My Week That Was

I took the idea for the name of this post from the company which I am interning at. Last thing on a Friday afternoon each week we all have to attend an informal meeting in the bar to highlight the highs and lows of the week. It's a really lovely idea where everyone gets together with a glass of wine or a beer in the bar at work and tells each other about the week they have had. Each team takes it in turns to tell the rest of the company the highlights of their week, their successes and any problems they have overcome, so that everyone feels informed about the happenings throughout the company. So here is my week that was...

Monday - I read an article in the Daily Mail about Amanda Holden wearing the peplum dress from Kelly Brook's New Look range that I featured in my post here and it mentioned that it was in the sale! When I got my email announcing the start of the sale last week I specifically checked to see whether this dress had gone into the sale and when I saw it hadn't I was really disappointed. They must of changed their minds because when I clicked back on it had gone in the sale, reduced from £40 to £18! Naturally it jumped straight into my basket and I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day! Also, my Graze box arrived full of more yummy goodies which I can't wait to taste. It's sitting on the table now tempting me to try something...

Tuesday - It was my mum's birthday today and it happened to fall on her day off work so she popped into town to meet me on my lunch break so we could have lunch together. It was really nice. We hadn't been able to give her either of her presents on the day because they hadn't been delivered in time so I thought treating her to lunch would be a mini present to keep her going until her others arrive!

Wednesday - For the second week running I took advantage of Orange Wednesdays with my sister. Last week we went to watch Five Year Engagement because it had a great cast but I thought the film was a bit of a let down with a predictable and unexciting storyline. This week we went to see Katy Perry film Part of Me. I'm not a crazy Katy Perry fan but I took my sister to see her Part of Me tour in Nottingham for her birthday last year so thought it would be nice to relive the experience. I'm not a big fan of documentaries either so didn't have high expectations about the film but I'm surprised to say that I really enjoyed it. I found it really interesting, thought Katy came across really well and reminded me how heartfelt the lyrics to some of her songs are. I didn't realise she wrote her songs herself and it makes you appreciate that she is a talented songwriter. It also renewed my faith in some 'celebrities' actually being normal people. She obviously has a mad life and comes across a bit crazy but she seems like a really genuine person.

Thursday - What do you do when you have an hours lunch and nothing to do? Hit H&M of course. Luckily they'd cleared out most of their old sale stuff and had brought some newer clothes in. I managed to pick up a really cute peach dress with a white collar to wear to work with tights or if we eventually get some sunshine with bare legs. I also grabbed a lovely mint and peach two-tone leather bag for just £20. They had it in two different colours and I spend ages deliberating over which one to get. The other was electric blue and neon yellow which are two colours I love together but I thought the other option was safer. I also picked up a couple of rose gold items - a necklace and a spikey hair tie - because I've been craving rose gold jewellery for a while and knew I would get a lot of wear out of them this summer.

Friday - A second graze box(?!) which was completely unexpected/unpaid for arrived on my doorstep this morning. This really was a surprise and I must have been sent it by mistake but I'm not complaining. Double the amount of goodies in one week for half the price!!! I went to my boyfriends and had a much needed TV evening to help me recover from a pretty hectic week I'd had at work.

I have a busy weekend what with spending time with my boyfriend before he goes to Thailand for a few weeks, going to watch my sister's dance show and hosting a family party on Sunday. Although I know I'll be exhausted come monday morning I'm really looking forward to it!

Oh Beautiful Betty's

The first thing my mum said when my dad told her we were going to Harrogate was 'we have to go to Betty's' and like hell did we! We managed to visit a different Betty's on each day of our break and all three were just as we had imagined.

For those who had not heard of Betty's before like me, well they are pretty legendary in Yorkshire. The first Betty's was opened in the early 1990s in Harrogate and expanded into other towns and cities in the area. It was famous for it's afternoon tea and amazing cakes and bakery. The business has been passed down through the family and is as famous and well-loved today as it was back then.

We visited to the original Betty's in Harrogate first, followed by the Betty's in York and then in Harlow Carr. The history of the tea rooms is still visible in the beautiful ornate buildings they are located in within the towns. The Harlow Carr one was a bit different as it was at a RHS Garden and was situated in a newer building but all the aspects of Betty's that the people of Yorkshire and from far beyond have become fond of were still present.

There were queues from the outside of the doors along the street at both the Harrogate and York Betty's showing just how popular they were. We didn't sit inside these two Betty's partly because we didn't have time to queue but also me and my dad aren't fans of tea or coffee so it seemed like it would be a bit of a waste to pay so much money for afternoon tea and waste half of it. We did spend a long time looking around the shop and bakery next to the tea rooms though at all the delicious breads, cakes, chocolates, jams and chutneys they had produced.

The Harlow Carr Betty's was much quieter but was just the same inside. The waitresses were all dressed in their very smart uniforms and the food available was identical to that of the original Betty's. We all sampled a different Betty's speciality cake and each was delicious but their famous macaroons really did steal the show!

Betty's was the perfect place to stock up on gifts to take back for our family and friends. Ever since we went to Paris in Easter my boyfriend has fallen in love with macaroons so when I saw a box of macaroons looking so elegant in the Betty's window I knew that they were the gift for him. They were wrapped so beautifully and looked so delicious. So delicious in fact that me and my sister couldn't resist buying an extra macaroon to share between ourselves for the walk home. We chose a strawberry one and I can tell you that it was the most incredible macaroon I have ever tasted.

If you are ever in the Yorkshire area then visiting a Betty's tea room really is a must. The attention to detail is incredible, the waitresses so attentive, the cakes so delicious and the history of the family so interesting to experience.

A Mini Break in Harrogate Part 2

On Sunday, we decided to have a look around Harrogate itself. In the Valley Gardens across the road from the apartment they were having the 'Big Picnic' so we had a look around the various stalls and activities that were going on. One thing that all my family commented on was how friendly the people from Yorkshire seemed to be. Everyone was really willing to have a little chat with you and were very helpful with directions or advice on places to go and see. The picnic had such a lovely family atmosphere and we really enjoyed spending the morning walking the gardens and soaking up the sun!

We then walked further into Harrogate centre and all around the town. It wasn't as big as York and there wasn't so much to see or do but it was still a really pretty place.

We then went back to the apartment for bacon and brie sandwiches and to get all patriotic and support Andy Murray in the Wimbledon final! My mum and sister aren't such a big fan of sport though and they soon got bored so during the rain break in the tennis we went for a walk to Betty's tea rooms at Harlow Carr. It was the third Betty's we had stopped at during the weekend but the only one we had purchased cakes from! It was about a 3 mile round trip walk through the pine woods to Harlow Carr and was lovely. Along the way we got some really great views across Harrogate and the surrounding areas because we were so high up.

We stopped for ice cream on the way back because we were so tired and needed an energy boost! We are so glad we did though because we found the most incredible ice cream parlour called Vanilli's. It was just at the end of our road and we had seen it the evening before but it was all closed up. The ice cream was AMAZING and came in the most incredible flavours. It was all homemade on the premises and I sampled a few different flavours before landing on a scoop of Cookies and Cream and a scoop of Jammie Dodger. Both were so good and made me want to go back for more! My sister had honeycomb and Cherry pie and my mum had Mint Choc Chip.

We had a great few days away and loved our first taste of Yorkshire. Now time to get back into work mode and finish the last 6 weeks of my internship before I jet off to the sun for a couple of holidays! I can't wait.

A Mini Break in Harrogate Part 1

I'm not sure whether my Dad has been reading my blog or whether he has the powers of the character in 'What Women Want' but on Friday morning my Dad surprised us with a trip to Harrogate for the weekend. He'd booked a last minute deal on an apartment just out of the centre of Harrogate so needless to say there was a lot of excitement in my house! We set off on the 3 hour journey and soon arrived at a beautifully decorated and furnished apartment in a perfect location - overlooking the lovely Valley Gardens and just a 5 minute walk from the centre of Harrogate.

We went out for a lovely meal to Prezzo on the Friday evening and then went for a little walk around Harrogate before we collapsed into our beds for a much awaited long nights rest. We slept for a good 12 hours.

When we woke in the morning me and my dad went for a lovely run around the Valley Gardens. The sun was shining and we went and explored the beautiful park on our doorstep. We then all headed out to York for the day which is about a 30 minute drive from Harrogate. York really was beautiful. When we left we all found ourselves longing to go back and promising that we would visit York again soon. It is a stunning city and we were so lucky with the weather that we could just wander around all the little streets and along the river and city walls all day.

We started down by the river. It had burst it's banks on the opposite bank due to the amount of rainfall they had so riverboat cruises had been cancelled which was a bit of a shame but we still had a walk along the side of the river and over the bridges. 

Who knew they had a big wheel in York as well? I didn't go on of course, I have a major fear of heights!

We then sat down in the lovely gardens in York to eat our picnic and engage in a bit of people watching - definitely the best sport. For the rest of the afternoon we explored York on foot, visiting the Minster and all the little streets in and around the centre of York.

We had a walk down the Shambles, went into lots of little cute boutique shops as well as some well-known stores. I managed to stumble upon the Mulberry factory shop but it was still too expensive so we all stared through the window in awe making a mental dream list of which bags we would love to buy!

We also went in Cath Kidston and bought some ice cream from a lovely little parlour. We found time to walk part of the city walls and have a stroll through the various lovely gardens and parks that are dotted all over the city of York. After a very tiring day we collapsed back into the car to head home, picking up a Chinese on the way!

Graze

I've been really impressed with the Graze box that was posted through my letterbox on Thursday morning. Much more impressed than the one I received last year full of nuts and seeds. You can probably tell that I'm not naturally a healthy eater, I love food too much! I have been trying really hard to be healthy though but let's see how long that will last. So Graze has been a god send really, providing me with healthy snacks in perfectly sized little containers that I can pop in my bag before work each day and that satisfy my 3 o'clock afternoon cravings.

I forgot to take a picture of my box when it first arrived (whoops!) so here it is with one of the snacks missing.

The My Thai snack was my favourite one which contains corn snacks with a thai flavouring on them as well as a dipping pot of sweet chilli sauce. It tasted so good!

The other three snacks were all really nice as well though. The summer berry flapjacks were really scrummy. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with flapjacks. I enjoy them if they are moist and full of flavour but I find that if you get a really dry flapjack then it can be really horrible. Although the jaffa cake had hazelnuts in, the orange sultanas and chocolate buttons made them actually taste nice as they complemented each other really well. And finally the Garden of England was really nice. I don't normally like dried fruits but my favourite were the baby strawberries.

They were all really nice and I will definitely keep ordering the box for the forseeable future. Sometimes when I snack on fruit I feel really unsatifisfied after and want to have a biscuit or something but with these snacks I felt really contented :).

Pros of Graze-

• Comes with a really great little book telling you about the nutritional content of each of your snacks (and to help you remember what you have had when you've thrown the packet away)
• Encourages you to go on and rate your snacks - Bin, Try, Like and Love - as well as a 'Send Soon' option so you never have to be sent snacks you don't like
• Fits perfectly through your letterbox so you don't have to worry about being in to receive it
• It is really easy to change which day your box is delivered, how frequent it is and you can easily delay it if you go on holiday
• It can be cancelled at any time so you aren't tied into a contract with Graze
• There are often deals available such as getting your first box free and second and third half price.
• And when you sign up you get vouchers to give to friends so that they get their first box free too and if any of your friends sign up then you get money off your boxes
• It is relatively inexpensive even when you have used up all your discounts. I think it is £3.49 per box which for 4 different snacks I don't think is too bad.

Cons of Graze -

• There are still probably too many nuts or seeds for my liking so hopefully they will continue to extend their range further in to different snacks
• The 'Send Soon' option isn't available on many of my favourite snacks, maybe because they are too popular, which is annoying as it means I may never get to try them
• I would imagine that if they have run out of all the foods that you have marked as 'Like' or 'Love' or 'Try' (which is very rare) then you might get sent something you marked as 'Bin'

Rating - 8/10
Reason - I haven't find a similar service to Graze out there and it takes the hassle out of healthy snacking, increasing the variety of foods that you eat. It is great for busy parents or workers who are health conscious but don't have the time to search around for healthy snacks.

Holiday Planning

I am crying out for a holiday so badddd! I feel so exhausted at the moment what with going straight from my second year of university and exams into a 12 week internship! A holiday is exactly what the doctor ordered but sadly I have to wait until the end of August to go. When I think about it 10 weeks isn't too long a time and I am really grateful to be going away but I wish it was just that little bit sooner. We are going to Portugal and I'm already excited! Ironically I am scared of flying but I make myself do it because living in England I would go mad if I didn't flee to the sun at least once a year!

Hearing about everyone else's amazing trips abroad have made me crave a holiday this year more than most. So many people at work are either on holiday, have just got back or are going in the next couple of weeks. Being a student many of my friends are also spending the summer interrailing or exploring the world. Part of me wishes I could go too but landing an internship at a marketing agency isn't likely to come round too often so I am grateful for the opportunity I have been given.

As if one holiday to Portugal is not enough, me and my boyfriend are going to book a late deal abroad somewhere in September time once our internships have finished and the schools have gone back. We are hoping that will make it doubly cheap but that we will still have a good choice of places to go. I only have two criteria for my holiday: sunshine and sea.

I created a collage of places I'd love to visit for inspiration and to get me thinking about where we could go...

Top left: Croatia, Top middle: Croatia, Top right: Croatia, Centre left: Tenerife, Centre middle: Italy, Centre right: Lanzarote, Bottom left: Ibiza, Bottom middle: Malta, Bottom right: Italy

Having done a bit research I have been most drawn to Croatia so at the moment it has jumped to the top of my list of destinations to ask the travel agent about

Yo! Sushi

I have been wanting to try out Yo! Sushi for a while now so last week the £2.12 offer in honour of the Olympics came at the perfect time for me to find out what I'd been missing. This offer is only on at 12 Yo! Sushi's across the country until Friday so we were lucky that the one in Birmingham had the offer on. We went on Wednesday evening to try out a selection of their dishes and we weren't disappointed at all!

I had 4 different plates of sushi - Chicken Katsu, Duck Gyoza, Prawn Tempura and Salmon Nigiri. My favourite dish was the Duck Gyoza. It reminded me of duck and hoisin pancakes you get for starters at the chinese but in a little parcel. I also really like how they provide the nutritional information of all their dishes on their website so that if you are trying to be healthy, like me, you can work out which dishes you can eat without feeling too naughty! My selection of dishes came to 500 calories which I think is really good for an evening meal. It also only cost me £8.48 for the food - bargain! The service was great and I thought that it had a really lively and fun atmosphere and the staff were all really friendly and helpful especially as it was our first visit!

Salmon Nigiri (and my child's chopsticks)

Prawn teriyaki

Left: Chicken katsu; Right: Duck gyoza (half eaten)

My final positive about Yo! Sushi is that they do a great offers such as Blue Mondays in which all plates are £2.40 on a Monday or alternatively 25% off for students all year round, Tues-Fri and Sundays. They also do a mega offer called Super Sumo Sundays where you get all you can eat for £19.50 but I don't think I would eat enough to get my money's worth so that one doesn't really appeal to me!

Rating - 9/10
Reason - The food, service and atmosphere were all great. I love the novelty of the conveyor belt and the water taps on your table. The food was so tasty and with their weekly deal nights it was a really affordable meal. Will definitely be paying another visit soon!

My Thoughts on Healthier Eating

I have been consciously attempting to eat more healthily recently in preperation for my upcoming summer holiday to Portugal. I find that I always put on weight over christmas, partly because I think our bodies naturally store more fat over the colder months but also because I am less careful about what I eat during the christmas holidays. It doesn't really bother me because everyone wraps up in layers of clothes anyway so putting on a few pounds is hardly noticeable but as the weather gets warmer and everyone starts wearing skimpier outfits I always become more body conscious and try to eat more healthily.

I wouldn't say I particularly have a bad diet even when I just eat whatever I want when I want but when I'm at uni and over my summer last year I did go to the gym about 4 times a week so I could be quite flexible with what I ate. Sadly due to my internship I just won't have enough time to make it worth me getting a gym membership for three months over the summer so instead I am eating more healthily. I am trying to walk to and from work when the weathers nice (this has only occured twice over the first two weeks of my internship thanks to the rain) which takes about 35 minutes each way at a brisk walking pace. I have also been going out running with my dad at the weekends.

I am not one to agree with 'fad' diets like those that 'celebrities' such as Lauren Goodger from TOWIE use to lose weight. I think they are quite an irresponsible way of losing weight and that as soon as they go back to eating normal food they will just pile the pounds back on quickly. Instead, I think it is better to make subtle changes to your diet but ones that can be sustained so that you lose weight gradually and don't feel like you are depriving yourself.

Therefore, I have made some amendments to my everyday food consumption in an attempt to lose a few pounds for the summer and feel more body confident. One of the hardest changes I have made is to cut out my family's weekly saturday night chinese takeaway mainly because they still have it but instead I cook myself a home made chinese dish. It really did take a lot of will power at the beginning but now I really look forward to having my healthier chinese meal and even prefer it to the takeaway! This is the only drastic change I would say I have made to my diet as I haven't cut any other food out completely as I think it is too unrealistic.

Normally I make my own salad in the morning for lunch before I go to work so then I don't have to spend an outrageous amount of money buying one from a shop during my lunch break and I know exactly what is going into my salad. Typically my salad has around 250 calories in it but is really yummy and I feel really full after it.

Being at uni has made me realise how much I enjoy cooking and love food so most evenings I will come home from my internship and cook my family's evening meal. This is also partly so that my mum gets a rest in the evenings after a busy day of work. Typical meals I cook include a variety of stirfrys, currys, salmon with pesto, lasagne, shepherds pie and sometimes fajitas as a treat.

Other changes I have made include cutting down on the amount of bread and potatoes I eat. This has partly been helped by having salads rather than sandwiches or jacket potatoes for lunch. Also when we have a sunday roast I will either have a small amount of mashed potato or sweet potato rather than a pile of roast potatoes. When I go for meals out now I always tend to check online at the restaurant's website before I go as most of them nowadays have their calories listed for each meal which allows me to see which are the healthier options on the menu. We only go out for special occassions so I will often just choose whatever I want without even considering the healthiness of the meal but having started looking at the calories for each sometimes I don't think it is worth having a really calorific meal when I would enjoy one much lower in calories just as much. The amount of calories in some of the meals that restaurants serve up does really shock me as they contain over 1000 calories in just one main course!

My main problem area was snacking. I found it really hard to snack healthily and I am not one of those people that can go for 4 or 5 hours between meals without eating anything. Snacks that I eat now include apples, grapes, yoghurts and cereal bars. I have also replaced crisps with salt and vinegar snack-a-jacks because they are much healthier and I prefer the taste of them. Finally, I have reduced the amount of chocolate/cake/puddings/sweet things that I eat which was really hard as I would naturally go to our 'treat' cupboard if I was ever hungry or once I'd finished my meal. I have now trained myself not to do this instinctively but do still have the occassional treat if I am really craving one.

This post was really just to highlight that people can still lose weight without going on one of these fitness bootcamps or crash diets and in a way which is much more sympathetic to your body as it does not cause it serious damage. Since I have been eating more healthily I have managed to lose just under half a stone and I really don't feel like I am missing out on anything as if I really want something then I will go ahead and have it!

My Busy Day

Since I moved home from uni for the summer a couple of weeks ago I have been working on my internship at a marketing agency near to my house. It's been really intense since I went straight from exams into the internship so I was really relieved to take the day off yesterday even if it was to travel back to Nottingham to collect my results for 2nd year. I also had to do one last clean of my room in my student house so that I could hand my keys back to my landlord. I'm moving to a different house next year with a few different girls which I'm really excited about so I couldn't leave anything in Nottingham and had to bring it all home with me.

After packing everything up we headed back home and no sooner had we arrived than me and my boyfriend had gotten straight on the train into Birmingham to go shopping. Due to my busy workload I haven't really had any chance to go clothes shopping for the past 2 months so I was dying to go! The main purpose of our shopping trip however was to buy a present for my boyfriend's sister whose birthday it is today. Happy Birthday Laura if you ever read this!

We then rushed over to Laura's flat in the Mailbox in Birmingham to give her the presents we'd bought her and then all made a mad dash back to my boyfriend's house so that we could get ready to go out for a meal in the evening. We went to a meditteranean restaurant called Ego in Lichfield which we'd been to once before and loved the first time. Once again, it lived up to our expectations and the food was yummy, the atmosphere lively and the view across the lake lovely. So all in all it was a very enjoyable but hectic day. Now I'm looking forward to a day of rest tomorrow before we go out in the evening to celebrate Laura's birthday in a few bars in Birmingham.

My Very First Post

Hi! I'm Emily. I've been reading lifestyle and fashion blogs for over a year now and have toyed with the idea of creating my own but I've been a bit apprehensive. However, I decided to take the plunge and start my own blog, a little place to call my own online.
So, a little bit about me: I'm a 20 year old student studying at Nottingham University but originally from a suburb in Birmingham. I've just finished my second year at uni and have moved back home for the Summer. I'm interested in working in marketing when I graduate so thought that a blog would be a great way to start getting a bit more creative. I love reading lifestyle, fashion and beauty blogs and my evenings involve flicking through some of my favourites to see what new content has been posted since I last checked! I know what I enjoy about other blogs so I will hopefully bear that in mind before I post. That said, I am planning on posting all different kind of content on my blog - I don't want to restrict myself to any areas and I'm excited to see which direction my blog takes me. I haven't got any expectations about this blog and I've only set one mini goal which is that I hope my happiness comes across in my posts.