You'll need heart and you'll need courage

Well I'm most definitely not a beauty blogger and I'm never going to try to be (I think I'd give half of them a heart attack if they saw my non-existant skin care regime...) but I thought I'd share my beautiful new lipstick with you all anyway. The dark berry colour matches my winter wardrobe perfectly (I knew having an all-burgundy wardrobe would pay off eventually!) and stays on pretty darn well even after several vodka lemonades... the ultimate test as far as my lipstick needs go! 

There's a definite difference between the quality of the pictures of the lipstick itself and the one of my actual face. My reasoning behind this? Benefit's pretty little products can handle close up photos from my zillion mega pixel DSLR, my face not so much so my phone had to take over. Least you get the idea. 

I'm not really sure what else there is to say about one little lipstick apart from the fact that it gets a big thumbs up from me. Very glad the Benefit counter took advantage of my ability to be easily persuaded into buying whatever stuff they put on my face. And I think that nicely rounds up the case for why I should never go into beauty blogging! 

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?!

Because I want to see people and I want to see life

The start of the festive season, for as long as I can remember, has always been defined by a trip to York early in December with my parents. York has always been one of my favourite cities with its beautiful cobbled streets and quaint Christmassy charm, and despite the horrendous crowds, it still maintains a lovely cheerful atmosphere that you just don't experience on a Saturday in many other places.

This year, the annual Kaz and Papa T supermarket sweep style trip to Next to buy all my Mum's Christmas presents in the space of 15 minutes was replaced by a trip to York's Chocolate Story which was really interesting, largely due to the abundance of samples for visitors. I think my Mum might have engineered this chocolate filled detour to spare herself yet another year of socks, umbrellas and slippers from Next (its hard to be creative with present ideas for the woman whose mantra from mid-November onwards year in year out is "Don't buy me anything, I mean it, I don't need anything, don't worry about me"... my poor Mum agonises over buying everybody else the perfect present, god forbid we should try and return the favour).

Anyway, I was a bit too busy stuffing my face with samples  too engrossed in the Chocolate story to actually take any photos but I took plenty of pretty little pictures of festive York so I'll bore you to tears with those instead. 

Take one for the team, you're a cog in the machine

Yet another weekend of dancing like a crazy person whilst wearing a moustache. This time my facial hair was of the fingerstache variety which I must say was way more practical than the stick on affair I'd been sporting the week before (at least until I washed my hands a bit too vigorously and lost half of my 'tache...)

I've definitely been feeling more like my usual chirpy little self since I've been out and about with my lovely friends for a few nights out, as far as I'm concerned there's no better recipe for happiness than dancing like a crazy person at a good old fashioned indie disco. 

You'll be pleased to hear I'll stop harping on about moustaches and move on to other less hairy topics after this post, but I couldn't finish my affair with facial hair without a showing you the cakes we made for the night out in celebration of my friend's birthday...

Who took the bom from the bompalompalomp?

Try as I might, my Movember efforts are failing miserably. Although I was sporting a pretty good stick on 'tache at my friend's birthday last weekend before it got all sticky from the copious amounts of rum I was sloshing all over it (real moustache bearing men must have to use mountains of deep conditioner to keep their fuzz in tip top condition I'm sure!). 

In the (probably quite fortunate) absence of real facial hair, I elected to buy these fab little beauties from River Island. I was pleasantly surprised, I never normally even glance at the jewellery in there but the necklace and earrings were just too good to leave... especially since it was only £6 for the lot! 

Moustaches have a fond place in my heart from a Moustache club night I used to go to with my buddies back in second year of Uni. It broke my heart when the night moved to a bigger and fancier venue and as a consequence became less quirky and fun, instead morphing into every other night out there albeit with a bit more facial hair. 

Excuse me while I sit and mourn the loss of a club that closed down about three years ago. I'm moving on with my life and not wishing I was still at Uni, honest. 

Don't just dream in your sleep, its just lazy

jumper: Topshop

dress (worn underneath): Topshop

necklace: Urban Outfitters

tights: M&S

socks: Topshop

boots: Topshop

So here I am with a right little treat for you... a jumper to rival my much loved burgundy one. Now I have two big snuggly jumpers to harp on about far too often and wear in far too many photos. I suppose really you should thank me for buying this little cutie and saving you from the trauma of seeing yet another day of Kaz in her only jumper. I'm just really thoughtful like that.

My old faithful lace up boots broke a few weeks ago, conveniently just after I bought this pair of chelsea boots from Topshop. As sad as I was to say goodbye to them (does anybody else get as emotionally involved with their shoes or is it just me?!) it did seem like they'd kindly waited to fall apart until they could rest safely in the knowledge that my feet weren't going to be left cold and bare. 

Hope you all had a good weekend, I had a beautiful little time at my friend's birthday drinking far too much rum and eating far too much food. So much so that I passed up a work meal out tonight in favour of soup on my sofa... I truly am living the high life these days. 

Lover of the light

As part of Operation cheer up Kaz, my Mum and Dad nipped across the pennines for a little family day trip a few weeks back. We decided to take a trip to Knaresborough, a little town in North Yorkshire which I'd been dying to visit properly after being mesmerised by the view from the top of the bridge in my first picture when I was on the way to a meeting at a school in the area. 

The lovely autumnal colours made Knaresborough even more beautiful than it is already, it really was spectacular. I love gazing at the cute cottages in places like this, definitely as far removed from Leeds as you could get really. My only criticism of the place was the lack of tea shops with yummy homemade cake, as lets face it, a trip to a quaint little town isn't complete without a big slab of chocolate cake. Or maybe that's just me. 

One of the most entertaining parts of the trip was our touristy jaunt to Mother Shipton's cave. Apparently hundreds of years ago, a young girl gave birth in a cave near the river after being cast out of the town for not revealing who the father of the baby was. This baby then grew up to be a prophet who became famed for her predictions and people would flock to Knaresborough to have their future's told. There wasn't too much to see in the cave, it was dark and damp and very much like any other cave in the world but my Dad and I were in fits of laughter at the voice of Mother Shipton on the audio tour, who incidentally sounded exactly like a cheap version of Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter. Next to her cave, there was a well which turned any object left under the dripping water into stone. Apparently the owners of the attraction like to demonstrate this by petrifying hundreds of teddy bears, I'm not exactly sure what the teddies ever did to deserve being turned to stone like that! I'm not sure what I'd petrify if I was given the choice, but I'm fairly sure a stuffed bear wouldn't be the first thing to spring to mind...

Anyway, enough rambling, have a look for yourself :)