Very lazy weekend

After the craziness of Christmas, I decided to have a very lazy weekend this week and avoid London completely. Post-Christmas sales and London make for a very bad combination. Instead, I stuck with lots of reading, coffee, food and online shopping. A perfect weekend and the ideal preparation for the upcoming New Year's celebrations.

My weekend reading 

Muah,


Roo xx

Christmas fun

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Mine was very lovely indeed and relatively stress-free which made for a wonderful change! Our celebrations started on Christmas Eve –which is a tradition in our family – which lots of food and Christmas films.

On Christmas Day, we woke up to lots of lovely presents (I was the first to wake up which made a bit of a change – I felt like a little kid again)! After opening up all our lovely prezzies, my cousin Donatas and his girlfriend Edita came to spend the day with us. This involved even more presents, huge amounts of food, some board games and chatter. Me and Edita even ventured outside for a walk once the rain had stopped, whilst everyone else took naps or played on the Xbox. Me and mum managed to prepare quite a lot of the food the day before and some of it even in the morning, which made Christmas dinner preparations so much easier!

Anyway, we went to sleep with filled tummies and heads filled with all the films we managed to watch. Quite a successful Christmas, if you ask me. Unfortunately, I had to return to work on the 27^th but I was sent home after finishing half a day on both days which made it far more bearable!

Now once again, I was rubbish in taking pictures (I took none) but Edita took some, so as soon as she sends some, I will post them.

Hope you all enjoy your continued celebrations!

Muah,

Roo xx

Merry Christmas!

As it is officially Christmas Day in some parts of Europe (there's a little under an hour left until it is officially Christmas here in London), I thought to make and early start and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a wonderful celebration, with lots of laughter, happiness and yummy food (and some lovely  prezzies too, of course).

Anyway, I am going to keep this entry short and sweet and get into my PJs and get myself ready for Christmas Day!

I wish I found this in my Christmas stocking

And hope some of you may found this
little box under the tree

Muah,

Roo xx

Christmas Carol Fail

On Saturday St Paul’s cathedral hosted a carol singing service inside the cathedral. I have never been so convinced my mum to come with me, to see what it’s all about and in an attempt to get her away from Christmas stress and into the Christmas spirit – my brother and dad didn’t go because of the rain (and yes, they thought this to be a completely legitimate reason). When we reached St Paul’s however, the queue to get in was huge! It wound around 2/3 of the cathedral! After queuing for over half an hour, the stewards informed us that there was no chance of us getting in, so we left. I was so disappointed –the cathedral was at capacity, with everyone singing Christmas carols which would have created the most amazing atmosphere! Anyway, I learnt my lesson and next year, I will venture out with lots of time to kill – it will absolutely be a not-to-miss event next Christmas!

In spite of the disappointment, we decided to make the most of the day and toured a bit of London – taking in the Christmas atmosphere. We walked all the way down Fleet Street (past my work) which was so disserted, with everything closed. We even popped in to have a peek at the ice rink in Somerset house. I know in past years, the ice rink has been sponsored by Tiffany’s which meant a huge Christmas tree with oversized, blue Tiffany boxes. Unfortunately, this year, they have been sponsored by someone else – leaving me disappointed: the tree was nowhere near as impressive and there were no boxes either (it may be a bit of a given but I have a slight Tiffany’s obsession).

Following that, we headed up to Covent Garden. I hoped to find a nice pub to grab some lunch but my mum isn’t much of a pub-person so instead we settled on Carluccio’s for some lovely Italian comfort food. Then we headed down to Piccadilly and popped into some shops, including Aldo where I bought some lovely brown boots! I have been searching for some boots for ages and finally managed to find a pair! And finally, we walked all the way down to Hyde Park, onto Green Park – where we stopped for some Starbucks and finally called it a day, heading home. I think the timing was ideal because when I got home, I thought my feet my crumble and die!

My lovely boots

The wellies that I should have bought

Anyway, that’s an update on my shenanigans for the weekend. I hope everyone’s Christmas preparations are going well!

Muah,

Roo xx 

Friendly catch-up

Earlier this week, I took off a (legitimate and approved) day off work, to meet up with my lovely friend Bex who came down for a visit from Worcester. It was the perfect day to catch up and get into the Christmas spirit. Unfortunately, I had a blonde moment and although I took a camera, it had no batteries (I blame the Christmas-crazy and not my own stupidity for that!) which means that I had to rely on google for some pictures. Sorry!

Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park was our first stop. I haven't had the opportunity to give the place a visit for  two years, so I was very excited to venture down there. There was lots Christmas music, along with some mulled wine (yum), hot chocolate (Bex's choice) and churros. Sadly, it was still a little disappointing. There weren't a lot of people which was probably a good thing but it took a little away from the atmosphere. But, we managed to stay dry whilst we were strolling around wonderland, so we were happy.

Our next stop was Harrods. Apparently Bex has a tradition of heading down to Harrods whenever she's in London, so we of course had to keep up the tradition!  And honestly; I was so impressed with Harrods' window displays: it was Disney themed! Each window had a different Disney princess, dressed in amazing ball gowns! It was stunning! After admiring the windows, we headed inside which was filled with tourists, beautiful bags, shoes and dresses and it was lovely to walk around. I forgot how long it has been since I gave Harrods a visit!

This was by far my favourite dress!

Upon leaving Harrods, that is when all the rain started. So we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find shelter; heading to Wagamama for lunch, down to St Paul's and New Change for some shopping - which was so nice and quiet; a complete change from the craziness of Oxford Street! We finished the day off with a trip to Bea's of Bloomsbury for some coffee and cake which was a lovely and relaxing end to the day! I had a wonderful day, catching up with a wonderful friend. I got home exhausted but filled with Christmas cheer!

Muah,


Roo xx


P.s. I hope you like the new look of the blog! Finally managed to figure out how to change it all. Took some time, but got there in the end!

Pre-Christmas Calm

I hope everyone's Christmas preparations are going well. Since my Christmas presents are all under the tree and I am too young to have to deal with the stress of organising the technicalities of food-preparation etc, I decided to have a lazy weekend this week. This involved a lot of TV watching and some catch ups with friends and family before the Christmas crazy.

On Friday, I had a lovely catch up with my friend Alex over some pub-grub (I am not much of a pub girl, but it was great to have a catch up). As for Saturday, I met up with my cousin and her two little boys, where she bought the last of her Christmas presents and then we escaped the shops and had some coffee at mine, with the kids watching lots of Tom & Jerry (which no one can ever be too old for). I spent the rest of the night watching the Big Bang Theory with some super-bad-for-you Dominos pizza (Christmas is approaching and unhealthy eating is fast coming up anyway).

As for today, I finished writing all my Christmas cards, whilst having some Christmas music in the background - the perfect Christmas combination! As for the rest of the day, I will be watching awful Christmas films (don't feel bad for me!) We have Christmas24 - Christmas films on 24 hours a day! They are the typical cheesy, really bad, low-budget Christmas films and I love them (well some of them)! So that's my incredibly relaxed, unproductive but lovely weekend!

I will be saving the good Christmas films for next week!

I have also been doing some research for New Year's Eve which has been a lot more stressful than I thought. I think I left it all too late, with a lot of the places either sold out or atrociously over-priced. I think it will be just me & Chloe for Christmas since a lot of my friends are either not in London or aren't "into" going out. But anyway, I am hopeful that we will find something and have a great New Year's Eve!

As a side-note, what happened in Connecticut is absolutely awful and really heartbreaking. With all the tragedies that have been taking place, it has been lovely to stumble across this website which helped restore my faith in humanity a little. If you haven't already, have a look here!

Have a wonderful stress-free week, everyone!


Muah,


Roo xx

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I am very excited (and relieved) to announce that I have officially bought all of my Christmas presents! Yes, I can now stop stressing out about what to buy, when to buy it and how to survive the Christmas craziness.

The Christmas feeling started on Friday, when we had a work Christmas dinner. It was nice to meet everyone properly, in a relaxed atmosphere, in the most random, un-Christmassy place ever; the Red Dog Saloon. It's an American BBQ place in Hoxton and although quite a trek (with the tube station quite far away), the food was really good. They even had "The Devastator" which was this crazy burger with lots of sides and a milkshake - which you had to eat in 10 minutes to get your meal for free. Whilst I wasn't crazy enough to try it - a few of the guys did (but sadly failed to eat it within the time limit) - I settled on an ordinary (but very nice) burger and some margaritas.

The Devastator

The rest of the weekend, I spent sleeping. I don't know what came over me, but I think that this week has been more stressful than I realised because I seemed to be unable to do anything other than sleep and had lie-ins on Saturday and Sunday (a rarity for me). However, I did venture out to the Stratford Westfield, to purchase the last Christmas presents and had a quick catch up with Edita. I also bought some lovely shoes for myself (two pairs in fact) which left me very very happy. And no, I do not have a shoe problem (but yes, I am in complete denial).

This was me: minus the cat and far less glamorous

As for Sunday, I met up with Jess for a catch-up over coffee and spent the rest of the day, putting up the Christmas tress and wrapping up all the prezzies. And now, it's time to start making plans for New Year's Eve, which I had put on the back-burner, too focused on Christmas!

Our lovely Christmas trees, with all of my presents
wrapped and ready for Christmas day

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!


Muah,


Roo xx

Defeated by shopping

Once again, I must apologise for my horrendous blogging. It has been a little insane. With my last week at my old job last week and my first week at my new job this week and Christmas fast-approaching, it has been a little overwhelming, with lots of stress, little sleep and even less time for blogging. Sorry!

To sum up the last two weeks in the life of Roo, I have been; Christmas shopping, working, Christmas shopping, working and Christmas shopping! In fact after the last couple of weeks, I have reached my limit and decided to buy the last couple of prezzies online because even though I am very comfortable with being in Oxford Street with tonnes of people, endless queuing and barging past, last week, I reached my limit and think it’s better for my sanity to steer clear of the place!

Been feeling a little like this

Having said that, no one can deny that the London streets are beautiful around this time of the year. With all the shops and streets decorated, there was even some fake snow down on Bond Street! In my optimistic Christmas spirit, I even gave St Christopher’s Place another try, when I had a catch-up with Jess and we found a very lovey Italian restaurant (the ultimate comfort food when it’s cold outside). The place was called Olivelli – the tiniest little restaurant right inside St Christopher’s place with delicious pasta! I was really rather impressed by it and it was the perfect meal after the stress of Christmas shopping! On top of that, my wonderful friend Hung had organised a little indoor shopping event in the Vibe Gallery which me and Jess gave a visit. It was in an art gallery, with a few set up stalls of really cute jewellery, clothes and some delicious-looking cakes. I think my style is a bit basic (maybe a little girl-next-door) but for anyone looking for something individual and unique: it's perfect! I will be absolutely keeping an eye out for any other events at the gallery – I think it may soon be one of Bermondsey’s little treasures!

Jess, yours truly and Hung

Anywho, it’s time for me to leave the house for a little fresh-air. I really will try to keep you better updated with my little posts!

Hope everyone has a Christmas-spirited, wonderful weekend!!!!

Muah,

Roo xx