A Week In The Life #4

 

 Hope you all had a lovely weekend?

 Sorry I’ve been a bit quiet on Twitter and the blog at the moment. There’s a very good explanation though – I got Netflix about a week ago, so I’ve been sucked into a black hole of Breaking Bad. I know I’m so late onto the wagon with that, but its taking over my life! I don’t really watch much TV in general, but I really like being able to watch things when I want to. But that’s resulted in me binge-watching that and Gossip Girl re-runs, and then I realised this weekend that I hadn’t been on Twitter at all!

 So my ‘Week in the Life’ is a little light this week, but you can fill in all the gaps with me catching up with Walter White and Blair Waldorf…

 White Out

In homage to the more spring like weather, I had ‘Tipp-Ex’ nails. This polish is actually pretty cool because its textured as well. It’s called ‘Sugar Dust’ from Sally Hansen, and it leaves your nails sort of granulated, just like you’ve dipped them into a bowl of sugar. I picked up the same polish in black too, but they also had a host of really nice spring pastels. The only problem is, its horrible to remove – even worse than glitter polish!

Meet The Reggie

On Friday night, I went out with some work colleagues to Annie’s Freehouse. I’ve visited here loads of times and it never gets old. Basically, they sell deluxe, American diner-style burgers that are just the most amazingly tasty things I’ve ever eaten! They have some really imaginative combinations as well, from a ‘Lemmy’ burger with Jack Daniels sauce (which apparently the man himself tried and approved) to the ‘Vermonter’, which comes with mini pancakes, bacon and maple syrup, and the ‘Elvis’ with peanut butter and raspberry jam – I’ve had all of these and can confirm they are delicious!

Annie’s used to be part of a local pub, but they’re so popular and legendary that they’ve recently moved into their own premises, and this is the first time I’ve visited them since they moved. They had new burgers on the menu, so I had the ‘Reggie’ this time, which was just American cheese and bacon. It was so delicious! Although look at the size of them - I could hardly move afterwards! I’m already planning my next visit. If you find yourself in Nottingham, I would highly recommend a trip there!

A Year in the Life

It’s a year ago since I started my current job, so I was celebrating my work anniversary! This job can be challenging at times, we’re all doing more for less, and I look after a big department with a very high profile agenda, but I am enjoying it. Mainly because of the people - my colleagues are all so lovely, and even when we’re up against it, we manage to have a good laugh at the same time, which is so important. I’ve felt at home there since day one (possibly because I had worked with some of them before a few years ago!).

The job I came from before was a nightmare, in so many ways. It was a bad set-up and a horrible, unsupportive environment. I got bullied by my boss, although I didn’t know that’s what it was at time - you assume no-one of that age in that position would do that kind of thing, so you try to rationalise it. I’m quite a confident person usually and I’d like to think I’d never stand to be victimised, but its very hard to stand up for yourself when the person doing it is in a position of power in the company. I wasn’t the first person to go through this there and I believe the company knew what was going on, there was such a high turnover in the team. I was drowning there and it really affected my confidence.

Now that I’m out of there, I’m almost glad for the experience, if only because it taught me how bad things can be and what to appreciate. I genuinely feel so blessed to be in a job now where I look forward to going in, and I feel like I’m making a difference and people are pleased with my work. It means a lot.

So, there was cake to celebrate. I made a chocolate mousse cake with Madagascan vanilla pod cream and strawberries and raspberries on top – it was gone in about 60 seconds so I was glad I snapped a pic.

Rock Around the Clock

It was my stepmother’s 60th birthday at the weekend, so we had a big party to celebrate. It was so nice to spend some time with family and to see some faces I don’t get to see very often. The party was held at this really nice delicatessen-café-bar in the town where she and my dad live that had been hired out for the occasion, and the food was so great, I must have eaten my bodyweight in juicy olives and chorizo nibbles! For pudding, I chose this giant pavlova which was all gooey in the centre…heaven!

The party had a 50’s theme (if you couldn't tell from the picture!) . I’m not majorly into dressing up but I enjoyed giving it a nod with my hair and make-up.

I went for a pin-up girl look, following a video tutorial on YouTube- my hair was curled using my Babyliss Jumbo Curler and a good spritz of Umberto Giannini Old School Setting Lotion to keep the style in place. I then made a deep side-parting. My fringe section I rolled into a sort of ‘victory roll’ and pinned into place, then swept the opposite side away from my face and pinned up using a large flower hair clip. The whole thing was finished with a coating of Tigi Catwalk Session Stylist hairspray. I really loved this style, it felt so glamorous and everyone was really nice about it – it was actually very easy to do!

With make-up I went for that classic ‘old Hollywood’ look – very powdery, matte skin, red lips and thin black liner. I used Mac Studio Sculpt foundation with a pump of Seventeen Skin Wow, finished with some Chanel Poudre Universelle to matte things down and kill any shine.


My eyes were done with the Sleek Nudes palette – matte white on the lids, pale brown in the crease and along the lower lashline. I used a black liquid liner to get a thin line along the top lashes, and set it with the black matte shadow from the Sleek palette. Lashes got two coats of Benefit They’re Real followed by a pair of Active Glamour wispy falsies. And my pout was courtesy of Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in ‘Vega’, a dark cherry red.

I tried to make my outfit nod to the period without being full-on fancy dress – I ended up wearing a flared, halterneck sundress from Primark (the most 50’s thing I own at the moment!), with a little cropped knitted cardigan from H&M that I’ve had for years. I cinched the whole thing in with a thick tan leather waist belt from Ted Baker- probably not the most authentic belt, but the dress needs something to stop it puffing out too much around the waist.

It was a really special evening and so lovely to spend some time together. My stepmother’s two sons were there (I don’t call them my step brothers because we didn’t grow up together) but we get on really well and I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like. It was a really special evening celebrating. She is also about to retire in a couple of months, and her and my dad are full of all these great plans to go off travelling and things –I’m jealous!

So that was my week, how was yours?