A day in the life of....

So I've had a few people saying that they really liked my more honest approach to my life in my 'The Perfect World' post. It's always nice to get some positive feedback, especially when I ummmed and aaahed over whether to 'shatter the illusion' by posting it online for all to see.

I thought I might try and write a few more on how my life actually is rather than how I wish my life could be.

A prime example of this and one that shows just how lazy I actually am - a make-up artist friend of mine has invited me to an event on Tuesday to hang out with models. My first thought...'But I'll miss Big Brother!' wasn't exactly what my first reaction should have been (and yes it's still on and yes I really do enjoy watching it). I've basically turned into this boring woman in her twenties when instead of going out and whooping it up around town I would rather slob on the sofa. Every year I make a resolution that I am going to do more in London but I'm not sure why I bother. I make the same resolution about learning to drive and losing 2 stone but it's never going to happen, especially when I plan on winning the lottery so I can hire a driver and I'm never going to lose weight when there is fried chicken in the world.

This week I have actually been busy - I went to my friends house for drinks and a microwave meal on Monday, I worked an event on Tuesday, Wednesday is pub quiz night, Thursday I'm going to Wimbledon and Friday I am travelling to Bath. I am knackered though and all I want is to sit at home and watch reruns of Friends. I'm honestly so tired that I keep going to the toilet, resting my head against the wall and having 5 minute power naps. The tiredness might also have something to do with the fact that I drank 5 large glasses of wine at this event last night and got home late. I also threw up a little bit in my mouth on the way home, which meant I had that horrible burning sensasion in my throat for the whole hour and 20 minute journey home. To treat myself this morning after the horrible ordeal I bought a can of full fat Coke but upon opening said coca cola I realised it was in fact Vanilla. Vanilla! Why do they even make this crap.

So now I''m trying to keep my eyes open at my desk, whilst drinking a drink that's worse than Pepsi (and that's saying something) and contemplating how I can make it through the rest of the week without a)seriously damaging my liver b)ending up with massive bags under my eyes and c)not eating any of my 5 a day and living on microwave mac and cheese meals because they are convinenent. Fuck it - I might just go all out and get a kebab wrap on the way home instead. At least there will be lettuce and cabbage in it....

Ladies and Gentlemen. What it's really like to be a girl in her twenties living in London.

C xxx

Wine & Cheese & Quiz night

Last weekend Leigh and I hosted our first (of many I hope) Wine, Cheese and Quiz night. I had been given a couple of quiz books for my Birthday and as a group of friends we do rather enjoy a quiz. We asked everyone to B.Y.O.C and they all stepped up their game and in the end we had 17 cheeses! We actually ended up with a couple of doubled up cheeses which was fine by me.

Leigh and I provided crisps, dips, quiche, bread, pickled onions and 2 melted Camemberts and then we were provided with a large loaf of tiger bread, baguettes, grapes, Port sault, Caerphilly, Brie, Wensleydale with cranberry, Smoked cheese, Edam, Cheddar with garlic and chive, Smoked sausage cheese, and Boursin.

We all tucked in, with the Cheddar being the surprising favourite and the melted Camemberts not far behind that. We managed to polish off both. In fact we managed to eat practically all of the cheese and drank all of the wine that had been bought along for the occasion too, although I have a distinct lack of wine glasses as they keep smashing so I gave my remaining wine glasses to my guests and I drank my wine out of a mug!

We left the cheese on the sideboard whilst we played several quiz rounds. We had some incredible cheese themed team names, such as, 'Your team may be Gouda, but this one is Feta' and 'I used to work as a cheesemonger, but I camembert it any longer', and they got more creative the more wine that was consumed.  We also kept stopping every so often to nibble at a little bit more cheese, it's quite addictive! I wish I had got more pictures but to tell you the truth it all went so quickly it was quite impossible to.

Say Cheese!

We sent everyone home at around 1am, wishing them all very pleasant cheese filled dreams.

xxx

My Birthday!

As usual I like it best when my birthday is spread out over as many days as possible and this year has been no acception to that. Normally in the 6 months up to my birthday it is all I can go on about but this year I have been strangley quiet about the whole affair. This might have something to do with the fact that I have no entered in to the slow and steady 30's hill and the only way is down. No more can I say I am in my early or even mid twenties. I am 26. Oh the horror!

Now that I've added just a hint of melodrama to the post I can continue. This year I decided to join forces with another friend of mine who is also on the slippery slope and we chose the Monopoly Pub Crawl as the best place to begin. As my birthday was on a Monday and his on a Tuesday we decided to do it the Saturday before, inviting about 80 people and knowing that only 10 where going to turn up at best.

If you havent ever done the Monopoly Pub Crawl it really is great fun. This was the second time that I have attempted it, making your way round 26 pubs from 10.30am - midnight and drinking 13 pints (you have half pints at each pub) this is not a challenge for the faint hearted. Its almost impossible to keep to the time limits and last time we made it round 20 of the 26, feeling satisfied with out attempt. This year we wanted to try and beat our previous record however.

You can download the route here (we went for the quickest way, not the in-order of the board way). It's such a good experience but you do have to be prepared to move quickly, you can't really sit around or you wont make it round. Rather than bore you with the repetition of - we went to a pub, we had a half pint, we moved on - here are some fun pictures of the day!

We made it round 21 pubs in the end and went and got a chinese at 12.30am to celebrate!

***

On my actual birthday I woke up relatively early and opened all my presents :) My parent's got me a digital photo frame and some kitchen ceramics. My wonderful boyfriend bought me this gorgeous necklace which creates little rainbows if it catches in the sun and its just perfect.

I took the day off work as I think its the one day that I shouldn't have to work but as luck would have it the rain decided that it was a good time to show up and so my previous plan of a picnic went out of the window. Instead we spent a couple of hours uploading pictures on to the new photo frame before moving on to the very important baking of the birthday cupcakes. If you are a avid reader of my blog you will know how much I love to bake but I decided it was my birthday and I was going to be lazy so they were made courtsey of our good friend Betty Crocker.

Once they were iced and had cooled we packed some up and headed into town and Oxford Street so I could do a little bit of shopping before Leigh took me out for dinner at a yummy pizza place called Pizza Pilgrims. They serve wine in big carafes and I had a black pepper salmi pizza and Leigh had spicy sausage.

After that we went to go and meet my close friends for a few drinks, blowing out of a tealight (nobody had candles!) and general merrymaking. It was quite lovely.

Thank you to everyone who celebrated with me one way or another, and to the woman at the pub who ID'd me on my birthday so I got to hand it over with a "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY" cry. Also thank you for thinking I look young enough to get ID'd, you made my night.

xxx