My Christmas 2011: a photo diary

When I moved to London in August not only did I realise how much stuff I actually have but I also downsized space-wise so every purchase has to be carefully considered. Living through my first (memorable) recession has also shown me the pointlessness of spending hundreds of pounds on presents for the sake of it – especially considering most ‘Christians’ in the UK are non-active and atheism is on the rise.

This isn’t a ‘bah humbug’-type post. I love Christmas. I love the twinkly lights, the bright colours, the fact that everyone is in a better mood, wearing sequins during daylight, layering on the knitwear, listening to bad/good music, watching overly-sentimental films, cracking open the alcohol with breakfast and that being ok.

This is just to say that the emphasis of my wonderful, understated Christmas has been on spending time with family and friends and that’s exactly how I think it should be.

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There’s no place like home!

Wearing: jumper from Zara, jeans from Vero Moda via ASOS, coat from Topshop, leather brogues from ASOS, socks from Marks and Spencer, bag from Louis Vuitton via Selfridges, red lipstick by Kate Moss for Rimmel (shade 1)

It was so nice to go back to Manchester for a few days last week.  I haven’t been home since mid-September and I didn’t really think I was homesick until I got there.  I will always be a Manchester girl but in a city so small (in comparison to London) the opportunities can seem few and far between … that said I always miss Manchester when I’m in London and vice versa.  Yes I’m fickle!

Manchester Christmas Markets are now in full-swing and are incredible as always!  2011 is their 13th anniversary and the markets seem to grow annually (there are around 200 stalls across 8 sites this year).  The chalets dotted across the city sell food, drink, jewellery, leather goods, clothes, and beauty products (I bought 2 bars of handmade soap from the stall seen below).  It’s free to visit – click here to download a map of Manchester Christmas Markets.

Besides lots of nourishment Chris and I also both treated ourselves to new shoes.  I’ve been on the hunt for some for the most redonkulous amount of time so I was more than happy to discover these black brogues from Jones in the sale.  Fate, right?

I hope you’re all having a good week so far.  The weather seems to have turned pretty miserable with a constant chill occasionally accompanied by wind and / or rain.  The joys of a British winter!  Oh well, it’s only 5 months until summer …

An exclusive discount code!

Just in case you fancy some retail therapy to cheer yourself up Motel Rocks have kindly given me a 15% off code to share with you!  Just enter “TOPBLOG15″ at the checkout – click to visit MotelRocks.com!

The end is nigh

p.s. As I’m sure you’ve heard, Google recently announced that Google Friend Connect will cease to exist as of March 2012.  If you follow me on Google Friend Connect and would like to continue reading my blog (pretty please!) you will need to choose one of these options instead:

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1 photo, 1 hour, 1 day

Since I am now completely addicted to Instagram and came across this lovely post on busy bee lauren a few weeks ago I thought it might be fun to do my own ‘photo an hour’-type post.  Obviously I chose to do it on one of my more interesting days (my average day would consist mainly of shots of me watching Grey’s Anatomy repeats in my PJs …).

Starting the day with a mug of tea whilst doing the last bits of packing for a trip home to Manchester, including narrowing down my beautifying bits and bobs to the bare essentials.

No time to take a photo at 11.30am as Chris and I were rushing to Euston!  Lunch and some reading material on the train (presume the 1.30pm photo is the same).  We pulled into Manchester Piccadilly just before 2.30pm following an easy and flawless journey.

After checking into our hotel, the Malmaison (I’ll be posting my review soon!), we headed to the Manchester Arndale for some serious retail therapy.  It was so refreshing to be able to shop semi-peacefully – it’s never quiet in central London.  I also found I particularly enjoyed revisiting Manchester after a short break.  It had started to feel a bit stale as it’s not a huge city and I felt I’d seen it all but this weekend has opened my eyes to it again and I’ll be going away with nothing but happy thoughts.

We briefly escaped the growing Christmas Market crowds in the stunning Victorian gothic Town Hall, which has recently started operating clock tower tours.  After a quick spruce-up back at the suite we moved on to the hotel restaurant, Smoak Bar & Grill.

As the restaurant is a grill we of course ordered meat (I’ll post all about the meal in my review of the hotel)!  At 9pm we headed to the last hour of Emporio Armani Live, which took place at the striking new(ish) store in Spinningfields; it looks even more uber-modern when compared to next door neighbour the John Rylands Library, which dates from 1900.  It was a pretty amazing event which, again, I’ll post about soon!

After the event we visited the hotel’s lounge, Ember, for cocktails.  We hadn’t had time for dessert following our dinner so the hotel were kind enough to fulfil our weird request of sending it up to our room.  Peach melba in bed is something I can highly recommend.

If you’ve done one of these ‘photo an hour’ posts (or decide to do one after reading this) please leave a link below, I’d love to see it!

Happy weekend kittens! :)

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A day of favourites, food and fashion

Wearing: LOL jumper, straight leg trousers and sequin slippers all from ASOS, pea coat from Topshop, leather bag from Next, Kate Moss for Rimmel lipstick in shade 1

Last Thursday I had a laid back – but equally action-packed – day off work, and Chris and I spent the best part of it on a 6 or 7-mile wander along the Thames, in my opinion the best thing to do in London, including a nosy at Somerset House’s ”20 Years of Dazed and Confused Magazine” and also their thought-provoking photography exhibition about the Amazon (did you know that every minute an area of rainforest the size of 3 football pitches is deforested?!).

With all of that walking I opted for an easy outfit, pairing my favourite trousers (yep you’ve already seen several times since I bought them last month) and my favourite comfortable but pretty flats with my favourite new jumper.

We also sampled Borough Market for the first time.  I restrained myself, leaving only with a gingerbread man, a fresh mango and orange juice, and a slab of the most delicious garlic and chive butter which we’ve steadily consumed over the past few days.  It was a wonderful experience and made even me, the Antichef, feel inspired to get in the kitchen; we’ll be returning.

In the evening I popped into Fluorescent PR’s SS12 press day (which I’ll post about soon) and a bloggers event hosted by Motel Rocks and Glossybox.  It was just the perfect day off, with the quintessential mix of exploration, enlightenment, food and fashion.

After a lovely weekend I have another busy week planned, which has me feeling both enervated and excited in equal measure, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I’m currently at F+F’s SS12 preview event (which is taking place in the Oxo Tower, seen in the last photo below) so I’ll be back to post about that soon!

Thanks for all of your lovely comments over the past week or so!  I’m sorry I’ve not had the chance to respond to most of them yet but I’ve been so busy; I plan to get back on top of it when I have time this week, along with reading over 200 new posts on Bloglovin’ – eek!

{ SKATE at Somerset House, where Chris and I will be trying out our skillz in a couple of weeks. }

{ A couple of sections of the “20 Years of Dazed and Confused Magazine” exhibition at Somerset House. }

{ First trip to Borough Market. }

{ Dusk at St Paul’s cathedral … }

{ … and later sunset on the South Bank. }

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