So if you really love Christmas, come on and let it snow

Earlier this month I took a trip to Manchester for a very long overdue catch up with one of my old housemates. It had been way over a year since we'd last seen each other as we don't live in the same city any more, so we decided that the Christmas Markets in Manchester were the perfect excuse to finally organise a little reunion. The time we spent in the markets themselves actually ended up being fairly limited as we spent more time trying out every shade of lipstick on the Mac stand in Selfridges, but it was a bloomin' lovely day and made me feel all nice and Christmassy inside (the mulled cider definitely helped the Christmas merriment along!). 

My absolute favourite thing about Christmas is the extra effort that people put in to spend time with old friends, people they haven't seen in ages as well as doing extra- fun things with people they see all the time. I know my December has been jam packed with Christmassy activities (mostly involving food and horrific quantities of wine... did someone say work Christmas Party?!) and I've loved every minute of it so far. I know some of the loveliest people in the world so any holiday that gives me an excuse to spend time with them is always going to be a winner with me, and still having another week of freedom before going back to work makes it even sweeter!

Hope you're all having a looovely Christmas break!

Christmas is all around: Billy Mack (Love Actually)

For about the last 8 years, two of my best friends and I have got together to eat excessive amounts of food and watch Love Actually. Hence why I have this song in my head. 

Don't judge me.

When the zeros line up on the 24 hour clock

I realised a few days ago that there's something I've not been doing on my blog for absolutely ages- my old smiles of the week posts. I like looking back at the little things that have made the week special, and thought this would be the perfect sort of week for doing that as it started off as one of those weeks where I was pretty bloomin' grumpy for no real reason and needed to give myself a bit of a kick up the bum to bring myself back to my usual jolly self. And actually, I proved my Monday morning self wrong and I've had a pretty jam-packed week with lots of highlights. So, just in case grumpy Kaz makes another appearance when Monday rolls around again, I've put this together as a little reminder that the week always gets better once that first wake-up of the week is out of the way. 

Being invited to a weekend away organised for the kids I work with. Its a huge event that's organised by the Teenage Cancer Trust and I'm so excited to be part of it.

Going along to the University open day to ask a few questions about PGCE courses. I had a really reassuring chat with somebody in the department and came away feeling a lot happier that I'm making the right choices.

Having a catch up with one of my friends and getting overly involved in watching GBBO together. Plus its reassuring to discover that the unnecessary hatred my house is harbouring against Ruby is felt by other people too!

Peeking at all of the new season stock at Joy in Leeds with my friends (and getting a cheeky free goody bag and glass of champagne too!).

Watching The Perks Of Being A Wallflower at long last. I read the book ages and ages ago, missed seeing the film at the cinema and then bought the DVD about a month ago but didn't quite get around to watching it for ages. A few of us had a DVD night on Friday to watch it, and I was so impressed! I thought it could be quite difficult to translate the book into a decent film, but it was done so well (aside from Emma Watson's questionable accent). 

Taking a trip to Manchester last night for a barbecue and a night out. Sprinting onto the dancefloor when our signature song, Babies by Pulp, was played was a definite highlight. 

Managing to have a fairly productive and hangover free day today despite having accidentally drunk a whole bottle of wine before 8pm last night. 

Plotting next weekend's shenanigans with one of my besties tonight (even more reason to be excited and not grumpy about the week ahead!). 

The new Arctic Monkeys album. Need I say any more?!

Knee Socks- Arctic Monkeys

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

Smiles of the week: Ain't it strange how the other half live

One little downside of last week's bank holiday was that this morning I spent a good few seconds when my (second) alarm clock went off convinced that today couldn't possibly be a working day- weekends are three days long, right? Cue me jumping out of bed in a crazy panic when I realised I was sadly mistaken. 

Despite my confusion about how long normal weekends actually are, I certainly wasn't complaining about last week's shorter working week- work absolutely flew by and as I was still on a massive music high after Live at Leeds I was in a pretty good mood all week. Here's a few of the little things that have added to my post bank holiday good mood this week

- Going to work with bare legs on Tuesday. Granted it started raining about 10 minutes after I got to work and I spent the day dreading going back outside but still, the weather must be on the way up if I could survive walking to work without longing for my 60 denier tights back!

- A text from Mama T sent from their jollies in Portugal laughing at my Dad for forgetting to pack his underwear. The morning that they were due to leave for the airport, Papa T still hadn't packed but he'd refused help; he was adamant that he'd get it all done. I'd put serious money on him begging my Mum to do his packing for him next time they go anywhere.

- After work cocktails and burritos with work. We've all been under a lot of pressure lately for one reason or another so Happy Hour was just what the Doctor ordered.

- Having a catch-up with one of my bestests in Manchester. We tried every burger place in The Northern Quarter and struggled to get in anywhere (our plans to go to my favefavefave Almost Famous fell apart as soon as we were greeted by the bouncer outside with a HUGE waiting list). We ended up in a place called Simple and were pretty excited to see that the burgers were named after Superheroes. Mine was an Ironman, and my god it was flipping incredible (and I'm a girl who knows her burgers so that's high praise from me!).

- Spending our burger-filled night laughing about the idiotic and embarrassing moments in our lives... there were plenty of moments just in that one evening. I did a nice job of somehow dribbling half of my drink down my menu and dress just as the waiter was taking our burger orders. Smooooth.

- Spending most of the weekend putting my heart and soul into baking for the Iron Cupcake competition. I've been going along as an eater since the competition began about three years ago and finally plucked up the courage to actually enter myself! I didn't win or anything, the standards are so high and I'm pretty amateur, but I'm just proud of myself for actually putting the effort in and entering!

How the other half live- Tribes

And everyone is singing, I hear those sleigh bells ringing

Last weekend was a very Christmassy one. York on the Saturday as you already know, then off to Manchester on the Sunday to see two of my old friends from school. I love Manchester so much, its somewhere that I used to go quite a lot in sixth form back in the days when Liverpool still wasn't very exciting for shopping, then when I moved to Leeds it was still a pretty convenient distance away for day trips shopping (one of my friends and I were very good at going there just before exams and pretending we lived a blissful English Language free existence). 

Anyway, the main point of our little trip was to exchange Christmas presents and wander round the INCREDIBLE Christmas Markets. However, a quick trip to TGI Friday turned into waiting for over an hour for food then ending up having to force free dessert down after a goodwill gesture from the manager because the waiter forgetting to put our food order through, so there wasn't too much time left for festivities. After wolfing down a starter, huge burger and the world's biggest waffle at lunchtime it left me too full to even think about eating any yummy market food. Wahhh. I'm off to the Leeds German Market this evening though so I'll make up for it there I'm sure. It may be small in comparison to Manchester's endless market stalls but you can still get a decent crepe and mulled wine... what more could a girl need?!