The reason why I created my bloggers map (over 700 people on there now!) was because I wanted to meet up with bloggers in my area and have a cup of tea, and I assumed that others did too. Since creating it, I’ve noticed a lot more meetups being organised, and that is awesome. Its great that other people agree that its actually quite nice to meetup with likeminded people and talk about stuff that perhaps your family and friends don’t really understand.

The thing that I am a little confused about though is the increasing amount of meetups where the organisers feel like they have to provide a goody bag, get some sponsorship, get a brand involved. It turns what could be quite a informal meetup into a giant event – which, while sometimes thats good, could intimidate some people from going.

So I’d like to propose an un-meetup. A small gathering after work one night in Bristol, where you wont get given anything. Well, besides a good gossip and perhaps some new blogs to read. Would anyone be up for that? (Seriously Laura, if you don’t say yes, I’ll cry ;))

If you’re not in Bristol, but you like the idea of knowing who is in your area, please drop me an email and I’ll let you know who your neighbours are! (And as ever, I would love it if you guys could promote the map again – the only way that it will get better is with more and more people signing up!)

If you’ve been, oh, I don’t know, under a rock for the past few months, you might not have heard of mystreetchic.com. They’re an online fashion community who focus on cities around the country – when I first blogged about them, they were just focusing on Bristol, but its awesome to see more and more cities be announced every week!

Anyway. The ladies over at MyStreetChic have been organising a bloggers Christmas party to be held here in Bristol next month, which is open to everyone and it will cost just £5 – theres much more information over here though!

I know that not everyone reading this will be Bristol based, and as much as I’d like to let you all stay at mine (GIANT SLEEPOVER) I can’t. So, here are a few hotels that are reasonably priced and central – make a weekend of visiting this gorgeous city! Prices given are correct as of 23rd November and are based on 2 people sharing a room.

Premier Apartments (St Thomas St, BS1) – £72 per night for 2 people (They also have 2 double bedroom apartments for 4 people that are £129 for the night)

Brooks Guesthouse (St Nicholas Street, BS1) – from £70 per night for 2 people – a review/preview of the hotel can be found here

Clifton Hotels – (four different hotels around Clifton Village, BS8) – from £57 per night for 2 people

Premier Inn (The Haymarket, BS1) – £52 per night for 2 people (Premier Saver)

Travelodge (Anchor Road, BS1) – normally from £49 per night for 2 people, but tomorrow at 6am their £19 Xmas sale starts, which will include the date of the party. Theres more info on MoneySavingExpert which has more info on other hotel deals.

I’m pretty sure I’ll be going*, so hopefully will see you there (with a super sparkly outfit no doubt!)

* I say pretty sure, because while I don’t have any holidays booked at the moment for that time, it was around this time last year that Alex surprised me with my holiday to California (and unexpected holiday in New York, of course. And yes, thats the tree at Rockefeller Center or as I like to think of it, 30 Rock land)

Dress: F&F | Boots: USC | Necklace: Claires

Last weekend I walked to the retail park near me (well, its easier to walk to than to walk into the centre of Bristol from here!) and bought a few dresses from the Tesco Home store we have. (The Tesco thats closer has such a rubbish clothes department!) I would order things from the Clothing at Tesco website, but their sizing is so wonky – I ended up buying two dresses in a size 20 – I’m normally a 14/16 (depending on the store)

This dress is so comfy, although would be better if it were a little more fitted. There were some photos I took where it looked a bit tent like :/ Not a look I go for by choice!

I headed up to Tart yesterday to meet Emsy for tea and gossip, then we headed down Gloucester/Cheltenham Road to visit all the shops we pass on our ways to work – finally going in to Portabella (who have some gorgeous dresses!), another visit to Cox and Baloney next door, Shop Dutty (which is also the home of Boom Nails, who you’ve probably heard of from all the Motel event posts!)

Most exciting part of the wander down Stokes Croft? Finally being able to stop at Patisserie Leila and buy some macarons.  Blackberry, lemon, pistachio, raspberry and coconut. YUM.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to be in the audience for Gok’s Clothes Roadshow in Bristol. Cabot Circus had been taken over by crowds of people just wanting to see Gok – as you can see in the pic below!

Gok came down the escalators, followed by his models, and it seemed like everyone there whipped out their camera or mobile phone

Gok came on stage and explained what was going to happen, then allowed some time to let people take photos so they wouldn’t take them during the show. He kept walking down the stage and stopping every few steps to smile for pics!

First, three ladies from the Bristol area were given a makeover earlier in the week, and it was time for them to reveal their new look. The audience was made up mostly of their friends and family (and a few bloggers like the ladies from MyStreetChic, Frances from Fashion Fantasist and SJP of Ship Shape and Bristol Fashion (who I’ve been dying to meet for ages, but we always seemed to miss each other!). We didn’t see their original looks, but from the reactions of those who knew the ladies, it must have been impressive!

After a few takes, it was time for the fashion show section. In previous series, Gok has gone head to head with Brix Smith-Start where he has styled his models in outfits costing less than £50 each, and Brix has gone for the expensive outfits, but this series, Gok has taken over the expensive outfits, and styled the models in outfits costing less than £250. Without giving away which set won or how much they cost, the collection below was my favourite – I ended up getting the dress on the far right last week because I loved it so much! (Not sure where I’m going to wear it…but I never need an excuse to wear pretty dresses!)

The Bristol episode of Gok’s Clothes Roadshow will be shown tomorrow night (Tuesday 4th October) and (hopefully, I assume this link will work!) you can find out where the clothes in the show are from here, after the show has aired.

The second show I saw was in the main Cabot Circus building, and had some gorgeous stuff.

For the men, it was all very casual wear – from knits, shirts and chinos to t-shirts, scarves and jeans. Nothing overly exciting or trendy, but all quite similar to things that my boyfriend would wear.

There was more variation with the ladies, with some gorgeous work wear from Hobbs (loved the cloche hat and black suit (top right in photo)) – not just black suits, but dresses with prints on of silhouettes and whippets (!). Gant and Guess had quite similar items, casual looks with jeans, shirts, and tweed (I love the heritage trend this season!). A|Wear had some lovely autumn-y colours, combining knitwear with shorts and chiffon with denim – this seemed a bit strange on Sunday when it was sunny but mild, but this week seems perfect! River Island finished the show with a mostly black and white colour scheme, with a huge dance routine.

The problem with these fashion shows is that I end up wanting to buy lots of new clothes!

Its that time of year again where I pretend that I know stuff about fashion…Cabot Circus invited me back to watch their Autumn/Winter Fashion Tour and blog from their back stage area. Always a bit strange having people watch you type (I’m not one of those people who will go to a coffee shop and sit there typing away!)

I caught two shows this time, the first in Quakers Friars – slightly damp, but the rain held off for the most part while the models did their thing. The second show in the main Cabot Circus area was much busier, although of course not quite as bad as when Gok Wan presented last year!

While lookbooks and fashion shoots in magazines are all very nice to look at, it’s shows like this that allow you to see the actual clothes, and how they move. I love that Cabot Circus have people dancing as well because it shows how restrictive the clothes might be!

I’ll be doing a post in the week more about the actual clothes, but for now, above is all of the models in their final outfits from the 2pm show – this was themed around red and black, and all clothes were from River Island.

I’ve been meaning to post these for a while, but today just seemed right. These beautiful illustrations of this wonderful city by Sarah Matthews and can be bought from I Love Crafty‘s shop in Clifton Village.

I don’t normally comment on news events on here, but its something thats saddened and angered almost everyone I know. Perhaps the one good thing that comes out of all of this is showing how communities are – and this feels cheesy to say, but oh so true – pulling together to get through it. Londonist.com has details of where bedding and clothing can be donated for those made homeless by the riots in London and of course, riotcleanup.co.uk is helping to co-ordinate the clean ups around the country. In Bristol, @bristolriots provided a great service last night making sure that there were no silly rumours flying about – and thankfully we had a peaceful night last night. They’ll be doing the same tonight apparently, so if you’re in Bristol, follow them (and help if you can!)

Hope none of you have been affected by these dreadful riots, and that your home towns are safe x

I arrived to find a few people on the terrace upstairs. I hadn’t been out there before, only having been in the loft part of the restaurant once before. The terrace is gorgeous, with a great view of central Bristol, and so quiet up there! Its hard to remember that its on one of the busiest streets, Park Street. There was someone who looked quite familiar, who then said to be that I looked very familiar – turned out to be Emily from Bristol Bites who I’d been tweeting at earlier that afternoon! I sat next to her and her friend Sarah, on a long line of tables.

(Before I start, please remember I am not a foody blogger. Pretty much everything will involve the words amazing, yummy, delicious or NOM. For an actual review, you should definitely check out Emily’s post about it.)

The chef Matt Peryer (left) explained about each course and as I looked down at the menu, I wondered if I would be able to eat everything! (Spoiler: course I bloody well ate everything. Mostly.)

The menu consisted of:

Sticky Ribs – these were one of my favourite items on the menu, I love ribs (theres a story involving Gauchos in Utrecht, a big group of bikers, unlimited racks of ribs and bottomless plates. Oh. Yeah, thats pretty much the whole story) and Matt explained how easy these were to prepare – so easy I might even have to try myself. Maybe.

Next up was overnight spiced roast breast of lamb – I only had a small amount of this but it was again, amazing.

I don’t think I’ve ever had mussels before, so the mussels en papillote were a interesting experience. That sort of phrase usually means they were horrible, but they were actually really delicious.

Chargrilled plaice was next – I have to admit that I couldn’t eat very much of this because of the teeny bones. Still very yum.

The best food things will involve meat, sweetness and/or be a mini version of themselves. So the mini venison burgers in brioche buns ticked off all the required items and were yummy.

Finally (with an awful photo – the light was fading fast by this point) on the meat front, were some open onglet steak sandwiches. The one thing I think I can say I learnt from the evening is that onglet is known as a butchers cut in the UK (and a hanger steak in the US – we had a great demonstration from Matt how the steaks hang as well!)

To finish up, we had bananas stuffed with dark chocolate with caramel sauce. It was a really struggle to eat this but I managed at least two thirds. I’m a trouper.

I had a fantastic evening, and felt extremely full afterwards – its a wonder that I didn’t just roll down Park Street to the bus! Thanks to Matt, Ben and everyone else at Goldbrick House  - I always have such a great time there whether its food, drinks or events. The next night like this is on 25th August, and is all about steak. If I thought this was a meat overdose (there is no such thing) then the steak evening promises to be meat coma inducing!

Thankfully then, MyStreetChic has recently launched to show of the street style in some of our countries most stylish cities, and where best to start than Bristol, possibly the most awesome city of them all. (I’m not biased or anything…)

MyStreetChic is about the latest fashion and beauty trends, and how “real” people like you and… well, not me interpret them. Each city has its own distinct style, and MyStreetChic will show that off. They also provide helpful tips, articles about the latest styles and a Q&A section so you can post your own questions to the expert panel and other community members. With the tag line of “love it, wear it, share it” (hence the title of the post, duh), the site allows you to upload your own street style photos to share with the community

Check out their website – MyStreetChic.com – they’ve launched with Bristol as the pilot city, but I believe more cities are to be added soon!

Oh Bristol. You love me, you really love me!

Gloucester Road is a great place for independent shops and it has so many charity shops along it. Within a few minutes walk of each other, you have St Peters Hospice (which raises money for the only adult hospice in the Bristol area), Cancer Research and Marie Curie Cancer Care. These are all your typical charity shops – you know the type, a random assortment of items at tiny prices. Recently, CLIC Sargent opened a shop just along from these which is specifically a vintage charity shop. I’m not sure how exactly a vintage charity shop differs to the usual type, but it will be interesting to see how it does. Theres also a Amnesty International bookshop - I can never resist a charity bookshop but hadn’t been in this one before!

Just down the road is RePsycho, a vintage and retro shop. This tiny shop is crammed with mens and womens clothing – theres barely any room to move! This can be a great thing because of the amount of choice, but when I visited, there was quite a few people in there so it felt a bit claustrophobic. Apparently they also hire out party wear and have a music exchange in the basement although I couldn’t actually see where those were!

Further down, past the railway bridge, is my new favourite shop, Cox and Baloney Vintage Boutique. I’m a little bit in love with this shop I think. On one side, theres a little tea room, with gorgeous china for sale, and on the other, different rooms full of clothing, books, things for the home and even a dressmaker in the basement! Definitely one to visit again soon.

The Love Gloucester Road website has more information about some of the shops that are along here, but I think the best way to find out about them is to just wander down there yourself!

Clifton Village is often the first place people mention when looking for good charity shops, and the Oxfam shop on Regent Street is usually my first stop because they usually have a great selection! The Save the Children shop just along the road is also a great choice, although whenever I’ve been in there, theres usually still so many bags of donations to be sorted through. Focus on the Past is an antiques centre where different dealers have set up a co-operative to sell more homeware based items. Clifton Online has a list of charity shops in the BS8 area on their website.

Walking towards town from the Village will usually lead you along Park Street. Theres not many charity shops along this part of town, with just the Oxfam bookshop at the top. Being so close to the University of Bristol, this is a great book shop for non-fiction books. Walking down the hill, you’ll come to Uncle Sams American Vintage Clothing. I’d love to tell you more about this shop, but in the 5 years I’ve been visiting Bristol, I think I’ve only seen this shop open once! The one time I did go in though, they had a great selection of vintage clothing, mostly mens clothing, but they had some gorgeous shoes and a pair of roller boots that I really wish I’d bought. Further down, BS8 is a huge shop on three floors made up of different sellers – my favourite has to be the little gift shop at the front of the basement! Motel is a familiar name to quite a few people because of the success of their clothing in places like Topshop, but the Bristol store also sells vintage accessories, with a great collection of shoes and bags.

The Lanes started off a few years ago just as a bowling alley with a bar, but its expanding all the time. Upstairs, you’ll find the Rock and Bowl Motel and downstairs, Gimme Shelter vintage boutique. Gimme Shelter also organises a vintage fair ever month at the Lanes, bringing together some of the best vintage shops around Bristol. If you’re more Bath based, then later this month, “Its Darling!” vintage and artisan fair will be held in the Friends Meeting House.

Too busy to get out to the shops, or are you like me, and never seem to find those amazing bargains your friends always seem to come away with? Go online! St Peters Hospice is the only Bristol based charity I know (please correct me if I’m wrong!) that also sells items on eBay that would normally go into the shops. This is a fab idea because it allows people all around the country to not only get a great bargain, but help a great charity. Oxfam also does the same sort of thing with their second-hand store.

The above blog post was originally written for Groupon, but after it published there, I asked the lovely people of Twitter if they could recommend some others. Jemma very kindly emailed me an awesome list, so I asked if I could share it with you guys, and she said yes. Thanks Jemma!

Billie Jean, Gloucester Road – sells well-priced vintage and second hand clothes and linen – from Liberty silk scarves (ask to see the really special ones under the counter) to 70s dresses and retro curtains. Also does an excellent line in proper men’s felt hats, and blokes who want to channel Gossip Girl’s Chuck Bass should check out the hundreds of bow ties.

Clifton Vintage at the Clifton Village Arcade – a small unit full of beautiful vintage finds – I love the piano shawls, fake fur coats, amazing bags and 50s jewellery. The lovely and helpful owner has a great eye for seeking out vintage bits that the catwalks are currently channeling.

Cotham Hill – what I call “the chazza run”. There are several charity shops in this area, from PDSA next to Sainsburys Clifton Down right up to Oxfam where it meets Aberdeen Road, including three or four others all in a row for speedy browsing. Theyre all worth a look but St Peter’s hospice seems to come up trumps, and a few of them have a special vintage/ fancy dress rail to save you sifting through the Primarni cast- offs. Don’t forget retro clothes sales and hire from Naff on the other side of the road for your fancy dress or out-there outfits too.

North Street near the tobacco factory – another mini-run of charity shops. Not as good as they used to be – at one time all of my favourite shoes were from the Cats Protection League – but inexpensive and worth a look if you’re that side of the river. Further down North Street on the other side is a little vintage place I can’t remember the name of but they had retro hip hop stuff and some nice bags.

Focus on the past – this antiques shop in Clifton Village is mainly furniture and trinkets but they have a little rail of genuine vintage clothes and bags, and a few cabinets of old costume jewellery in all colours. Good if you like brooches or have a thing for vintage resin/plastic or paste jewellery.

If you have any tips on amazing charity shops, let me know!

Denim Duty

The first scene featured lots of denim looks that were quite casual. It looks like double denim is going to be about for a bit longer, which isn’t a style I would wear myself (and not just because I don’t really wear jeans any more)

The clothes in this section were from Warehouse with shoes from Dorothy Perkins

L.A. Poolside

I’m not a beachy sort of holiday girl (or really any sort of holiday – my trip to California in December was the first proper holiday I’d had in 12 years!) but for that fortnight in the middle of summer that its unbearable to be indoors because of the gorgeous sun, I’d happily wear the cover ups with some shorts underneath. The model in the middle was so brave to walk down the catwalk in her swimming costume, she was posing for quite a while as well – I couldn’t do that! The men in board shorts got a lot of whoops and hollers – I wonder why!

The clothes and accessories in this scene were from New Look with the same shoes from Dorothy Perkins.

Tough Love

This was a much harder edged look with the biker style returning again (has that ever gone out of fashion?) This is a lot more wearable for me, lots of blacks and greys, denim and leather, and lovely big boots. Since we’re unlikely to get much of a summer, they’re always important!

The clothes in this were from Guess with shoes from New Look (for the girls) and Next (for the boys) and accessories from River Island

Latte with Cream

Another look I loved. Although I don’t really have much need for my work wardrobe at the moment, this is the sort of thing I’d love to wear to the office.

Clothes and accessories were from L.K. Bennett with the gorgeous heeled lofters from French Connection

Man Up

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really pay much attention to this section because – well, I’m not exactly the target audience! They were quite casual looks although, the sort of thing Alex wears actually!

Clothes from G-Star, shoes from Next and accessories from River Island again

Frocks and Frolics

The final look was a lot more glamourous than the rest with dresses in simple shapes that looked really easy to wear. The colours were mostly quite light colours, creams and light greys, but there were a few dresses in navy blue if you’re as clumsy as me (as soon as I put a white blouse on, its just a matter of time before I drop something down it!)

Everything was from French Connection for this collection

All of the scenes were a great way to show off what the shops had available right at that moment. There was quite a bit of dancing again in this show, which really helped to show off the clothes more than a typical catwalk.

Photos again thanks to Cabot Circus – I took a few but they didn’t turn out anywhere near as good as these!

Here are a few pics for now, I’ll be making a bigger post during the week!

There are 3 more shows today (2pm, 3.30pm and 4.30pm) and 4 tomorrow (12pm, 1.30pm, 2.30pm and 3.30pm) – head down! There are discounts available in most of the shops featured in the shows, with the Style Guide that’s being given out. For more info, check out the Cabot Circus website or their Facebook page.

(Thanks to Kara for inviting me along and letting me use the amazing photos above – there’s no way my pics would have turned out this good!)

Last week I took a little wander up Gloucester Road, for a bit of charity shop scouting when I came across Cox and Baloney Vintage Boutique on Cheltenham Road. The name rang a bell, as I’ve picked up so many of their postcards at other shops, thinking I must visit, but had never had the chance before now! The shop has recently expanded a few weeks ago to incorporate a tea room, which (I have to be honest) drew me in on a cold afternoon! The shop seems to go on forever, with different rooms housing different types of items – a room filled with books leads you into a vintage clothes shop for the ladies or the tea room with lots of lovely homeware and crockery, while downstairs are menswear and a seamstress.

Instead of telling you more, here are some photos to tempt you to go along – its definitely worth a visit if you love the look of my pics!

Its that time of year again when my thoughts turn towards Race for Life. I’ve done it three times so far (2007, 2009 and 2010) and have enjoyed it (well, as much as you can enjoy going around a 5k course)

You all know the story of why I do Race for Life (or at least, if you’ve read that blog post, you do) If you don’t, here’s the basic version: My mum died of cancer 5 years ago (which seems both so long ago and so recent) so I do Race for Life to raise money for Cancer Research in the aim that less people have to go through what we did.

This year, Race for Life in Bristol will be held on the weekend of the 9th and 10th of July. There will be three events, two 5k’s and one 10k. I’ve not yet signed up for one though because I’m not sure what I want to do. 5k is easily doable – I’ve walked it twice, and ran it once. I’d like to run (or at least attempt to run) this one, but I’d also like a bit of a challenge. Running it the first time was definitely a challenge, but is it still a challenge if I’ve already done it? 10k would be something new, but would I be able to do it? I have enough time between now and July to get my bum into gear, but I need new – well, new everything, but especially new trainers. (Being jobless isn’t really going to help there!)

If you’ve done a race like this before, which would you recommend? Any tips I should know about? Anyone fancy joining me?