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In A Strop

Hayley — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:30:52 +0000

Good morning lovely people! How are you? Did you have a good weekend?

I had a rather unproductive weekend. On Friday night, Alex and I headed down to Louise and Nathans house (aka the Wife and the Lord) as they were having a dinner party for some of Lou’s ex colleagues. We got there early (as I had the day off – more on that in a bit) and helped with the cooking of a million types of chilli and salsa and other nom Tex-Mex type stuff. (Seriously, I could eat that sort of food for ever)

There was much talking, drinking and eating. I headed to bed about half 1 – rather ashamedly, I was the first to go to bed! (Although sometimes, doesn’t there need to be one person to go to bed before everyone else, otherwise people feel awkward about leaving. It was a public service!) Most people went to bed about 2am, and some stayed up till 4am with the Jager (oh dear oh dear).

I was up nice and early the next day, and lazed about in my PJ’s with the Wife watching crap TV like Gok’s Fashion Fix. WHY. Alex and I headed back to Bath about 3, and I ended up napping when we got back (need to stop doing that, it messes me up!)

Sunday was equally as lazy, I had a bad nights sleep on Saturday because my lovely back was playing up again (if you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’ll know how much I have problems with my back!) and ended up staying in the bath till like, 4pm. We headed into Alex’s office about 5, so he could collect some books (ready for his move this week, exciting!) and had an exotic and romantic meal of….Maccy D’s. (Honestly, the conversation was like Alex: “What do you fancy for dinner, we could go to Banglo, or the curry place down the road, or the Velo Lounge, its up to you” Me: “Um…can we go to MacDonalds?” I am a cheap date. Sometimes.) Sunday evening was spent supervising Alex unpacking a box or three of junk I had found in the spare room a few months ago, and then repacking it whilst getting rid of the crap.

I took last Friday off work, because of a few reasons.

I wanted to get some things delivered – a mobile broadband dongle from O2 (which apparently couldn’t be delivered anywhere but my home address…ok…) and two parcels that were originally delivered a fortnight before, then a week before, but because Royal Mail are so lazy, they didn’t bother to knock on the front door, just stuck those “Sorry we missed you” cards through the doors.
I wanted to go shopping for some work clothes
I wanted to see some friends
I wanted to get some blogging stuff done

Want to guess how much of that list actually got done? Not even part of number 1. All that happened on Friday is that I got my O2 dongle (they have a good PAYG deal at the moment, £10 for the dongle, then £2 per day if you need it. I’m unlikely to need it, but thought it would be nice to have a back up) Very frustrating, as you can imagine! I even cornered my postman and had a little complaint at him about the lack of deliveries, and he said that even though I had requested a second redelivery on Friday, everything was about a day late from that depot so I’d probably get the things on Saturday. I ended up only getting one of the parcels, which is VERY annoying, considering that the missing parcel is a large Liz Earle order of goodness!

Another part of my weekend that annoyed me was banks. I needed to give my housemate some money on Friday, and normally I’d just go to the cash point to get it. But, because I waited till half 2 for the postman on Friday (until I realised that I needed to be on the 3pm train to Bath!) I didn’t get a chance. “Oh well” I thought “I’ll just do a bank transfer on Sat morning”. That plan was foiled however by Natwest informing me I’d need a special card reader (why make this something you have to order, Natwest?) “Oh well” I thought “Thats annoying, but the housemates bank is open till 6pm in Bath. I’ll just pay the money in cash” So we headed to HSBC, where a woman who was blatently playing Solitaire instead of helping people informed me that their machine was broken – “we can take the money, but it won’t credit till Monday”. I asked about a few other possible ways to make the payment, but all I got in response was that the machine was broken. (On a side note, that is the most irritating thing ever. I *know* the machine is broken, you’ve said twice already.) She eventually came up with the solution that I could get my bank to make the transfer. Which is what I was going to do until I walked out of HSBC and found Natwest next door, closed. I almost cried. (We sorted it in the end, the boy transfered the money from his account and I gave him the cash). But the problems seem to have come from things designed to be more secure or more convienient!

So yes, a long weekend which was supposed to be relaxing and productive just turned into a massive waste of time. Le sigh.

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Diet Coke Break

Hayley — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:58:02 +0000

Diet Coke, you’ve annoyed me SO much about your stereotyping of women, I am jabbing this angrily while I walk home. (Albeit with a can in my other hand)

Really? So, only women drink Diet Coke? (I think Neil would disagree!) Women love pink and leopard print (I like pink, but can’t stand leopard print – so tacky!)
I almost bought the “manly” Coke Zero just to avoid having to drink 12 cans that would clash with my outfit.

OK, that was girly.

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Mulberry for Apple

Hayley — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:02:01 +0000

There are a few shops that the Wife’s husband* has banned us from (or at least tries to ban us from going into).

The first one is Hobbycraft, of course, especially after the wedding because we had no real need to go in there (Ever had an arguement over what thickness card to buy? Or which fake rosebuds are better looking? Thank you Hobbycraft, because I have).

Next up is Cath Kidston, because omg omg omg FLOWERS! Its so beautiful and country kitchenesque and I do actually need another cake stand, because this has flowers on and my other one is just plain glass.

Of course, the worst shop is the Mulberry store. The Wife and I have a slight obsession with handbags and shoes, and quite dangerously, the Mulberry outlet store is about a 5 minute drive from her house. Its also on the way from her house to mine. This is obviously a sign that we should go in there a lot more and spend lots of money.

Somehow I skipped right past this article on NYLON earlier this month. Mulberry teamed up with Apple to produce some of their more iconic bags in sizes more suitable for MacBook Pros and iPhones.

Look at this beautiful Bayswater bag – if I ever managed to own one, I’d probably put my MBP (because this is a world where I have a MBP and a Mulberry bag) in a case inside the bag, but with this version I wouldn’t need to. Ooh, and its a bargainous £650. Who doesn’t want a laptop bag that costs almost as much as the laptop itself?
(This is not me dropping hints at all. Ahem.)

Perhaps slightly more affordable are the iPhone cases, tiny versions of pretty bags for a mere one hundred and fifty of those English pounds I never have enough of. I do actually need an iPhone case, as the plastic Air Jacket I have at the moment developed a crack after a few months and is currently covered in Sellotape and is affectionately referred to as the Ghetto Case. (Honestly, noone wants to go near my iPhone because it looks like crap! Click the cover off though and its lovely, unscratched and shiny shiny!)
If anyone who is reading this would like to buy me one of these cases, I love the silver Daria and the navy Bayswater ones. Ta v much.

More information on the Mulberry and Apple websites, of course.

* His name is Nathan and he is one of the most awesome and bravest and ace people I know. Even if he is using the Wife as a beard.

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Oops, Spangles

Hayley — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:07:20 +0000

One of the problems with working on the Triangle in Clifton is that I’m very close to some of my favourite shops (JoY, Borders and Cath Kidston to name a few). Another problem is that since Cabot Circus opened, more stores in Broadmead and Cabot Circus are open until 8pm. This turns out to be the best time to go to the new Primark that opened up a few months ago. Oops.
Primark has a great collection of evening festive wear, with most items having at least some sparkly bit. I (like most girls) love spangles and jewel coloured satiny things. Which might be why I ended up with the following items yesterday.

Two tops, probably to be worn for work (I am on a real smart clothes kick at the moment, I had forgotten just how much I love dressing up!)

A sequined covered hat. They had these in so many bright colours, but black sequins are easier to wear every day!

Possibly the bargain of the day (and slightly tacky, but who cares) – sparkly fake Converses for the excellent price of £1. The set of three laces next to them were also a pound. I kinda wish I could still wear trainers for work.

This tiara was £3, and although I’ll probably never wear it out of the house, every girl needs to act like a princess now and then. Even if it is just to do the washing up in.

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10 iPhone Apps

Hayley — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:25:45 +0000

With more and more people now becoming iPhone (or iPod Touch) owners, I thought I would share which apps I use on a daily basis

Ping – This is probably my current favourite app, and I’ve only been using it a few days! Its probably easiest to compare it to a text messaging service, except that its free (and whilst its in its trial period, the app is free as well). Its also been compared to BlackBerry Messenger (haven’t actually used it myself – would love a iPhone version, but its never going to happen is it?)
Yes, its got a few problems at the moment (messages not updating, and the odd wiggly text input bit) but I can live with those (well, maybe). If you’ve got Ping!, my id is hayles (well, of course!)
iTunes store link | Similar apps: AIM, eBuddy

Echofon – I use Twitter a LOT (you know, if you hadn’t already worked that out?) and have tried out quite a few apps, but I keep going back to Twitterfon (recently renamed Echofon). Its a nice, easy to use app for Twitter and does pretty much everything I want to do on Twitter! It would be nice to have groups, but I can just use Brizzly if I want to catch up with those I’m following in that way. Theres also a free version so you can see if its what you want – if only some other apps did the same (Tweetie, I’m looking at you. I’m still annoyed I paid for you.)
iTunes store link(pro) | Similar apps: Tweetie, Twitterriffic

Shake It Photo – The iPhone 3G camera is pretty good, but not amazing. With an app like Shake It Photo, it can make the pictures look better. I’ve used this app quite a few times for pictures when blogging from my phone, just to make them look a bit neater!
iTunes store link

Geared – I’m not really a games playing sort of girl (my fascination with games on mobile phones pretty much ended with Snake on my Nokia 3210) but Geared is one of those games I can just pick up and do one quick level whilst waiting for the bus. The only other game I even bother to play is Flight Control – it seems pretty simple at first, but then its really addictive and difficult!
iTunes store link | Similar apps: Flight Control

My O2 – Pretty simple this, it’s an app from O2 where it tells you your remaining balance for minutes and texts. I had been using one that I paid for (Mobile Allowance), but this is a bit neater, and I like that its an official app.
iTunes store link

WordPress – This is a great app if you’re using WordPress to run your blog (I’m not sure if it works for wordpress.com hosted accounts, but it does work for self hosted sites like this one) Its a basic sort of app which allows you to update blog entries and pages, as well as approving comments (and marking others as spam).
iTunes store link

Net A Porter – I both love and hate this app. I love it because SHOES, PRETTY SHOES. I hate it because it reminds me that I can’t afford anything from net-a-porter.com.
iTunes store link | Similar apps: Nylon

About Battery – This free app gives you a better indication about how much battery life you still have left. I’m always getting caught out by my battery life, and my iPhone seems to die at the most inconvenient times!
iTunes store link

Facebook – You kinda have to include Facebook when talking about most used apps. I don’t really go on there much on my main computer as its so much easier to check details on the iPhone. The new version is a lot better – you can actually see events and that!
iTunes store link | Similar apps: LinkedIn

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Pretty Sparkly Things!

Hayley — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:15:25 +0000

Yesterday I recieved these earrings in the post from Zoe. She’s just started making jewellery, and this was a really nice surprise! I wanted to say Thank You here Its making me want to use my jewellery making stuff now!

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That London and The Weekend

Hayley — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:05:20 +0000

Tomorrow I shall be hopping (not literally, that would be annoying) onto one of these to meet up with some of the lovely ladies from UK Lady Bloggers which I am really excited about!
I’m partly excited because I get to go to London, a place that seems almost mystical to me – before I moved to Bristol I had only been to London 3 times in my life!
The rest of the weekend is just as awesome, on Saturday I’ll be going to Oxford for gin and cupcakes, and on Sunday I’ll be having tea and roast dinner with my lovely friends in Bristol! I love the summer, its seems that every weekend is full of fun!

© Hayley for ceriselle.org, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: london, oxford, uk lady bloggers

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A Catch-Up In Pictures

Hayley — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:51:08 +0000

I’ve been meaning to blog for a while, but for some reason, keep putting it off. So here is a little recap of the past two weeks for you while I try to remember about the Race for Life and write it down. Blogger fail.

The queues for the museum on the first day of the Banksy exhibit. Two weekends later, the queues seem to be worse!

They’re not so good at being a top secret rogue agency if they have a banner on a shop off Whiteladies Road.

Topshop does it again with corsages that were bigger than my face.
I kinda want one.

The wife took me on a date to celebrate doing the Race for Life and bought me an ice cream mountain. I could only manage half.

My headaches have been getting so bad, I am taking a pack of these every day.
Of course, the doctor has been a real help. Can you sense the sarcasm there?

Randomly found these chemistry books by the train station last week. An excited student trying to get rid of them?

Pints of tea are the only way to survive train journeys.

Although VitaminWater also helps. I like this one the best. Mostly because it sends me a little hyper and tastes a bit like Um Bongo. I miss Um Bongo.

Who doesn’t love strawberries dipped in chocolate (and then eaten with raspberry sorbet)?

© Hayley for ceriselle.org, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: banksy, Bristol, chemistry books, chocolate, corsage, date, deco lounge, fulcrum, gcse, headaches, ice cream, raspberry sorbet, re-cap, strawberries, student, tea, topshop, vitaminwater

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Hello Old Friend

Hayley — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:48:19 +0000

Yay! I abandoned my blog for the past week cause we’ve been having Internet issues at the flat. Annoyingly, this was a week that I actually had things to post!
Even worse – I am writing this on my iPhone, yet didn’t think about that earlier in the week!
Above is some graffiti that was on the wall by the cashpoint last week. I kinda like it.

© Hayley for ceriselle.org, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blog, graffiti, hiatus, internet problems, iPhone, Photography

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This Weekend

Hayley — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:15:13 +0000

This weekend, I hope it is sunny.

I want to wear a flowery dress. I want to eat sushi in Victoria Square with lovely people. I want to take a stupid amount of photos.

Sitting on a hot sticky train home from work will send you a little loopy sometimes.

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TiLT – 9th April 2009

Hayley — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 05:48:56 +0000

I’ve been so busy again since my last post! So much to update you all on, but for now, here are the things I love this week.

Roast Dinners – Mmm! Last weekend, I invited some friends that I went to uni with over and cooked a big roast lamb dinner. When you live with one other person, it seems a bit pointless to do a big big meal! The dinner was yummy, and then we had this to munch on while we watched silly movies:

Three layers of sweets and cakes, yum! Ally made the cakes on the bottom tier, which were decorated in a springtime theme, and those things on the second tier are sweet sushi! My first attempt, which was ok, but not amazing presentation wise! (Also, very excited to finally use my cake stand that Louise and Nathan gave me for my birthday!)

New Dresses – I looooove dresses, and have been searching everywhere for the perfect little black satin dress. And finally I found one – on eBay of all places! Here’s a bad photo of me wearing said dress:

I can’t wait to have an event to wear it to!

End of Lent – Squeal! 3 days to go! I’ve held out quite well from chocolate – to be honest I didn’t think I could do it! How have you done with your Lent promises?

Of course, the end of Lent brings with it a long weekend for us all – what fun things are you doing this weekend? I’ll be shopping, “helping” at my Dads new pub and teaching myself to cross stitch!

© Hayley for ceriselle.org, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chocolate, dress, easter, Lent, roast dinner, sweets, things i love thursday, TiLT

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TiLT – 2 April 2009

Hayley — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:26:39 +0000

Sigh, I really am terrible for doing this every week! This is my first Things I Love Thursday this year!

click for bigger!

The thing that has made me really happy this week is that my bff Helen came to Bristol last weekend, and we had such a fun time! Lots of drinking, dancing, ignoring boys (stupid John Machivelli!), shopping, eating and singing went on, and even though it was a brief visit, it made me realise how much I miss Bel!
The pictures above are just a few from Friday – somehow we just never got around to taking any more! L to R, the banner at Ramshackle of the girl from the Ting Tings (because apparently I looked like her?!), milkshakes at Rocotillos at lunch, a picture of us from my iPhone that I managed to TwitPic whilst quite drunk, a picture that we made the guy who had persuaded us to sign up for discount cards outside take of us (I’m not sure if either of us realised he was taking pics for the Ramshackle website!)

Contract Extentions – so I finally plucked up the courage to ask my boss when I would be leaving, since my original contract end date is the first week of May and he has said that he would like me to stay until the end of July! I’m quite happy, because it gives me longer to find a new job. I just have no idea what I want to do!

Longer days – since the clocks went back on Sunday, I’ve already noticed the lovely longer days. I’m typing this at the moment from the train on the way home, and the sky is a gorgeous clear blue! Here’s hoping the rest of spring and summer are just as lovely!

Being Busy – I honestly can’t remember the last weekend that I had nothing planned, which is amazing (although a little exhausting!). See, this is why I moved here! In Chester, I could barely remember the last time I went out! This weekend, a few friends will be coming over to the flat for yummy food and movies. A nice chilled out weekend I think!

Wow, there were some others I thought of before, but I’ve forgotten them now! What has made your week awesome then?

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Race for Life (part 2)

Hayley — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:53:30 +0000

So my second week of training for the Race for Life has been non existant – I managed to catch Louise’s lurgy last weekend and have been feeling very sorry for myself! Hopefully with the clocks changing today, I will be more likely to go running after work, because it will be lighter longer.

My running pack arrived this week though, which is pretty quick. My number thing is lower than I thought – I would have expected more people to have signed up by now! The pink sheet is the back sign, which you need to decorate with the reason why you are doing the Race for Life. I want to make mine look awesome this year, but I can’t think what to do!

Sponsorship wise, I’m really pleased because I’m almost half way to my target! If you’ve not sponsored me yet, you can by going to raceforlifesponsorme.org/hayley_c

© Hayley for ceriselle.org, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bristol, cancer research, Race for Life

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Lent 12/40

Hayley — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:10:26 +0000

So it’s the second Sunday of Lent, time for a catchup on how it is going.

This has been the most difficult thing I’ve given up, worse than when I gave up alcohol in the summer of 2005. Even worse than I gave up bread for Lent one year (I cracked in a week!)

However, I’ve managed to last this long without having chocolate. Which doesn’t sound like much, but normally I’d have chocolate every other day at least. I’ve found that because I’m banning myself from having chocolate, the mere mention of it is setting me off drooling!

I was on the train to work on Thursday, and someone in my carriage had something that smelled deliciously hot, chocolatey and cakey. The thought of a hot, gooey chocolate cake took over my mind and I couldn’t concentrate on anything for a while!

I realise that the above paragraph makes me sound a little crazy, but I’ve found that when I try to give something up, even if its temporary, that thing takes over my head!

One of the guys at work pointed out that the days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday was more than 40 days, so we had an argument (as usual) and looked it up. Apparently you’re allowed to lapse on Sundays during Lent, as each Sunday is a “mini Easter”. I think thats cheating!

One of the things I’ve been enjoying this week is thinking about the chocolates I’m going to gorge myself on as soon as it reaches midnight on Easter Sunday. Top of my list at the moment is this bad boy, a giant Lindt bunny from House of Fraser. Look at his deliciousness. Om nom nom indeed.

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Lent: 1/40

Hayley — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:10:36 +0000

Today is the first day of Lent, and I’ve already had my willpower tested.
I drink a LOT of tea. And everytime I make the tea (and a big cafitiere of coffee for the boys), I have to stand at the coffee machine and look at this:

It takes 3 servings of hot water to fill my mug, and about 8 to fill the cafetierre. So i’ll be standing next to that tempting machine for about 5 minutes every 90 minutes or so.
My tea intake has increased quite a bit today-everytime I wanted chocolate, I had a brew. Eeeeeeexcellent.

Also today in Sainsburys, it seemed like everything on offer had some sort of chocolate part to it. I was sad.

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