Fruits of my shopping labours

In preparation for my upcoming trip to California I have been shopping today. It has been an amazing day for shopping, such beautiful weather! Here are a few pics of what I bought. The pink and polka dot dress was a bargain from TK Maxx at £16, the striped dress was £22 from River Island, the bird print dress was £19 from Debenhams and the purple patterned dress was also from Debenhams £12! The shoes were from Primark and were £5 each. I think Iv snapped up some good deals there! Only 5 weeks to go!!!

Jamaica me crazy!

No problem mon! haha. My Jamaican accent has improved considerably since my fabulous 2 weeks there, so I apologise if a few 'Ya mon's appear in my post.

Jamaica is amazing. If any of you ever have the opportunity to go, I urge you to, you will not regret it. I went on the 2nd of April 2012 and came home on the 16th April. I went with 30 friends for a wedding and it was a wonderful experience that I will never forget.

I stayed at the Club Riu Hotel Negril, which is about 1 1/2 hours transfer from Montego Bay airport, a 9 1/2 hour flight from Manchester, UK.

The hotel was lovely. It was smaller than I expected it to be, but in the end I preferred it that way. There were 4 restaurants to choose from in the evening. The buffet restaurant, steak restaurant, Brazilian and an A la carte. I was fortunate enough to be able to try all of them, three of them you had to make reservations for and not everyone was able to book into them.

The range of food was fantastic. Breakfast was everything you could imagine. Cooked breakfast, omelettes, pastries, fruit, cereals, pancakes. Lunch was a choice between the buffet restaurant and the Jerk chicken whihc was served on the beahc. Jerk chicken is delicious. Famous in Jamaica it is the best chicken i've ever had, but the Jerk sauce is a bit spicy! And the buffet restaurant at night did not dissapoint, offering lobster, which was gorgeous.


Whilst there, I went on a day trip to Rick's Cafe. A bar which is a bit of a tourist attraction in Jamaica, and known for cliff divers. We went on a catamaran to Ricks Cafe, where i then had to swim to shore, which was a bit challenging as I had to swim with one arm in the air to stop my camera and money from getting wet! The drinks were a little expensive, but as I had to swim back, I didn't want to get drunk anyway so one drink sufficed! I ordered their house cocktail, 'Sex with Rick' mainly because I thought the name was a bit cheeky haha. Ya mon!

This here is a picture of me about to do the 33ft jump off the cliff. I'm not gonna like. It was bloody terrifying. I did two false starts before the guy said if i did it again he wouldnt let me jump. So I just inched to the edge and jumped! The feeling of falling felt like it was never going to end!

I did however sustain a bit of a bruise as I hit the water on a funny angle. Not my finest moment! I had to sit on a bag of ice all the way back on the boat. I'm glad I did the jump but I wouldn't do it again!

The wedding itself was a fabulous day. It also felt like the hottest day in the time we were there! This is what I chose to wear. It is a dress I purchased off asos.com . I bought it a few months ago, I knew it was the dress the moment I saw it.

This is lovely area where the wedding was set up. In my mind it was perfect.

And this is my beautiful friend and her new husband.

Here is a few more pictures from the day.

I also visited Dunn's River Falls a few days after the wedding. Unfortunatley I do not have any photographs as it is impossible to climb the falls with a camera in hand. It was challenging to say the very least, but I LOVED it. It was fantastic. The water feels so strong as it rushes past you. It takes about 45 minutes to do the climb, which we were told was around 900ft.

What did I drink in Jamaica I hear you ask? A little guility I admit I indulged in cocktails pretty much everyday. They were so good! I drank a lot of Mai Tai's, Pina Colada's, Amaretto Sours and Brandy Alexander's. They were my tipples while I was there, plus wine with my meal. There were optics in our bedrooms in addition to the mini bar that offered Jamaican rum, brandy, gin and vodka. So it is safe to say that we were all quite merry while we were on holiday!!

To finish off, here is a couple of pictures of me and my friends on the pedalo's, which was a lot more fun than you would think!! haha. I also had a go on a Jet ski for the first time. I don't think my bum touched the seat once while I was on it! It was hilarious!

It really was a fantastic trip, one that I was sad to see the end of, so got a serious case of the holiday blues now!! Not to worry, as it is 10 weeks until I land in California, and I am so excited, I actually can't wait. I will be working very hard over the coming the weeks to save up money for this trip, but I have a couple of things coming up, such as Pub Golf this weekend, so I shall share some piccies from this weekend when I have them!

Until next time xxx

Busy girl

Hi everyone, I realise it's been a while since I last blogged. Iv been very busy working, and as a result, not done anything interesting! I am currently on
Holiday in Jamaica as we speak, and having a fabulous time, but it is extremely hot and I fathom something like a lobster at the moment!

I plan on doing a post about Jamaica when I return home, got a couple trips planned while I am here so I am looking forward to sharing my photos with you!

Until then!

xx

Hen Party in York

Hi everyone! It's been a couple of weeks but I've finally got a day off work and I can post about my fabulous weekend in York for my friend Jenna's hen party.

When: Saturday 25th February 2012

Where: Yates, Slug & Lettuce, Bobo Lobo & Revolution - York

Who With: 16 excited hens!

For Jenna's hen party we decided to go to York for the weekend. We stayed overnight in a Premier Inn and started the party at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Quite a lot of prep went into the weekend, as organised by one of my best friends, the Chief Bridesmaid, Amy. I helped out by providing sweet packs (naturally) with a strong willy theme (of course). They included marshmallow, jelly, chocolate and candy willys as well as a packet of love hearts.

The love hearts were personalised for Jenna's Hen Party, I got these made off an ebay retailer, I thought they would be a cute touch to the packs!

I also helped Amy make some vodka jelly shots (yes, the jelly shots have returned!). We used raspberry flavoured jelly and just made enough for one each per hen. The party started in the hotel at about 3:30 where we indulged the jelly shots and had a champagne toast to Jenna.

Lots of wine and champers!

We then made our way to Yate's in the centre of York where it was only £2 for a glass of wine! Cheapy cheap! Me and one of the other girls then got ourselves a pitcher of cocktail, (sex on the beach, it was only a £5!) We felt no need for glasses, the straws sufficed haha!

Cocks in a cocktail haha!

We then went to Slug and Lettuce where we had a table booked for something to eat. I didnt bother to take photos of my meal as I was a) a little bit too tipsy to remember and b) I was dissapointed with what I had ordered. There was nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't what I expected. I ordered a Chicken and Mozzarella Tostada, which I thought was going to be something hot with melted cheese and it would have been amazing. What arrived was basically an open wrap with what looked like a full shrub poured onto it with 2 pieces of chicken and a crumb of mozzarella. This did a not a happy drunk girl make! I ate it, but it wasn't the kind of food you normally have after a few! I made up for it by ordering a brownie dessert, which did not dissapoint!

Here are a few more pictures from the night.

This guy is the absolute spitting image of Karl Pilkington. I swear he is his double!

And this is a piccie of me, Amy and Jenna : )

There is only 4 weeks to go now until the big trip to Jamaica, 5 weeks until the actual wedding as we go on the 2nd but they get married on the 11th of April. I am so excited and cannot believe how quickly this trip has come round as we booked 12 months ago. I've bought a few things for the trip which I shall share in another post, but I am now going to go and enjoy the rest of my day off work. I'm off to the Trafford Centre to spend some money and have some lunch with a friend, and if I enjoy the meal you might just be hearing about it!

Feeding my Addiction

This is a minute blog post, there is a much lengthier one to follow in the coming days but I just have to show you how deep my River island problem runs.

Just when I thought I couldn't fit any more River island into my life, my Kindle gets a stylish makeover : D

Apotheca

Well hello! I have been so busy with work over the past couple of weeks, all so that I have enough money to go to America with. I did say I would write when I had something interesting enough to say, and so here is something interesting I did recently.

When: Saturday 21st January 2012

Where: Apotheca, Thomas Street, Manchester

Who With: A group of my fabulous work friends.

This is Apotheca. It is has the tiniest sign on the front of the building. If you are familiar with Manchester and it's Northern Quarter, then it is opposite Blu on the corner of Thomas Street.

Me and my friends went to Apotheca to do one of their Cocktail masterclasses. It cost us £20 each and lasted 2 hours. We recieved 3 cocktails each for this price.

This is one of the barmen who did the class, and the Mojito's that he was about to prepare for us. That was the first drink we had and it was selected for us. I'm not really a fan of Mojito's to be honest. I prefer sweet things and this really was very minty indeed, but I'm sure if Mojito's are your thing, then this would have been a fantastic one indeed.



For my second drink I was allowed to select my own choice, and I chose a 'Nuts and Berries' cocktail.

This is a drink to-die-for. It was sooo good. It tasted like a blackforest gateau. You'll have to excuse the poor quality of photos as my camera seems have gone shit. I have now purchased a new one as I can't have a dodgy camera with me in Jamaica or America. He created this drink in the usual way by putting the various juices and liqueurs into a shaker and then into a chilled glass. He then (as you can see in the pic) poured a cream layer on top and then dusted chocolate powder from a height whilst setting the chocolate powder alight. It smelled a-mazing! This has now joined 'Pornstar Martini' as a joint favorite cocktail.

For my third drink, I was again allowed to make my own choice, except this time I went behind the bar, and under the guidance of the barman, created the drink myself which was such good fun! This time I chose a 'Dirty Pop'.

These are just a few piccies from me behind the bar creating my 'Dirty Pop'! As you can see I put a lot of effort into the shaking the mixture haha! I had the lovely task os smashing up maraschino cherries in the glass, measuring and pouring the liqueurs and then shaking the mixture and adding the finishing the touches, which included a packet of popping candy! I poured the candy into the drink and it made for an interesting experience of everytime I took a sip of the cocktail it started popping like mad in my mouth! Again, another fabulous cocktail which I thoroughly enjoyed, even more so because I had made it myself!

I highly reccommend this experience to anyone. £20 per person is cheap for this session as it really is top quality. The cocktails are first class, the staff were fantastic and we were in our own private bar so we were free to be as ridiculous as we wanted to be. If you wanted to pop in for just a drink though, again I urge you to as most of these amazing cocktails cost only around £6.50 which is cheap compared to other places such as Room and Cloud 23 which are around £9-£10 a pop.

Check out Apotheca's website here for more information .

We were actually staying overnight in Manchester as a bit of a birthday weekend for my friend Hayley. Rather than staying in a hotel we decided to hire an apartment for the night so we could all go back to eat, drink and get ready to continue the festivities. Here is a picture of the apartment. If i'm honest I took the picture the day after when we had cleaned up because I had forgotten to the night before! The apartment was lovely though and worked out at about £28 each, which is cheaper than a Premier Inn and we were able to cook ourselves a fry-up in the morning!

After the cocktail class we went back to the apartment and had a feast of pizza, nachos, crisps and take-out chips (which are the best!). We then had a slice of this amazing birthday cake. It was an indulgent chocolate cake covered in icing, my perfect kind of cake! It really was fit.

This was my outfit for the evening. I ordered this dress off ASOS in the sale. It is a Motel dress and I chose to wear it with pearl stud earrings, a gold locket and my trusty rose-gold Topshop stillettos. I could walk miles in those shoes! I recieved a lot of compliments for the dress, but in all honesty it is a dress best worn when I haven't been stuffing my face on pizza, nachos and cake and spent most of the night feeling a bit uncomfortable as this was a second-skin kind of dress.

And that was my weekend in Manchester! The next 3 or 4 weeks are being spent working for me, most particularly at the weekend unfotunatley. My next event is my friend's hen do (the one who's wedding I am going to Jamaica for). I can't say where I am going as she does read this blog and it is a surprise but I will certainly fill you in on all the details and of the little surprises we have in store for Jenna and her Hen Night. I have also made several purchases recently, mostly in preparation for Jamaica (which is only 8 and a half weeks away!!!) and America so I shall do a seperate blog post about those when I find a spare minute.

Until then!

xxxx

Chococino!

This is just a quickie blog post. My Dad got a Nescafé Dolce Gusto coffee machine for Christmas and as a result family have bought him boxes is various types of pods, including the Chococino pods. But, seeing as he doesn't drink hot chocolate, they are all MINE! : D

So I have had my first one today and this is my review.

The hot chocolate itself is really nice but if I'm honest it isn't very sweet, so if you like you choccy sweet, add a sugar or two into it. I also used quite a large mug and so I think it was bit weak as a result, but these are all rookie mistakes and practice makes perfect! I certainly wouldn't go out and buy a machine just so you can have one of these drinks, but if you happen to have one, it's definitely worth a try!