Celebrity was a slight change in style, but for the better – who doesn’t love Pop or Girlfriend? (Lets not mention the album title track though, with one of my favourite ever lyrics “If I couldn’t have cheese like everyday, would you still want to be with me?” Any girl who dumps a bloke because he can’t eat cheese every day is just weird.) Celebrity was a good change, a more grown up sound, and it lead the way for Justin’s solo career very well.

The solo projects came along, and JT’s (yeah, we’re close) first album was one of the overplayed soundtracks to my first year in uni. Even now, I hear the opening to Senorita and think of Aber. The second album wasn’t quite to my taste at the time – I’d rather listen to JC Chasez’s album. (Soundtrack to my second year at uni)

Movies is an obvious next step for most singers, and while I’ve only seen in him The Social Network and a bit of Bad Teacher, he wasn’t as awful as some singers who become actors. (You know I’m thinking of Crossroads right now, right?)

But while all these things make sense, and even things like investments (although MySpace? Seriously? That place is still around?!) and endorsements, theres one thing thats making me stroppy. Justin Timberlake is an interior designer now.

Justin. JT. Dude! Reform *NSync. I think some of the others could do with it. You could do with it. I want more rubbish songs, more silly dance moves and more crazy outfits. Maybe you could get back with Britney. Lets all remember the good times when JT and Brit Brit were a couple.

As a reminder of why Justin needs to get back to what he does best, here are my two favourite songs.

However, with beautiful notecards like this from Kate Spade, I’m tempted to start again!

The All Wrapped Up ($20) set is so gorgeously bright pink, if not completely practical (OK, for me, at least – the only ink that would look good would be black, and I have a strange dislike for black ink. I don’t know.)

As soon as I saw the Hello Sunshine cards ($20), I immediately thought of sending one to Sarah – its such a happy card to send just to say hello!

The Snail Mail set ($25) is so cute, and seems very apt for this form of communication! I’d send this to an old school friend, who used to hate snails enough to throw them into her neighbours garden. It would be difficult to hate this snail though!

If all else fails, this All Occasion box set ($35) is good as an emergency back up when you need to get a card into the post right now. (You’ve not had that? You don’t have a small stash of cards at home in case you need to pull one out quickly? No, er, neither do I…) Once all the cards are used up, you could always use the box again to organise your non existant card collection.

If only Kate Spade delivered to the UK – I think a trip to one of the London stores is due!

So back in sixth form, I was a twig. Its very weird to look at this photo, and realise that it was 10 years ago. I don’t know why I look so bloody smug here either. My mums sister made this dress, and I remember being so excited picking out the different fabrics. I had my hair and nails done at the hairdressers as well  - this was before Chester heard of such things as proms, so it was quite unusual for any of us to make this much effort.

I found this dress in Zara at the Trafford Centre in the January sales reduced from about £70 to £15 because one of the straps at the back had ripped. It only needed a few stitches to fix, so I wore it to my first year May Ball. I remember running down into town on the morning to pick up these long gloves from the party shop because I couldn’t be bothered to paint my nails then heading over to the Wife’s house in PJM so she could curl my hair. It took 3 hours for Lou to curl it all which I then ruined within 5 minutes by going on a ride at the fair. Chesney Hawkes was the main attraction at this ball (oh, and David Sneddon, but no one ever remembers him)

In my second year, I ordered this dress from delias.com which was far too exciting…buying clothes online was still a relatively new thing in 2003/4 to me, despite going to uni in the wilderness of Aberystwyth (I think the only clothes shops we had were a tiny New Look, a small Dorothy Perkins, a small Peacocks and a few independents). I begged my dad to buy this for me, which he did eventually, then waited about a month for it to be delivered. It was a very frilly, pink, sparkly dress that I never wore again, and that got a little ruined at the bottom from all the spilt drinks in the union. Boo drunk students.

I have no idea what this pose is.

In my final year, I spotted this dress in a new independent that had opened up on the Aber high street, and would go in every few days to try it on and think how pretty it was (and took photos to torture myself about it). I had no money to buy it and didn’t think I would so I just filed it away in my head as a want (this is obviously back in the days before wishlists were commonplace on blogs…actually, it was 2006, so before blogs were commonplace really!) A week or two before the ball, my dad phoned me and said he would be putting in a bit of money into my bank account because he had received my mums life insurance payout. I thought it would be a small amount, that would just about cover my overdraft and pretty much forgot about it. A few days after that, I was in my econometrics tutorial, and idly clicked over to my online banking. I nearly whooped in the middle of the tutorial when I saw how much had appeared  - enough to cover my overdraft, a loan I had, a credit card and enough left over to buy a few pretty things. As soon as the tutorial finished, I pretty much ran down the hill, straight to the bank to pay everything off, then straight to the shop to buy the dress!

Can someone have a big formal party please so I have an excuse to wear a pretty dress? Thanks.

So next in this tiny mini series about the ladies I’m doing Race for Life is Gemma. Gem was the person back in year 5 who came up with an idea about writing a newspaper (I’m not telling you what about, it is far too dorky) which I think kinda set me off on this whole blogging lark in a way. So if you want someone to blame for all this babble, blame her. I often do.

Hello there, my name is Gemma and I’m an In-between Foot. I was born in the depths of winter either side of Hayley & Rach (the oldies ha!) and Helen (the young one as she likes to be known.) I live in Chester and but work over the border in Wales/Cymru, in the world of insurance. A bit of indemnity anyone?

My likes would have to be the Cheshire Jets basketball team, who I’ve been following since I was 12 year old. You’ll find me selling tickets at every home game with Foot 2 (Rach). I love pub quizzes, cooking, music and travelling. I missed the other three feet on a trip to see Take That reform when I was working half way round the world in Australia. I also like visiting random countries, Bosnia anyone? *

I hate cold weather, people dropping litter and also some cheesy disco music. Dancing Queen, Livin La Vida Loca & It’s Raining Men etc can happily disappear away and I would not miss them. The other four feet would say I like Dinosaurs and The Lion King. I pretend not to like them anymore, but I shed a tear on the opening sequence when I saw TLK 3D in the cinema. I watched Jurassic Park 3 the other day and knew the name of each dinosaur so…guilty!

I’m @botty84uk on Twitter and known by Hayley affectionately as DumDem, I can be a little dizzy at times and mischievous (stink bombs Helen!) What the hell, I’m a Pisces, an intelligent(ish) nutter!

Lastly, I’m the Ginger one of the group, although I would say I was Strawberry Blonde, but as I write this I can hear people going yeah yeah so it’s easier to put the ginger colour first! Although strangely none of the feet tan easily?!

Me and the Feet… 

I’ve known Rach the longest, even before I could walk, probably because we lived two doors away growing up, so I was always at one house or the other. I think my classiest moment was learning to ride my bike and ending up head first in her paddling pool. We’ve had many memories over the 28 years. I met Helen a couple of years later at playschool I think. She was at wasn’t at my third birthday but was at my fourth, so I think it was somewhere in-between then! We went though school together and I was always remember her many romances throughout primary school! We were in a group together in year three and then we met…Hayley. She was the new girl who arrived in summer 1992. She sat with me and Helen in our group and it wasn’t long before we showed her the Huntington ways…dressing up in pillow cases, parading round the village in them then slapping our thighs singing Arawak Indians. Also Hayley and I liked to eat lunch in the stock cupboard when the other girls were out playing netball, sport, us?? We were too busy reading and drawing. Then we grew up and drifted apart and back again but always in touch, as when we meet up, it’s like we were never apart! I can say that I have been employed with all of the feet at some point, whether it is payrolling, checkouting or ticketing! I have so many memories I could list but will stop as it will turn into an essay.

Me and the Race For Life…

I originally did the Race for Life in 2007 with Hayley and Helen in Chester. I am back for round two. This year will be a little different to whatever theme/obstacle we put ourselves in. I enjoy exercise but tend to go very pink and like chocolate and food a little too much, so I am a bit on the chunky side. My name features the word Bott, so it would be a crime if I had a small Bott(om.) I am running for Hayley’s mum, I lost my uncle in 2003 and most recently my Nana last year, both to Bowel Cancer. I also am running for my friend’s dad who they lost in 2009 to Pancreatic Cancer. These are a few out of too many people to list who have suffered from or been affected by Cancer. It’s an awful condition and the sooner we find out more about it the better, so people in the future will not have to go through what we have gone through. God, I feel emotional typing this.

RIGHT SO….

You can help raise money by sponsoring our team, the Four Feet on June 9th making a fool out of ourselves on Bristol Downs.

To donate text FEET88 £1 to 70070 (replace the amount with the £1 you would like)

Online – http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/four-feet/

Please pledge your support. Even if it is only as little as 50p, you are thinking of us and we will take that on when we are going round!

* Bosnia is actually really nice and is one of my favourite places I have visited.

As I get older, I am less likely to be caught reading a book I shouldn’t, but with things like Kindles, iPads and iPhones, that threat is reducing anyway. Perhaps I should cover those things in a fake book instead…

You can get book shaped covers for your MacBook or iPad, or clutches from ASOS in mint or blue (just £25!). On the more expensive end of the scale, this Olympia le Tan Alcoholics Anonymous is £1069. Falling somewhere in the middle (ish) are these cute Kate Spade book clutches with covers such as Emma, Romeo and Juliet or The Importance of Being Earnest for $325.

So obviously, you know who I am. (Really? You don’t? Well, I’m Hayley, and this is my blog. So, y’know, hi.) but you probably don’t know the girls I’m doing Race for Life with so well. We call our little group Four Feet, and first up is Helen. She was the first person to show me around my new school in year 3, and hasn’t been able to get rid of me since. Ha!

Hi, I’m Helen, the youngest of the Feet (yes we were all in the same school year but now we’re getting old being the youngest and reminding the others of this at every available opportunity is extremely important!). I’m currently living and working in Chester and have no significant other half to speak of (there’s nothing wrong with me – honest! I’m just picky and have height issues!). I enjoy watching rugby, quizzes, Singstar (me and Hayles are amazing) and general fun activities. I hate spelling mistakes and text speak, don’t even get me started on ‘lol’ and I overuse exclamation marks!!!!!! (Just realised that sounds a bit like a dating profile thing, it wasn’t meant to!)

Those of you on Twitter might know me as @hellybellybutt but I answer to most names, Helly, Belly, (not Butt!) Simmo, Bel, Smellon and if Hayley is feeling particularly lovely, ‘Oi, biatch’!

Me and the Feet….

I’ve known Rach all my life. I can’t recall my first meeting with her, no doubt I was still a very ugly newborn, she’s my cousin and at was at just three months old, on the way to Rach’s 1^st birthday that I fell out of my car seat and landed on concrete (no that does not explain a lot!). I don’t remember the first time I met Gemma either, more than likely it was at nursery or play school but I’m sure it was magical. I actually do remember the first time I met Hayles, she was the new girl at school and I got to look after her and show her how things were done (not that she listened, I don’t think I told her that we lock ourselves in the toilet with a book if we don’t like the teacher!). Anyway, long story a little bit shorter we have been friends ever since. We have drifted away from each other a few times but always manage to get back together and meet up, although not as often as we should, especially considering three of us all live in Chester still!

Me and the Race For Life….

I’ve done the Race For Life twice before. Once with the Feet and last year with work people. Although I might not look it, I’m the laziest person I know when it comes to exercise and I run like Phoebe in Friends so in the past I have tended to walk, skip or generally just prance about during the race and I imagine this year will not be too different (apart from being attached to another person). I will be racing for a few people, Hayley’s mum – obv, sadly I’ve lost some family members and family friends to cancer in recent years and my job involves contact with people who have terminal asbestos cancer (mesothelioma) so I will be thinking of everyone during the race.

Me and You….

So, what do I want from you????

Obviously Race For Life is about raising awareness of cancer but it’s also about raising money so, if you can sponsor Team Feet please do! Here are the many ways you can do this:

Online – http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/four-feet/

Text – FEET88 £1 to 70070 (replacing the £1 with whatever amount you’d like!)
In Person – if you’re one of those people without a phone and don’t like putting your bank details on tinternet (you’re most likely a relative) just get in touch and you can fill in a sponsor form

We don’t just want your money though. So you feel like you’re getting more out of your sponsorship than the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with giving to charity, Team Feet is giving you some input on how we do the race and what we wear!!! It’s all very exciting isn’t it?! So, if you have any ideas on costume type things or alternative ways to run/walk/dance/hopscotch the race, just let us know.

Thanks…

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Thanks even more if you’ve sponsored us.

And thanks if you’ve made a suggestion for the team outfits (if it was a nice one!).

Basically, just thanks a million!

I’ve actually been quite happy about the rain – I bought these short wellies from Primark a month or so ago, but the weather hasn’t been completely horrible to justify wearing them without people giving you a bit of side eye. Whatev, my feet are dry. They remind me of these Mel booties, although I prefer the Primark bow. When the weather was starting to turn horrible a week or so ago, I looked at the broken brolly I was using and quickly placed an order with Amazon for a new one. Thanks to my Prime account, it was delivered the next day – I bought this Susino umbrella* for about £12, and I love it because I like clear umbrellas, its not a dome shape (so I can share with other people!) and it has a button to automatically open. That was exciting when I was 8 and had a little red umbrella, and its not gotten any less exciting as I’ve gotten older.

I’ve blogged before about raincoats, but I thought I’d share some cute wellies and umbrellas, because lets face it, we live in the UK, you need a decent umbrella at the very least.

1. Fulton Lulu Guinness bunting via Amazon, £22.95* – 2. Fulton spotted via Amazon* – 3. Small London via Cath Kidston, £20* – 4. Small black frills via Dorothy Perkins, £8* – 5. Rainbow via Amazon, £6.99* – 6. Red spotted via Cath Kidston, £28* – 7. Claremont poppys via Radley, £30*

1. Tommy Hilfiger via Zalando, £90 * - 2. Joules via Zalando, £64.99 * - 3. Cath Kidston, £38 * - 4. Hunter via Amazon, £55 * (approx – price varies on colour) - 5. Joe Browns, £24.95 * - 6. Wedge Welly via Amazon, £42.94 * - 7. Ted Baker, £75 *

The wonders of the internet mean that I am so lucky to have met some truly amazing people who have talents beyond anything I can hope for. One of those people is Sarah…well, I’ll just let you read on!

For those who don’t know you, can you tell us a bit about you?

I’m Sarah – a small, ginger, avocado eating, book enthusiast. I like pandas, twitter and the idea that people are inherently good, most of the time. I was born and raised in Cornwall but now live in Cardiff with my fiance and pet panda.

When did you start Telegramme? (Where did the name come from, ideas, etc.)

The idea came from faving over 3000 images on flickr but not having a good way to then view them. At the time the flickr favourites page was a row of square thumbnails and I wanted a place where I could put all the photos together and flick through them easily. I honestly can’t remember where the name came from – I remember batting things back and forth with Sarah McLean (@_sarahrose, my co-editor for the first two issues) and Telegramme arrived and stuck.

What inspired you to start a photography magazine?

There are very few photography magazines these days that are focused on the end result. Most of them are technique driven – which is very useful but not the niche I was hoping to tap into. I wanted a static place to showcase photographers that I had found and enjoyed. Blogs are great for new content but old content very quickly gets pushed down the page – with a magazine someone viewing it in two years time will see the same content as someone viewing today. I also thought a magazine style layout would be a nice way to organise photos together and I also just wanted to see if I was capable of it, to be honest. I’d never worked with inDesign so it was a challenge to myself to learn a new program and a new skill.

Is there a specific theme that you aim each issue to be about? How do you find your contributors (and narrow down who to choose!)

Most of the themes in the issues are fairly fluid – I tend to think of a theme where individual photos will look nice together (so polaroid photos for example or pictures of tattoos) and then search for them on flickr. If I can find enough that I enjoy I make a gallery of those photos and contact the people in it to see if they’re interested in taking part. Then if I get enough responses (I usually get about a 70% return rate, the other 30% never reply) I put it in the issue. If I don’t, the theme gets ditched.

Probably about 60-70% of the photos in Telegramme are shot on 35mm film as opposed to digital. I have nothing against digital (I shoot on a DSLR as well as an SLR) and enjoy the process but I think 35mm has a special quality that you don’t see often in digital photos. I also thought it would be fun to create a magazine focusing on what most people think is a dead medium. I don’t necessarily think digital photography is better than 35mm or vice versa, but they’re certainly different so why not celebrate that?

95% of my contributors are from Flickr. It’s an easy medium to search and I’ve been a member there for 8 years (wow!) so I know my way around pretty well :)

What other magazines do you admire and why?

Is it awful to say that I don’t read magazines? I don’t. I used to read Creative Review when I was in my late teens, and I always enjoyed reading Marketing for the news on the latest advertising campaigns (my degree was Advertising and Marketing Communications) but I’ve never enjoyed reading magazines that are aimed at women. I don’t enjoy celeb gossip and the culture of ripping other people to shreds for entertain doesn’t really do much for me. I’m also not that into fashion (ha) so magazines with high editorial content left me feeling mostly confused and out of the loop.

I do, however, read a lot of blogs. I recently had a clear out of all the people that I didn’t agree with or who’s posts weren’t making me happy to read and now my feedreader is a much brighter place. People like Maggie Mason from Mighty Girl (www.mightygirl.com) and Heather Armstrong (www.dooce.com) make me far less scared to grow up and become an actual adult, these women are doing it with aplomb. I love reading cooking blogs, A Beautiful Mess is lovely without being too twee or too smug and I’ll always have time for a geek out with XKCD.

I’m a big believer in doing what makes you happy and the mainstream magazines available to me just don’t do it for me.

Whats the most difficult part of creating your own magazine?

The sheer effort of creating something 116 pages long with 60 contributors, by yourself. Sarah helped me tremendously with the first two issues (with ideas, support and finding new collaborators) but no longer has the time to help out. It’s difficult to dedicate time to it when I’m tired or busy but I know if I don’t there isn’t anyone else to pick up the slack. Creating something on your own can be daunting, to be honest. I had no idea if people were going to like it or even care but the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

I took a break between issues two and three because I burnt myself out working too hard and too long on it. The encouragement from Tzevai (my fiance) and friends plus a few people that I know on twitter but wouldn’t count within my inner circle was heartwarming – if people I didn’t know were encouraging me to pick it up again then I figured it was probably worth putting the time and effort into.

What does the future hold for Telegramme?

I’d love to host an exhibition for some of the artists featured in Telegramme, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever be in the financial position to do that. I think it would take some luck with a venue and artists being willing to print and frame (and transport!) their own works to make it a reality, but maybe one day! Hopefully I’ll be able to continue creating new issues – I’ve never been interested in monetising the magazine and luckily it costs me very little to produce (if you don’t count the time that I spend on it) so I’m intending to keep it ad free and always free to view online.

Long term I’d like it to be something that people are proud to be a part of and that people like to read and share. If I can continue to do that with it I’ll be pretty content :)

I’d love to be able to do more printed copies (and hopefully have them delivered without Royal Mail added dents this time) but whether or not that’s financially viable is a whole other story.

What advice would you give to others thinking about starting a similar project?

Don’t think it won’t be hard work, because it will. But also remember that if you’re passionate about something and you put time and effort into creating it then it will be worth it. Give yourself a timescale and then pretty much double it until you’ve learnt how to do what you want to do. Learning new programs like inDesign took me longer than I thought but now I know how to use them the process is much quicker.

Be honest, be friendly and be polite. Don’t steal other people’s images or work without credit or acknowledgement, always be up front with people about what you expect your project to be and try to included people wherever you can.

Ask for advice, don’t be afraid to admit you’re not sure what you’re doing but most of all just try. Who knows? If it doesn’t work it doesn’t work but at least you can say you gave it a go and it might spur you on for an even better idea :)

Issue 4 is due out in August/October (September is reserved for my wedding!), issues 1-3 are available to view now :)

You can find Telegramme in so many places on the internet – the main side is at www.hellotelegramme.co.uk with the usual Twitter and Facebook pages at @telegrammemag and www.facebook.com/telegramme.magazine. The all important Flickr group can be found www.flickr.com/groups/telegramme

I was invited by LivingSocial recently to join them for a bloggers brunch at the Devilled Egg – I had heard of the Devilled Egg before, knowing that they offered cooking lessons, but didn’t really think I’d be helping to make my own meal!

I was running late for a change (Ah, First Bus Bristol, you never fail to let me down) so by the time I got there, red and out of breath, everyone was waiting for me. Argh!

It was a surprisingly small group, of two other bloggers and their plus ones, my plus one (lovely Bonny), two people from LivingSocial and Barbora, the owner of the Devilled Egg.

We made quite a few things that had I seen the menu beforehand, I’d say those things were way too difficult to make, but Barbora made them look crazily easy – like in the photo above, where she’s kneading a batch of bread.

Here’s Bonny making choux pastry – you melt butter and water together, then drop flour and salt in and whisk together as fast as possible until its a smooth dough! Instead of small buns as you’d expect for profiteroles, they were made into huge buns, then filled with scrambled egg, yum!

The buns made from the bread (above) were to be used as bases for eggs Benedict – here’s Jeremy from LivingSocial making the Hollandaise sauce.

We also made soft boiled Scotch eggs in chorizo – these ended up being HUGE, like, the size of a shot put! I ended up taking mine home, after carting it all around town while shopping with Bonny. It was so yum when I eventually ate it though!

After a few hours in the kitchen, we went into the dining room to eat our creations and more – the scrambled eggs in choux buns, and salmon on blinis were one of my favourite items (who am I kidding, I loved it all)  – more and more food just kept coming and coming!

The bloggers brunch was to show some of the deals that LivingSocial do – while Groupon and KGB Deals seem to provide quite strange deals (especially at the moment – offering “personal massagers”?!), LivingSocial has few offers on for longer, which are a lot more interesting to me. I wouldn’t have thought about going on this course before, because I am not exactly a brave person in new crowds (which is why I didn’t push myself forward to cook some of the items), but I’d recommend it to any of you guys and would probably go (with a friend!) to another course.

Thank you LivingSocial and the Devilled Egg for such a lovely afternoon!

I think you all know by now that I’m an avid Twitter user. I’ve reached ~90,000 tweets in over 4 years, and I credit Twitter with some of my best relationships and experiences. I. Love. Twitter.

When Jake was talking about starting a twitter account for Bristol similar to the @sweden account, I thought it was a great idea. Both individuals and companies are going to be taking over the account each week, so it will give people a good idea of what makes up Bristol. I like the way that you can have differing points of view each week.

Jake asked me a few questions before the launch…

How did you hear about Bristol52?
I think when Jake was first thinking about the project. I think its a great idea, to show the different types of people that live around the city.

Why did you want to get involved?
I really like the concept of the project, but also I really like talking to people, and I hope I get to meet new people in Bristol from this!

What does the city mean to you?
I love Bristol. I wanted to come here for uni, but the University of Bristol didn’t do a course that I liked, and UWE accepted me on my AS grades, which made me wonder about the quality of course! I spent a year here in my year in employment and fell in love with the city.

I wanted to come back straight after uni, but life got in the way, and I moved here finally in 2008. Bristol always appealed to me because despite being a huge city, it feels like the small towns I grew up in and went to uni.

What is your favourite event in Bristol?
Hmm…I don’t think there is one event that I could pick. I love that there are different types of meet ups available (and hopefully one of my own soon!), I love the foodie events places like Goldbrick House do (their Fabulous Food Nights are EPIC), I love events like KittenCamp and Bristol Girl Geeks that cater to specific interests – I just love meeting up with new people (well, when I’ve gotten up the courage to go to an event, of course!)

What is the worst thing about Bristol?
*sigh* First Bus is a bane of my life. I promise not to talk about them too much, but I would love to see if they would want to take one of the Bristol52 slots! Pretending that we have an amazing public transport system (a girl can dream), I think my only other issue with Bristol is that we’re ignored because we’re so close to London (well, at least for things to do with blogging, etc) I know that in the south west, we have a huge audience of female bloggers in the same genre as me, and I think brands are wasting that opportunity.

What is your favourite hidden gem in/secret about Bristol?
My latest cafe discovery of Cordial and Grace – who wouldn’t love a tea shop thats also a craft haven? (which you can read about in this blog post!)

What can we expect from your week as a Bristol52er?
Hopefully something that will make people laugh!

If you’d like to follow me (again!) I’ll be tweeting from @bristol52 until I go to sleep on Sunday night. I’ll still be on my usual account (@hayles) as well…I’ll try to keep the amount of bus tweets on either account to the minimum rage!

Dress: ASOS | Belt: ASOS | Shoes: Primark

I stalked this dress down on ASOS for a while – by the time I decided I wanted it, it was out of stock in the size I wanted. Thanks to the ASOS mobile site and the saved items bit, it finally popped up in my size and I couldn’t jab buy quick enough! I’m not sure about it though. I love the style, and I love the colours (um, stripes. Whatever) but midi length…the model is only 2 inches taller than me, but I feel so swamped in the skirt. I can’t decide whether I should keep it at this length, or shorten it so it sits just below my knee. Its pretty odd to be saying something needs to be shorter though, I’m usually complaining things aren’t long enough!

I wore this dress yesterday to go wedding dress shopping with my friend Ally. Very exciting, as I’ve never been shopping for this kind of dress with anyone before. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to try on any of the dresses – I have no interest in getting married any time soon, but c’mon, I like dresses. I used to go and try on all the ball gowns in Monsoon in my uni town too often. If I had events and the money, I’d have a whole room dedicated to ball gowns. I still have all my ball gowns from school and uni. To then spend an afternoon watching someone else trying on some beautiful dresses was just torture.

The shops were located in Clifton though, which meant a good excuse to take Ally to Lahloo Pantry and Cordial and Grace – both of which I discovered through the #cliftoncakecrawl, which is still one of the most fun Sunday afternoons I’ve had in a long time.

This week has been too much about food though – tea and cake yesterday, trying my first bubble tea at HK Diner on Park Street today (verdict: YUM but odd. The little jelly texture balls were an odd thing to get while drinking the creamy strawberry slushie), sushi with Alex on Thursday (Yo! Sushi is having Blue Thursdays as well as the usual Blue Mondays this month, and I can’t turn down eating as much sushi as possible) and yet another epic Fabulous Food Night at Goldbrick House – this month was beef. I went with some of my colleagues, where we were served things like Asian oxtail broth with a crispy wonton, steak tartare (amazing) and little canapes of Yorkshire puddings with roast beef and horseradish cream.

I think this week might be a good time to start a diet…!

Wondering how to hold a bloggers event that will be talked about for weeks afterwards? Here’s the Aussie guide:

Take one large room.

Fill it with bloggers from all over the country.

Lubricate generously with glasses of champagne

Beautiful cupcakes will get everyones attention (and be the star of many photos)

Voila! One talked about event.

I luuuuuurve these ladies, which I think you can tell by the rather special look on my face. I wonder what was being said here.

So a few weekends ago (really? THAT long ago?) before Easter, I hopped on a train to London looking much too dressed up for a Saturday morning with the usual collection of snacks (I remember when a long journey meant crisps and fizzy drinks. Now its fruit leather and mini brushetta from the M&S Count on Us range (seriously yummy low cal food) *sigh*) and soon found myself in Covent Garden trying to pop my high heels on before I got to the venue. I met up with the birthday girl Fiona at the door and we made our way in.

It was an interesting event, in that it was totally different to any of the other Aussie events I’ve been to before. I’ve been an Angel since the very start of all this and thought I knew what to expect. It’s good to be surprised though!

I could explain why Sarah and I are making S’ at each other with our hands, but I don’t think you’re cool enough to know about MASH.

Photos nabbed from the 1000Heads Flickr because I was too busy laughing like an idiot to take any photos.

TK Maxx is collecting your unwanted clothes, accessories and homeware this April to give to Cancer Research to be sold in their charity shops around the country. They’ve been doing this since 2004, and have so far raised £10 million, with £6 million specifically going to fun research into children’s cancer. The money is sent to both research centres and hospitals around the country – in Bristol, funding is given to the Univeristy of Bristol’s research into childhood brain tumours. Nearer to my hometown, Alder Hey is given funding to do research into various trials.

That dress that doesn’t suit you anymore will fetch £7 for Cancer Research. The skirt that you swore you’d slim into will get £5. Shoes that don’t go with anything will also bring in £5 while a handbag will raise £8.

I have a huge pile of stuff I keep meaning to eBay – I keep putting it off because I don’t think that it will be worth the time and effort to take the photos and list everything individually, so I could donate it instead. Time saved, and a warm glow inside from helping to raise money for an important charity. Whats not to love?

Dress: ASOS | Necklaces: Primark and COS | (Leather) Shoes (er…not seen): New Look (similar from KG*)

So this outfit is from the Aussie Angels event that took place last weekend? Weekend before? I’m still feeling a bit mixed up with my days from the Easter break. I have so many things to post about lately, but have been feeling very unmotivated to do anything. Blah! Any tips on how to shift the blogging blues?

Slightly related, I started a new Tumblr this week to post about the little things that make me happy, because looking at that sort of list would make me happy anyway! If you’d like to see it, its called “Finding Joy in my Day”

Yesterday, I went to a cooking school in Clifton and learnt about making lots of yummy brunch foods – after making them, we had to eat them. I still feel a bit “Man vs Food” about it all! After that, Bonny and I walked down into Cabot Circus for a bit of shopping with a bit of a detour for tea at Swinky Sweets where we spotted these fab cupcake bouquets – I’ve never been the sort of girl to love big bouquets of flowers, so this is perfect for me!