I'm just trying to put the world to rights

Yesterday was a bloomin' beautiful day. For me it summed up what summer weekends are all about, wandering around, sitting in the sun drinking cider and spending quality time with friends. My lovely friend Coral bought me a voucher for Afternoon Tea at Harvey Nicks in Leeds for my birthday and we finally got around to using it (three months later!) this weekend and so we decided a day of fun around Leeds was in order to make the most of the celebration.

We started off the day in Roundhay, one of my all time favourite places in Leeds, for a nosey around the Farmer's Market, croissants in an awesome little deli and a wander around the park (complete with an ice cream too of course!). Roundhay is one of those places I've always turned to for a bit of city escapism since moving to Leeds as its easy peasy to get to from town (always a bonus back when we were poor students who didn't know anywhere else to get to via public transport!). It seemed as though half of Leeds had the same idea as us today as it was crazy busy, but its one of those places that's so vast that you barely notice the other people at all.

top: Topshop, skirt: Primark, sandals: Topshop, necklace: Primark

After a lazy afternoon we headed back into town for our trip to Harvey Nicks. We've eaten in the restaurant before and I love the atmosphere in there- its fancier than the sort of places I usually visit, there's no denying that, but its not snobby at all and the food is beauuutiful. Afternoon Tea was just lovely, we missed the explanations of what most of the cakes were as we were too busy admiring the pretty stand of treats in front of us, but wowee it tasted good! Plus they get extra points for letting me have a lemonade instead of a hot drink as I'm a peculiar sort of blogger who hates tea and coffee... 

Our final stop of the day after having a lazy wander around a few shops was to The Pour House in Granary Wharf for a cider in the sun. One of my favourite places to sit on lazy sunny days is a patch of grass right by the canal on the other side of the canal to this pub and I've spent many days gazing over there and vowing that I'll visit soon. It beats your average beer garden hands down as its a great place for watching people and the barges on the canal. I've already made plans to go back for food soon...

I love days like this (mostly because its largely revolved around food...). I feel like we packed an incredible amount of stuff into one afternoon but at the same time had the perfect relaxing day to unwind from the crazybusyahhh week I've had. Hope you've all had a good one too!

Eez eh- Kasabian

Every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure

You know when you find an item of clothing that you love so much that you feel the need to wash it as soon as you take it off so you're not waiting for ages to be able to wear it again? That's exactly what's happened with this t-shirt. I spotted it when I was last in Liverpool but for some reason didn't pick it up and hand over my pennies for it. I instantly regretted it when I'd got back to Leeds and knew my life would just be a little more complete if I could hang that top up in my wardrobe. Luckily, Mama T came to the rescue and popped into Pull and Bear for me the next time she went shopping. What a star that woman is. 

I think the nerdy little 15 year old inside me compelled me to buy this top. My friends and I were pretty obsessed with Armageddon back in the day (and I still love it now for that matter, I'm getting a bit choked up thinking about Harry staying on the asteroid as I write this...) and so the whole NASA thing started calling to me as soon as I spotted it in the shop. I don't own very many t-shirts, but the ones I do have seem to all come from Pull and Bear. Big thumbs up to them for keeping my casual wardrobe afloat.

t-shirt: Pull and Bear, jeans: Topshop, boots: Oasis, socks: Topshop

Don't Wanna Miss a Thing- Aerosmith

(Couldn't resist using this song, I got it in my head as soon as I started thinking about Armageddon...)

I go crazy cos here isn't where I wanna be

I've had a pretty decent week as far as working weeks go... although that may be because my *ahem* working week was only one day long. Don't get me wrong, I bloomin' love my job, but its the best feeling in the world knowing you've got a few days of freedom ahead. I spent the start of the week at home catching up with my friends (including a trip to an awesome wedding cake shop with my friend who's getting married this year!) and family. My Dad and I spent some quality time together on a photography course which was run through Jessops in Manchester, I wasn't sure what to expect but I was really impressed... the guy made a real effort to find out what we all wanted to develop our skills in and made sure that we didn't leave without the right advice. I feel like I learnt a few tricks to make the most out of the billions of settings my SLR has which I probably wouldn't have got to grips with by just reading a book about it. 

Today I took a trip into town and ended up having an impromptu lunch date with my friend Coral as I'd popped into her work to say hello just as she was being told she could take her break. Perfect timing. We couldn't have planned it better if we'd tried.

Anyway, I ended up wearing my new favourite top (how is it that sometimes you can fall massively in love with the simplest, most unexciting items of clothing?!) for about the 3rd time this week today (thank god for Mama T and her superhuman talents with the washing machine) along with my absolute bargain of a skirt from New Look. I think I paid a tenner for it back in January but they've reduced them down to £7 now... I'm contemplating filling my whole wardrobe with them at that price!

top: Topshop, skirt: New Look, boots: Topshop, socks: Primark, necklaces: Topshop/ Kukee, watch: Urban Outfitters

Anyway, I'm off to get excited that there's still a whole weekend left before Monday rolls around again. Can I just work one day a week every week please?!

R U Mine?- Arctic Monkeys

(In honour of their awesome performance and Alex Turner's hilariously cringey rambling speech at the Brits)

My hands are tied, tied to you

Whew, the last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind. I found out about two weeks ago that I'd managed to get two interviews for PGCE placements (through School Direct if you happen to be in the know with all things education these days...) so every spare second I've had has been dedicated to lesson planning, interview prep and shopping for an outfit that was smart but still 'me' enough that I felt comfortable in it. The hard work is finally over, I had my two interviews on consecutive days this week (two full on days of being on show was pretty exhausting!) and thankfully now don't even have to think about going to the interview at my third school in February now as MY FAVOURITE OFFERED ME A PLACE!

 As of September, you can officially call me Miss. I'm hugely excited and absolutely bloomin' terrified all at once.

dress: New Look, jacket: Topshop, socks: Topshop, boots: Topshop

My housemate took these outfit snaps for me a few weekends back now, it feels like a luxury to finally have the time to do something with them! The dress is one of my new faves, partially due to the fact I didn't even have to leave my desk to buy it. One of my colleagues was telling me about how she was having to take a dress back for her daughter on her way home from work, ended up showing me it and somehow 30 seconds later I found myself running into the loos with it to try on and instantly deciding that it needed a place in my wardrobe. The only negative about the whole experience (aside from the fact I appear to have started buying unwanted clothes off a 15 year old...) was then nipping to the cash machine to get the money out to pay for the dress and watching my bank card being eaten by the machine. I think the machine was trying to prove a point that accidentally shopping at work was a bad habit to get into. 

Get Away- Circa Waves

If I could, baby I'd give you my world

After a lazy day on Saturday, my housemate and I decided that we needed to at least pretend to do something on Sunday. Originally, we'd had high hopes to go on an adventure on our rare weekend of being in Leeds hangover free, however the weather wasn't really on our side for a full blown outdoorsy day. 

Instead, we decided to take the scenic route into town along the canal. I haven't been down there since I moved out of my flat in town last summer so it was nice to get a bit nostalgic and revisit it. Plus, the rain kindly held off until we'd almost reached the shops, by which point we were too busy buying every remaining item in the sales to care (post New Year is the only time I can cope with going anywhere near the sale rails as all the scary shoppers have bankrupted themselves by then!).

shirt: Topshop, jacket: Topshop, scarf: Topshop, jeans: Topshop, boots: Topshop, hat: H&M, gloves: Accessorize

So, I joined the masses last week and bought one of those furry denim jackets in Topshop. And, seriously, its the best thing I've bought in months (although a small part of me wishes it had a lining in the arms too... then it really would be the best thing in the world and I'd probably only take it off to wear my new koala onesie...). 

I feel a bit like Topshop threw up on me when I look at this outfit, but I'm not sure that's such a bad thing really. Its the first time in ages I've found clothes I actually like in there so I'm going to bloomin' well embrace it.

Go Your Own Way: Fleetwood Mac

Why couldn't we save you?

Much to my surprise, I've come to realise that I'm actually pretty excited for winter. I've made best friends with my favourite bobble hat again, today I bought myself a new Christmas jumper and I've forced everybody into picking their Secret Santa at work (although on that subject I have no idea what to buy for the person I've pulled out so am now kicking myself for starting the whole present buying process in the first place). 

I'm trying to expand my winter wardrobe by wearing my dresses from the summer layered up under shirts and big wooly jumpers to attempt to save a bit of money before all my money starts being spent on numerous Christmas dinners and trips to the Leeds German Market. This white lace dress was my best buy of the summer so I'm glad it doesn't seem to have any objections to tights being thrown under it and every possible long sleeved item of clothing I own being chucked over it. Definitely £10 well spent... well done Primark.

dress: Primark, shirt: New Look, boots: Topshop, necklace: Urban Outfitters

Something else that makes me happy to see winter rolling in is the ever growing list of gigs I've got booked or am planning on buying tickets for. Peace, Foals, The Family Rain, Haim, Bombay Bicycle Club... and perhaps most excitingly of all I'm crossing my fingers and toes about getting McBusted tickets (all illusions of my musical credentials have gone right out of the window now but quite frankly I couldn't care less... I was a huge Busted fan back in the day so just want to relive those days without the spots and general teenage awkwardness for a night).

I Kill Giants- The Naked and Famous

Maybe I'm wasting my young years

As usual, I've had a very cake filled Sunday with another Iron Cupcake competition- Death by Chocolate was the theme this month and even though I only managed to sneak a few little slithers of cake after the judges had passed their verdict (it was a very busy one this month!) I still felt like I was going to end up in a sugar coma. I'll probably do a post about it soon as if you happened to see my instagram feed earlier then you'll know there were some awesome designs amongst the entries!

Other than that, this weekend I had a pretty lazy one after a night out on Friday with some of my favourites. I wore my new favourite dress which made for lots of fun swishy dancing- great entertainment to liven things up since what has been my favourite club night for years was sadly lacking in any sort of atmosphere. I think I need to find a new favourite indie venue to satisfy my Dad-dancing needs. As well as buying myself a new dress, I'm having a bit of a jewellery buying phase (yes, I have added another moustache to my ever expanding collection... considering founding a moustacheaholics anonymous group if anyone cares to join me). I'd been hunting for a K watch for ages after seeing almost every other letter in Topshop. After months of trying I decided getting a T was the next best option, teamed with my scrabble ring it spells out my initials quite nicely.

dress: Topshop, shirt: Forever 21, shoes: Primark, scrabble ring: Vintage fair, watch: Topshop, bracelet: c/o Haus of Deck, moustache ring: c/o Haus of Deck

Hope you've all had a good weekend!

Wasting My Young Years: London Grammar

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

It's three in the morning and I'm trying to change your mind

I think I deserve an award for managing to tear myself away from eating samples of homemade pop-tarts (made by Cupcake Cafe in Leeds) long enough to give my blog a little attention. This weekend has been a bit of a crazy one. Aside from acquiring lots of cake, pop tarts and moustache biscuits after Iron Cupcake Leeds and also having a baking disaster when I tried to enter the competition myself (I'm trying to erase that part of the weekend from my memory- it caused me far too much distress!) I've just been hanging with my friends which has been looovely. We had a house night out on Friday with a few friends to a Rock and Roll night in Leeds which was great fun and one of those nights where I spent half of the time stood at the DJ booth requesting songs (all of which actually got played so top marks to him for that... usually DJs just roll their eyes at me when I start dictating what they should play!). 

Speaking of music... the new Arctic Monkeys song has been played about 6000 times in our household this weekend and I've spent the last few days wandering about singing "why'd you only call me when you're high?". I realised today that although that may be appropriate behaviour in the comfort of my own home, it doesn't quite have the same effect when I sing it at work. Whoops.

dress: c/o Clothing at Tesco, jacket: Republic, shoes: Topshop, socks: Primark

Anyway, this is one of my new favourite items in my wardrobe. I've been trying on so many dresses lately and all to often find myself wishing that smocks didn't make me look like an 8 man tent. I've decided that sticking to ever so slightly baggy skater dresses is more my way of doing things.

Why'd you only call me when you're high?: Arctic Monkeys

And she's always gonna be there in the back of your mind

I always like to take a bit of time off right at the end of the school holidays- most of the team I work with get the whole six weeks off (lucky teachers...) but there's a select few of us who work all year round and we find it a bit torturous when everyone else comes back into work fresh from weeks of relaxation. A week off isn't quite the same but it does ease the jealousy slightly. I went home to see my parents for half of the week as my Uncle was down from Edinburgh for the Bank Holiday and so we decided to go somewhere a bit different to the usual wandering around Liverpool. And so, bright and early in the morning we got in my Dad's car and took a horrendously higgledy piggledy route (thanks for that one sat-nav) to Portmeirion in Wales. 

I'd only been to Portmeirion once before when I was a lot younger but I could still picture the beautiful brightly coloured buildings really clearly. It didn't disappoint a second time around as we escaped the grey sky and drizzle of Merseyside and ended up in what could easily have been somewhere in the Mediterranean (both in terms of the buildings and the weather!). If you're ever around North Wales I'd definitely recommend a visit; I came away from the trip feeling as though I'd had a mini summer holiday! Just what I needed to fool myself into feeling like I'd been somewhere exotic in my precious few days off work (plus it was a great way to stop my Leeds Festival envy- no mud anywhere to be seen over on this side of the country!).

shirt: Topshop, pinafore: Topshop, necklace: River Island, shoes: Vans

California Daze- Peace

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

She tastes like sunlight

dress: Primark, shoes: Next, sunglasses: New Look

Last night was an evening of alfresco dining and cocktails in teapots with my lovely friend Coral. Being able to happily sit outside in the evening without a jacket is absolute perfection as far as I'm concerned, and more than makes up for being cooped up in work through the day without even any decent windows to longingly gaze out of.

I bought this dress in Chester over Easter in the hope that the weather would soon get nice enough to be able to wear it. As it stands, I've only been able to wear it in the last week or two so have been making up for lost time by wearing it ALL THE BLOOMIN' TIME (my wardrobe is severely lacking in summery dresses... I blame the unpredictable British climate). Since buying this dress, I've seen a few variations of it in different styles appearing, but who can blame Primark for over-egging the fabric when its just so pretty. I got a lovely compliment on the pattern last night- it was mistaken for a Laura Ashley print! Primark, you should be proud of yourselves.

California Daze- Peace