Silks' Day

So today is Silks' Day. For those who are not legally-savvy, this is a huge day in the law world. Or at least, in the world of barristers. To try and sum up, in a non-boring, overly long way. It is the day where a select few barristers are sworn in as Queen's Counsel, or made "Silk" and since three of our own barristers have been made Queen's Counsel today, there was a buzz all over office, equating to a pretty great day. 

The morning started off with the three barristers and their clerks getting on their fancy gear - the barristers had to wear special gowns and shoes and so on. There was excitement all over the building which was probably aided by the fact that the families were there too, including all the little children running around everywhere. As the barristers headed off to Westminster, we got on with our work until lunch, where we celebrated the day with champagne and amazing Italian food. Apparently the food was from a take out delivery service, which I am desperately trying to find the name of. After the lovely food and champagne (along with endless amounts of cake), we returned to work, as the barristers headed to the Royal Courts of Justice for some more formalities. I saw all the barristers from different Chambers walking down Fleet Street in all their formal gear and it was the loveliest sight, almost as if I had walked back in time (where I was also surrounded by random groups of tourists). 

I guess in all this random waffle that makes up this post, what I'm trying to say is that I love London for its old traditions. It's not many cities that can offer endless Starbucks cafes, sushi, tourists and years of legal tradition, with barristers in wigs, gowns and buckled shoes all on one street. 

After a successful day (if you ignore the flu-like symptoms that I have been having towards the end of the day) I am now in my warm bed, watching last night's New Girl, more than ready for tomorrow to come and end and the extra-long Easter weekend to start. 

Muah,

Roo xx

New Home

As my previous posts have probably suggested, this weekend was spent moving into my new home. In the snow. I had a lovely and relaxing start to Saturday with croissants and coffee for breakfast and Friends reruns. Later on in the afternoon, me and my mum packed up all of my stuff into the car and made our way to Southfields. Due to snow and endless roadworks, the journey took more than twice as long as it should have but we reached the new flat eventually, unloaded everything and then headed to do some food shopping, to save me from having to carry it all myself. 

After the supermarket trip, my mum left me to unpack with the help of Edita, who came up to help. Although the whole thing seemed to take forever, chatting away with Edita -and a couple of glasses of wine- made the whole thing far easier and a lot more fun. 

My new abode

As for today, I woke up early but being unable to go anyway (since nothing was open) had a lazy morning and eventually headed down to Wimbledon to explore the area a bit. Since it was bitterly cold outside, I mostly mooched around the shopping centre, Centre Court and some other surrounding shops. I also grabbed a bite at Tortilla - a Mexican grill - where I had a delicious burrito (may even be better than Chilango!). I also ventured up to Wimbledon Village which seems to be a really cute place. The shops are a little upscale and not really my style at all but there were also numerous bakeries, cafes and bistros which I desperately want to try!

I am now back home, wrapped up in numerous layers of clothing, with a cup of coffee in one hand, trying desperately to warm up (it's not really working). I have never missed summer more. 

I'll need a lot of this today. And not just for the morning.

I hope everyone has a good week,

Muah,

Roo xx 

Packing up

It's official: tomorrow is the big day. A.k.a. moving day. The week has been filled with a mixture of work and sorting out things with the new flat which included deposit payments and tenancy agreements. Well yesterday, I signed everything and am now ready to move into my new flat, gaining three flatmates in the process. It's all incredibly exciting and daunting at the same time, especially considering I only started packing tonight.

Luckily, I hadn't fully unpacked since returning from University (10 months ago!) so all that I really had to pack up was my clothes, shoes and numerous books. The only problem is, is that I hate packing. Having spent three successive years packing up for uni, unpacking at uni and packing up again at the end of the summer, only to unpack again at home, I have developed a strong hatred for the task. I have now spent over three hours packing up my stuff, realising how much crap I have in the house and am on the verge of pulling my hair out, so I have decided to take a break (and turn to my blog) and resume packing up the rest of it tomorrow morning. I will need all the luck in the world!

I have a bad feeling this is what the car may look like tomorrow

But then again, I have enough books for it to look
a little like this

I wish my things packed neatly like this into pretty cases

I hope everyone has a lov-er-ly weekend.

Muah,

Roo xx

Busy doing nothing

In spite of my good intentions, I have had the most lazy weekend on record. Really. Waking up to the pattering of rain and swooshing of wind is not the best start to a productive day. 

After a lazy morning in front of the tv and with the rain continuing well into the afternoon, I decided to spend the day at home. I ended up having a productive afternoon, however which I spent working on some a training contract application. I have been meaning to start it a while ago but everything seemed to have been getting in the way - flat-hunting mainly. I know the chances of having a successful application is beyond slim but you've got to try, I guess and whilst the application isn't completed, I have made a start and wrote quite a bit of it which is probably the hardest part.

In addition to stopping and starting my application, I have also watched some more tv (with some dominos pizza in the midst of it all) and plenty of reading and sleeping. Unfortunately, today has been much of the same. This may have not the most exciting weekend ever but I feel so much better having started the application and honestly the laziness has been much needed after the last couple of weeks I've had, as well as the upcoming weeks ahead.

A laptop and coffee break(s) - apt
representation of this weekend!

Hope everyone has a wonderful week.


Muah,


Roo xx

A week filled with surprises...

So this week has had a few surprises, all of them pleasant, all of it equating to a very tired me. 

I started my week with another flat viewing which was yet another fail. After viewing that horrid, slightly dodgy flat I had almost given up on the search and considered taking a break from it all. On Wednesday I went to yet another viewing, with no expectations and turned out to be very pleasantly surprised! It was yet another flat in Southfields with a double room (double!) and really lovely, friendly people. I didn't need much time to say that I'd take the place, if they were happy for me to move in. Anyway, they seemed to have liked me and now I am a credit check and a deposit payment away from moving in! Whilst I don't want to jinx it and absolutely nothing is finalised yet, I am hoping that everything will soon be sorted and -fingers cross- will be moving in next weekend!

Sadly, my budget won't quite allow me to have a room like this...

...Or this. But I can dream...

Another little surprise this week was chocolate! Our supervisor bought everyone in the office, chocolate bags from Hotel Chocolat a.k.a little pieces of heaven! The little presents were to celebrate us meeting out annual target and although not grand, were so thoughtful and made everyone's day better!

Who wouldn't love to get this?!

And now I have never been so glad to have survived the week and reached Friday. I am truly and utterly exhausted and am looking forward to a lie-in like never before.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Muah,

Roo xx

Happy Mother's Day!

Today, England celebrates Mother's Day, so I would like to wish all the mums a very happy Mother's Day, but especially to my very wonderful mum! Mothering Sunday had taken over my weekend, so I will start from the beginning...

On Saturday, after a mini lie-in and yet even more flat-searching, I ventured out to buy my mum's present, making use of the fact that she has been away since Thursday and wasn't coming back until Saturday evening. I took a trip to the supermarket (huge mistake on a Saturday  and bought all the ingredients needed for Sunday's dinner and then went on to buy a huge picture frame for the present. The expedition took longer than I anticipated and I returned home, more than a little exhausted. Although I intended to head to down central London, by the time I returned, I only managed to drag myself to Stratford's Westfield (much easier to get to). There, I met up with Edita, where we mooched around some shops (leading to me buying two pairs of shoes - in my defence they were both gorgeous!) and went on to grab a coffee, unable to handle anymore pushing around and people getting in our way.

As for today, I started my Sunday morning by making my mum cry. In a good way, I promise! Me and my brother gave her a card, and a huge picture frame, filled with lots of family pictures both old and new - the cause of the tears. She loved the present which was a great start to the day. After a lazy morning, drinking coffee and having a less-than-healthy breakfast (it was a celebratory day, after all), I managed to drag myself to the gym, just about surviving the freezing cold weather. Upon my return, I started making a three-course dinner for the family which involved some bruschetta with various toppings, a salmon and prawn pie and flourless brownies. The dinner went well (I forgot how much I enjoyed cooking) - the pie was really good - even my anti-fish brother ate it all and the brownies were rather good too. I looked for a flourless recipe in an attempt to be a little healthy but that was a major fail since they were triple chocolate brownies. If anyone is interested, it's a super easy recipe, which can be found here (I didn't make the ganache, figuring that would lead to an actual sugar coma!) All in all, the weekend has been very successful and rather domesticated.

Can't beat brownies. These aren't the ones I made though

I am now (just about) ready to start the new week with even more flat-searching, but hopefully that turns out to be more successful than last week.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week and manages to stay warm as I hear the big freeze is returning.


Muah,


Roo xx

And so the search begins...

Now that I have passed my probation at work, flat-hunting has begun in earnest. Since graduating, I have lived back at home with my parents and little brother which has not been good for my health or my sanity! As it turns out, the search isn't very good for my sanity either.

When I started my search, I had no idea where I wanted to stay, only where I definitely did not want to stay - namely east London, south East London or anywhere else dodgy - and the fact that it had to be in the first three zones. Some of the ads were just plain ridiculous, everything from people offering "very small, cozy, box rooms" - ummm, I'm not sure there would be enough room for my handbag, to sharing a room and offering a discount on rent if you agree to keeping the flat clean, i.e. to being their daily cleaner! No thanks! In the midst of all the rubbish, there were a few reasonable ads, so on Monday I had my first viewing (actually, my first two). I ventured out to Tooting Broadway -where I had never been before- and it was a scary place! As soon as I got off the train, I knew I did not want to live there but went to the houses anyway. And I was not impressed. I was convinced that one of the houses was going to collapse in on itself because it was so old and the other was decent but because of the location, I turned it down.

Such a big place, so many viewings.

Mid-week, I had a viewing in Southfields. I have never toured the place properly but made a few trips up for Wimbledon and I had always really liked it. Well when I got there for the viewing, I fell in love with the place! I have never felt to safe in a place in my life and it's surrounded by parks and shops and everything that you could possibly want (and is perfect for getting to work!). Unfortunately, the room was teeny tiny! They had a single-door wardrobe! Really?! Since that viewing, I have decided that Southfields would be the perfect location to live. Of course with the perfect location, comes crazy-high  rent prices and having settled on Southfields, it's tough to look for places anywhere else as nothing else seems to be good enough!

I had another viewing on Friday but whilst the people living there seemed lovely, the landlord really nice and the place was clean and modern, again the room was tiny and it didn't have a living room which made it all very claustrophobic. Honestly though, at the end of the viewing I just did not want to leave the area! It's just too nice! And travelling all the way back to south east London was more than a little depressing.

Anyway, after a week of unsuccessful viewings, I am absolutely exhausted! It's not so much the travelling to the viewings that's the problem, it's the very long journeys back! Thankfully, the weekend is going to be viewing-free, as most of it will be spent sorting out my mum's mother's day present and buying food for the dinner I'll be making tomorrow. Now, I am having the perfect Saturday morning, with a cup of coffee and season five of The Big Bang Theory (which came in the post last night!) - not wanting to leave the warm, dry house for the wet streets.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Muah,

Roo xx

Spontaneity pays off, sometimes

My week didn't have the best of starts when I contracted some quite severe food poisoning on Monday. I had to take Tuesday off, being unable to move. Safe to say, not the best of weeks. With my illness, I have been feeling exhausted most of the week, not doing much aside from getting home and getting myself into my PJs.

Admittedly, after the not-so-great week, my main aim was to catch-up on sleep and complete my recovery which meant an easy-going weekend was on the horizons but I still refused to spend it at home after my lazy weekend last week. On Saturday, me and Jess made a half-hearted attempt to see the Valentino collection (for the hundredth time) which was another fail. I didn't realise this was the final weekend it was on, so it was understandably fully booked. With that fail, we spent the day sorting (my) stuff out in Oxford Street which consisted mainly of me returning shoes and clothes and having a catch up over sushi and (much later) Starbucks. In the evening, we headed to the National Theatre to see if they had any last minute tickets for the Captain of Kopenick. It wasn't something either us particularly wanted to see but not wanting to have a completely wasted day, decided to see what was on offer. We managed to get really cheap tickets (£10!!!) for the show which was actually really good! Not to waffle about it too much, it was basically a comedy set in pre-WW1 Germany. I was very impressed with it and in the end, it turned out to be a really good day and a great evening.

A coffee can always put a smile on your face!

As for today, I had a super-long lie-in which consisted of a lot of flat-hunting. I found out earlier this week that I passed my probation at work (yay!) which means that I can finally move out! The research has been rather disappointing, but an update on that will need an entire new post! Later in the day, I headed to my Aunt's new house. It was my first time seeing it, and my cousins came round too where we had a huge, very Lithuanian meal and later left after a catch-up with very full bellies. As for now, I am going to unwind for what's left of the evening and hope that next week is better and much healthier than the last!


Hope everyone has a wonderful week!


Muah,


Roo xx