Saint Caffe the Independent Coffee shop!!

I absolutely adore this independent coffee shop!! They have the best coffees and service around, thank god because I was giving up for my quest for perfect coffee!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Birmingham-United-Kingdom/Saint-Caffe/159378133120

No.1 Holiday for 2010

Wooohoooo flight to Athens BOOKED!! : ) now let the researching and "holiday clothes shopping" begin! : )

Travel Destination Wish List.

Here is a checklist of all the places I would love to visit in the world : )

1. Nice Cote d'azur
2. Santorini
3. Monaco
4. Athens 30.04.10
5. Egypt
6. Honk Kong
7. California
8. Maldives
9. Fiji
10. New York (I've already been before but it was just a day trip during my stay in DC)
11. Tokyo
12. Whitsundays, Australia

To be continued...

If you guys have been to any of these places and got some tips or recommendations please tell me about it! : )

I gots the holiday feeling!

With the sun rays shining all day long it has certainly given me the holiday bug and it got me thinking about the places I would love to see in the world and all the places I've already had the pleasure to visit : )

For the past 2 years we've been barely able to travel because of the new business but we were still fortunate enough to do a few weekend breaks in Europe.

Last year I took Geoff to Paris for the first time. I have been visiting Paris with my family since I could walk and got to the point where I really didn't want to ever go back but seeing as Geoff has never been before I thought.. why not? After our first trip, we loved it so much we went back 3 times last year! However this year Im thinking its time to expand our travels and so i've been looking at all the places we might be able to visit with our strict schedule *boo*.

So i've been trawling the internet for possible destinations, we wanted to go somewhere hot, sunny with lots of tourist things to do and as my bf said "no shopping". Ideally we wanted a beach holiday but... so far I haven't been able to find an ideal destination. Finally we decided on visiting Athens. I've ALWAYS wanted to visit Greece because growing up I was really fascinated about the Greek mythology. Im just hoping that 3 days will be doable!

Hoping to book out tickets sometime this week!! : )

Shoooooooooooooooooes

During my last trip to London I did a mini shopping spree... well I only had a few measly hours on saturday to do some shopping which were all spent in Topshop 0 : ) (and I did myself proud) I could be in there for hours and hours I loooooooooooove that shop (Oxford St. branch).

People may say oh its too mainstream and everbody comes out looking the same but personally I think Topshop offers an incredible variety of clothing & accessories that its all down to how YOU put them together. I don't necessarily wear Topshop head to toe but its a great place for affordable clothes with a huuuuuge selection of style (in their flagship store that is). Their prices are so reasonable that I don't feel guilty if I've fallen out of love with them and end up giving them to charity. Its almost like disposable fashion, my taste changes regularly and Topshop makes it affordable enough for me to dress how I feel. But saying that I do own pieces (both from Topshop and designer names) for years & years so they're not all disposable.

Enough of the rambling, I left Topshop with bags of new dresses, spring/summery tops, skirts and a pair of boots. Now this is probably the first time in about 6 years i've bought shoes from Topshop. Im quite picky when it comes to the quality of shoes but seeing as they were so adorable for spring I couldn't resist!

But those weren't the only shoes I bought.... the following day I was in Chanel and I've always wanted a pair of ballerina flats from them but never plucked up the courage to buy one. I think I first fell in love with Chanel flats back in 2006 browsing in the Barcelona Chanel boutique and came across the baby pink cambon flats. It was love at first sight and I was 20 back then and I my dress sense was very girly and cute so they were perfect. But they never had my size and they quickly sold out and went out of season : (

However, the flats I bought are sooo beautiful! They may be simple but to me its classic and very very chic. May I present Ms Coco Bally...

What I love about these flats is that its not just any old white being used... its a shimmery pearly metallic white! oooohhh aaahhhhhh. It was either this color or a beige one with a black toe however the beige color wasn't available in metallic and when I tried them on they looked rather "old" on me 0_o However when I wore these metallic ones on, I looooved them, they are so so cute!! I would probably wear this mainly with crops, shorts or dresses and no jeans just bc I wan't to avoid any color transfer onto these flats. What makes it more impractical is that I would only wear them on dry days. BOO : ( My bf joked that I should just put them on display.. and look at them. >_> Hence why he was sent out to wander the other shops whilst I shopped in Chanel! ^_^

Here are both of my new shoes...

With the sun beaming the past few days I have that summer feeling!! : D

P.S. I never did buy the Alma Rose in FLorentin at Louis Vuitton, I saw it in person and eeeurgh it really wasn't me. It is cute though but too plastic-y looking and the pink was more pink than I thought it would be. If others had it I would still admire it but certainly not for me. I was sooo gutted but relieved for my bank account!.... sooo My fingers are still itching for a new bag! : )

x

Maxi Craze

Last week I finally confirmed and booked my space for a hen weekend in Barcelona!! So after the excitement of penciling Barcelona into my diary I started to browse through the internet for some dresses/outfits I could bring with.. initially the browsing was just for ideas *coughs*. If my bf is reading this... I know... I do have a ton of dresses BUT this is a weekend away in BARCELONA for a HEN NIGHT(S)!! This deserves new outfits! : )

So for the past few summers i've had a thing for maxi dresses but i've never found any that I particularly like not only that but bc im so leggy I don't like maxi dresses that comes above my ankles (boo) but... I did come across some and not only did I come away with 1 maxi dress I came away with 3! ^_^

So here are my possible "day time" outfits for Barcelona I won't be wearing all 3 Maxis bc I wanna mix it up by wearing shorts or above the knee dresses.

So here is dress 1:

I particularly like this dress bc it feels tribal bc of the beaded details but what really sold it to me were the turquoise beads used and the fabric used. The fabric makes it look floaty and not so body hugging, a casual dressy day time maxi. But this dress hasn't made it to the Barcelona Short list!

Dress 2:

Another black maxi dress... actually all three of them are black : ) I would've gone for any other colour if they were available but sadly they weren't but I still like black dresses regardless. This is simple and a dress I could wear without getting bored bc of the colour. Which is one of my problem, if the colours I pick are too "bright" "dull" or outrageous then I tend to get bored or go off them very quickly. Anyhoo I picked this dress bc it was so simple, effortless and elegant which is perfect for accessorising without feeling like Im going OTT.

What I also like about this dress is that the boob area comes padded and thats when I instantly clicked "add to basket" 0 : ) Reasons why I love it padded is that i'm not very blessed in the boob department, it was either legs or boobs and God decided to give me the legs and so I would've warn a bikini underneath but bc it's already padded now I dont have to! Not only that but when its scorching hot outside wearing less layers is always ideal! : )

This dress is on my shortlist for Barcelona.

Dress 3:

Ok so another simple black maxi dress and this is the most simple out of the 3. I like this dress bc it's something I could easily throw on without any thought or effort required. This dress reminds me of a lazy summers sunday taking a stroll in the park (or in my case... around the city centre, a poo thing about living right in the city!), shopping for groceries or just having brunch with the family. This is certainly a dress that doesn't look its trying too hard and perfectly casual!.

This dress is padded in the booby area (bonus) and it did come in white. However, I didn't opt for white and it looks rather transparent and well I don't fancy the sun shining and revealing my panties to the world!

Since this dress is so similar to Dress 2 this won't be going onto the Barcelona shortlist either!

So here are my 3 new maxi dresses and i'll see if I still like it as much when I receive them!

x

London weekend - Saturday 20.02.10

Last weekend my boyfriend and I took a long overdue trip to london, aaahhhh how I miss the bright lights, busyness and the london smog!

So after arriving in london later than we had planned our first stop was to get some food! I had fancied something american and I had wanted a nice "brunch" kinda menu and so we narrowed down to two restaurants to go to, either Smiths of Smithfield or Automat. We haven't been to either of them and so picked Automat as it was on Dover st just down the road from Bond st! *wink wink* When we finally found Automat hidden amongst the buildings my butt had already given up and fallen asleep : ( but managed to wake it up again at the sight of food! : )

On entering Automat the atmosphere was buzzing and crowded with young random mixes of people. The decor reminded me of an old italian american diner and the music was exaclty what I had imagined being in an american diner.

Since we arrived at 4pm the brunch menu had just ended, but I wasn't bothered as I didn't mind choosing from their normal menu. The menu itself was small and simple which is perfect for the settings it was in. This made it easy to choose from and to the point really.

On the menu they had a mac n cheese, my bf isn't a big fan of cheese and so didn't want to pick this dish and I didn;t want it purely as a main either. I was torn between having the automat burger, chicken burger or mac n cheese. I eventually chose the chicken burger as I NEVER pick chicken burgers and my bf chose the Automat burger so well..... I could steal some of his!

The burgers came and my chicken burger was not what I had expected it to be. The chicken itself was flattened out like a pancake and at first bite had an unusual smell to it and it wasn't good either. The chicken was really artificial tasting and I could see that chicken burgers weren't their best seller. So I took a few bites and didn't want to finish the rest of it. It just didn't taste that nice but my bf's burger was really good although it lacked some salad and the tomato that was put inside was wafer thin so it wasn't even worth putting it in!

so after lunch we headed over to Bond st. first stop... CHANEL : D It was after 5pm and still busy! There was soooo many pretty goodies but no bag that caught my eye but I did leave with something... (something i'll reveal in my next post)

My Boxwood Cafe outfit

Then after shopping we went for dinner at Gordon Ramsay's Boxwood cafe which we first went to during it's opening week and thought that the food was much better this time round but the service was incredible the first time we went. We would certainly come back here again as we had a great time.

My starters

My Main Course

My dessert.

After we left Boxwood Cafe we headed back to our hotel and was bumped to Executive and so our room was huuuuuuge with an amazing view of the big ben and the river thames.

And this was just saturday!

xxx