And if I recover, will you be my comfort?

During that brief, unexpected period of sunshine we had last week, I had a sudden burst of motivation to start looking at summer clothes online. Sadly, the sun disappeared before I'd had a chance to actually buy anything but even so I've carried on having a nosy at the holiday collections in the shops as for once I can actually guarantee that I'll see at least a little blue sky and sunshine this year when I go to Corfu with two of my friends. I haven't been on a proper non-festival based holiday (festivals definitely don't count as a 'holiday' anyway as I always feel like I need a week to fully recover afterwards!) in a few years now so I'm extra excited for this one. I've never been to Corfu before, so if anyone has any recommendations on things to see or do there then hit me up! So far, my only requirement for the trip is to go to a water park because I appear to have similar interests to a 12 year old when it comes to keeping me entertained.

Since I've not been on a proper holiday for a while, I'm fairly certain it means I'm entitled to some new summer clothes. When I'm just staying in England I never really see the point in actually splashing out on real holiday clothes as there's such a brief window where you can wear them, especially when that window inevitably seems to happen when I'm stuck at work, melting at my desk. As much as I want to fill my suitcase with pretty new clothes, I don't want to spend much money as by the time August rolls around I'll be on the cusp of becoming a poor PGCE student living off my student loan (gahhh, those two words make me feel a bit ill whenever they creep up on me). Luckily, Primark and New Look are looking as though they'll save me as there's loads of cheap and cheerful gems in their holiday collections. Perfect. 

Here's a little selection of some of the stuff I've got my eyes on for all you nosy people out there.

1. playsuit 2. crop top 3. giraffe print bikini 4. sunglasses 5. floral dress 6. tan sandals 7. chino shorts 8. black and white playsuit 9. polka dot bikini 10. black sandals

Recover- Chvrches

Love wasn't what I thought it once was

Monday was quite an occasion this week. After waiting and waiting for about 10 months to be able to sink my teeth into HAIM's debut album, the day finally came (and involved a fair bit of dancing around the living room). I was scared that it might not live up to all the hype after I'd spent most of 2013 getting steadily more impatient for the album. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Those girls did good. Very, very good in fact.

 I've spent about 80% of my time at work this week trying to decide what my favourite track on the album is (a week well spent, I'm sure you'll agree). I've come to the annoying (but also rather impressive) conclusion that ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO PICK A FAVOURITE. I'll listen to one song and think, YES, this is it. Then the next track will come on and completely change my mind. Over and over again until I've exhausted every track and ended up none the wiser than when I started. Albums tend to fall into two camps with me, there's the ones I listen to all the way through a few times but then end up falling back on the singles from the album since they've clearly put a lot more effort into those songs than the others, and then there's the ones that I turn into the soundtrack of my life for weeks and weeks whilst completely neglecting the thousands of other songs on my iPod and still fondly listen to track by track months later. Days Are Gone is without a doubt one of those albums as far as I'm concerned. Plus its given me a bit of variation for my walks to work so I can stop strutting down the street to the Arctic Monkey's new album every day. 

shirt: New Look, pinafore: River Island, t-shirt: Pull and Bear, shoes: Converse

Can someone let me be the long-lost fourth Haim sister now please? Its a dream I'm not planning on giving up on any time soon.

Honey and I- HAIM

Is your bed made? Is your sweater on?

Yesterday was an incredibly jam-packed day of fun with one of my new housemates. We started off the day with a pretty impressive run (I definitely can run further than I thought- it just took a running buddy to give me the motivation to push myself a little further) followed by a hilarious game of tennis in our local park- I'm not sure you could really call it tennis when we spent 90% of the game running after the ball after missing our shots. We decided to leave on a high when we'd managed to get over 10 successful consecutive hits going...I'm embarrassed to admit how long that took!  

Later on, we took a trip into town via the magical world of Hobbycraft to buy some green food colouring paste for the baking we had been plotting for the evening (I'll post about it soon and the reasoning for the green paste will be revealed!). We couldn't resist refuelling before heading back into town with a quick brownie pit-stop at one of my favourite cafes, Out of The Woods in Granary Wharf, as we passed- we'd definitely earned it after all of our exercise earlier in the morning! 

A few hours of shopping later (I seemed to get most of mine done in the time my housemate spent buying a new phone- I'd like to think I'm a speedy shopper but in reality it just showed how long phone shopping takes!) and we headed home just as the rain began to pour- thankfully it held off for most of the day as you can see from the photos below I'd been a tad optimistic with my bare legs (I'm just determined to get as much wear out of my sandals as I can before Autumn creeps back in!). 

Hope you're all enjoying your weekends too!

dress: (c/o) Clothing at Tesco, belt: Topshop, shoes: Topshop, necklace: River Island

Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa- Vampire Weekend

A sign saying closed but we're back in business

top: Topshop, jeans: Topshop, shoes: Fred Perry, necklace: Topshop, rings: River Island, Anklets: Accessorize

This lovely weather we've been having (if you ignore the crazy wind that seems to be accompanying the sunshine here in Leeds) has made me finally want to brighten up my wardrobe for the summer. I'm still reluctant to buy myself a pair of sandals because I'm convinced that as soon as I do the sun will disappear forever, but I'm happy to embrace bare arms and lighter colours. And so entered these jeans. I've tried Topshop's Joni jeans on about 100 different occasions now and eventually came to the conclusion that they're NEVER going to suit me. My hips just aren't designed for their super figure hugging material (although they were the comfiest things I've ever tried on...) and quite frankly they looked ridiculous on me. Luckily, I quickly fell in love with the Jamie jeans instead, still high waisted, better material plus I loved the acid wash colour. Take that Joni jeans, I don't need you anymore. 

I've also been finding a lot of jewellery in the shops over the last week or so that I've been unable to tear myself away from, usually I don't find much jewellery on the high street and tend to find more on the internet but I've been pleasantly surprised lately! 

I'm off to have a jolly little time with some sink unblocker. Oh yes, I lead a highly glamorous lifestyle. 

Pushing it- The Family Rain

Throw me in the landfill, don't think about the consequences

I've said it before and I'll say it again- I always feel like an absolute 'nana taking pictures with a self timer. 

I've been wanting to get myself back into the swing of things with outfit posts as I used to do them fairly regularly but I think the only way I'll be happier with the results is if I get out into the big wide world and enlist one of my friends to take my pictures outside for me (volunteers welcome please!). Far more interesting to look at than the back of my door. At least my novelty Spector calendar makes these pictures at least slightly more entertaining for now.

top: Pull and Bear, pinafore: River Island, shoes: Primark

Anyway, enough of me moaning about how uninspired I am by my pictures, I put myself through some serious self timer pain to inform you all that I am well and truly on the pinafore bandwagon. For £20, I decided that this pinny was the perfect way to trial out whether I was really ready to take fashion inspiration from my six year old self again (I've since ended up buying one of the Topshop denim pinafores already- it seems I quite enjoy dressing like a small child). As much as I love this one from River Island, I'm on my second version of it already as I exchanged the first one because it had gone insanely bobbly after just a few wears- it hadn't even been through the washing machine yet! So far, this one has been worn twice and it seems to be holding out ok... fingers crossed the material will stay that way because it'll make me too sad if it happens again. River Island, please don't make an overgrown child cry; it won't be pretty.

Landfill- Daughter

We turn our hopes to this figure alone

dress: Topshop, necklace: River Island, tights: Gap, socks: Topshop, boots: Office

My room at home is really not great for taking pictures. Especially not when there was only a tiny patch of floor not covered by my gigantic suitcase and numerous other bags of stuff that I was just too lazy to find a real home for. But still, the only part of me that you're missing out on in these photos is my knees, and quite frankly they're not all that interesting to look at anyway. 

I've had this dress for months now and it barely has time to come out of the washing machine wash before its found its way back into my washing basket after being worn yet again. Particularly when  I was at home and had a limited wardrobe, this dress got to go on lots of little outings from my cousin's birthday party to the pub on Christmas eve and countless other places in between. Luckily my Mum constantly seems to have the washing machine going so she could keep up with me and the dress.

I went shopping in Liverpool after Christmas with my Mum to take back a few things and have a little wander. I'm really not a fan of sales shopping in the slightest (I think years of working in Next and being traumatised by the sales there scarred me for life) but I'm pretty proud of myself for finding these boots in Office down to £20, and as my work shoes are currently developing a nice little hole in the toe area I think these were long overdue. Its a good job my Mum's shoelace needed tying so she wandered over to the shoe concessions in Topshop to sit down and sort herself out, otherwise I'd never have found these and would no doubt still be walking into work wearing holey shoes on Monday. 

Hope you all had a lovely New Year and have a great 2013. 

Milk- Theme Park