Smiles of the week: I've been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand

This week started off as a bit of a drag. No particular reason other than that I'd started off the week so exhausted that even being awake was taking considerable effort, so finding even the teensiest bit of energy for work and other things (especially my first Body Attack class...) was almost impossible. One pathetically early night later and I was magically cured and spent the remainder of the week jumping about like an over-excited puppy. That's more like it.

As usual, here are a few snippets for you of the things that have made me smile in my little world over the last week.

Spending an evening being completely sucked back into 90210. There's not many trashy shows that I actually watch but a few years ago I was bored and living alone for two weeks and somehow ended up watching the first two seasons of the show back to back so I'm very much enjoying having the ridiculous storylines back in my life again.

Zumba with my friend from work. I love it when she comes with me, we're like the naughty children at the back of the class who spend more time pulling stupid faces at each other than actually doing the dances.

Chilling out with Charlie and whiling away an evening gossiping and plotting how she can take over the world with cake.

Having a Saturday morning stroll to Hobbycraft and Asda Living and getting really over-excited about the pretty things I could buy once I've moved into my new house next month. I really don't need anything new but I just find it IMPOSSIBLE not to buy lots of pretty things every time I move house (this will be my sixth home in 5 years- I'm sure you can imagine how much stuff I've accumulated!). 

Eating my favourite burger at Almost Famous in Manchester's Northern Quarter. The last few trips to Mancland I've had we've not got near the place as the waiting list is always huge, but we put up with waiting for an hour this time and were so glad we did. 

Having a hilarious night out which began with the four of us owning the dancefloor and making full use of the fact that nobody else was dancing yet. Lots of hokey-cokeying to indie music (yes, we're that cool) and dancing metres away from each other just because we could. 

Buying the yummiest smoothie to attempt to relieve my horrendous hangover (and it actually working!) then managing to find the one remaining seat on the train back to Leeds. I'm not sure I'd have survived if I'd had to stand up for an hour- it was one of those days!

Round two of our weekly baking sessions with patients in the hospital. There was only one girl that could come along this week so we decided it'd be rude to let the ingredients go to waste and ended up making a huge batch to eat ourselves. That's my sort of lesson.

Hope you've all had a good one too, I'd love to know what's made you smile this week :)

Disorder- Joy Division

Play another song here and then you can leave

This week has been a good one for me exercise-wise. However, I do feel the need to warn you all that exercise can be bad for you. Not in a "woe is me, my legs hurt" sort of way (although for the record, walking has become quite a challenge for me over the last few days), but because my head has been infiltrated with a playlist of Zumba tracks which I keep finding myself singing as I potter about the flat. 

Now, don't get me wrong, Zumba music is pretty damn awesome and absolutely perfect for shaking your hips to in the company of 30 other lycra-clad women, but in the comfort of my own home (and my own mind) I like to consider myself to have better taste in music than that. 

So, as a desperate measure to force the weird medley of banghra, latin and hip-hop out of my head, I thought I'd compile a little playlist of a few songs that I've been loving this week that I'd much prefer to have stuck in my head as I hoover the living room. 

Laura Palmer- Bastille

You know that feeling when you buy a new album and find a track on it that you love waaaaaay more than the singles that made you want to buy the album in the first place? For me, this is one of those songs. I'm very guilty of getting a bit put off songs that I have adored for ages when they become 'big' and played about 1000 times an hour on Radio 1, so was really pleased to find a song on the Bastille album that I loved more than Pompeii. I'm really pleased that Laura Palmer seems to have been picked as their next single release as its a bloody brilliant song that deserves a good bit of success, but at the same time I'm reluctant for it to reach a point that I have it forced upon me through the radio so often that I can't bring myself to listen to it in my own time any more. 

Sacrilege- Yeah Yeah Yeahs

When I first heard this new offering from Karen O's vocal chords, it took me right back to my hey day at Uni. Definitely a good thing as hearing new stuff from the band that's as fun as Zero fills me with excitement at the prospect of going mental to this soon when I've got a good bit of vodka in my belly. Although it'll have trouble having the same emotional significance as the stuff from their last album for me as I'd give my right arm to go back to 2009 and listen to it all again as something new. Sorry, going a bit off track and onto a moan about the pitfalls of post- University life again! 

Biblical- Biffy Clyro

I have so much love for Biffy Clyro. Mostly because anybody who sings in a Scottish accent is a winner for me. One of the few bands that made the Reading and Leeds line up have any sense of appeal to me this year (sadly there wasn't enough else to entice me so I'm going to miss out on seeing these bearded lovelies when they come up to Leeds in the summer). But still, the new album is brilliant so I'll just have to play that with the volume up on full instead. Plus it'll be a nice chance to get back on my neighbours who think that even just watching tv at tea time requires surround sound with a room-shaking amount of bass. 

My waffling about musical goodness seems to have done the trick in erasing the Zumba tunes from my head for tonight at least. 

Although I'm sure I'll be right back to square one tomorrow when I go to my next class. Somebody get me some new music pronto!

Biblical- Biffy Clyro