also state on the website that if you don't like the taste of the teas, you can add some natural sweeteners such as honey or lemon, which will not change the overall effects.

You can buy these products here, or if you're in the UK you're better off getting them from Holland & Barrett so you don't have to pay postage, plus H&B tend to do buy one get one half price or other offers, so you'll get more tea for your money!

Thanks for reading guys, hope this can be of some help to anyone stuck in a weight loss rut!

Rachael xxx