Take Me To My Beach

I helped my friend pack via Skype for her holiday to India she's going on tomorrow. Not going to lie, it was pretty tricky. The Indian culture is obviously so different from here and as my friend is Hindi wilst she's out there she has to cover up as much as possible. Doing this whilst still looking fashionable and trying to avoid overheating isn't easy. Her holiday wardrobe is consisting of various shirts, leggings, longer dresses and maxi skirts unfortunately strappy tops, levis and bikinis will have to wait until she's in touristy areas. We realised that jewellery and other accessories were going to be the way forward in keeping her looking cool and individual.

All the travelling talk got me incredibly jealous as I'd love to be somewhere hot and interesting as India. I started reminiscing about the month six of my friends and I spent backpacking around Thailand over last summer. I'd give anything to be back there.

I miss...

Being surrounded by insanely beautiful beaches; all with pearly, white sand and turquoise, iridescent sea.

                                                

           Phi Phi - Long Beach

Getting to eat breakfast in paradise with my best friend.

Paying practically nothing for accommodation with a view like this.

                 

                    Koh Tao - Sairee Beach

Spending the night on Maya Bay, where The Beach was filmed. The thought that Leo once probably stood where I did gets me all hot under the collar.        

Spending nights at crazy beach bars drinking ridiculously strong cocktails from buckets and having the best time.

            Koh Samui

                                          Koh Tao

                   Koh Phangan - Full Moon Party

The hustle and bustle of the streets, especially in Bangkok and Chang Mai. All filled with curious travellers; laden with cheap t-shirts, tie dye bags and copious amounts of hand made jewellery. Locals shouting and chatting; selling various rip offs, trips to tiger temples and hot, freshly made authentic cuisine. Which filled the thick, dense air with a pungent smell of chilli, herbs, oil and cooking meat.

Bangkok - Khao San Road, the smell of that street will stay with me forever.

                     Floating market - Bangkok

Thailand had the best markets, if you ever go I seriously recommend the weekend market in Bangkok. Two of my friends and I bought loads of clothes there for dirt cheap. Imagine vintage stalls where everything is £2, beautiful handmade leather bags, mounds of silver jewellery and clothing that you could imagine seeing in the highstreet back in England but selling for a fraction of the price.

Trying fried crickets which were surprisingly tasty.

Finally experiencing all this with my friends.

Elephant trekking - Chang Mai

       Travelling by overnight train - my favourite way to travel.

I absolutely loved the excitement of arriving at a new place and not knowing where to stay or where to go. It definitely brought out the adventurer in me and has well and truly infected me with the travelling bug. 

My only regret was not getting a Thailand inspired tattoo at this cool hut on Sairee Beach.

Take me back!
Love
Jade x

Food Coma

On Sunday three of my friends and I got dressed up and went to the Bluebell pub in a village near where we live for a posh roast. It was amazing. We all battled through the three courses and ended up being very full and content. That however, didn't stop us from stopping off at Wilkinsons on the way home for a bag of pick and mix for tea. Surely strawbs, apple cables and sour cherries count towards your five a day...or maybe not. I always think Sunday's are a day of excess and an excuse to eat way too much and thats what we definitely did.

I wore my tea dress and oxblood Topshop Chelsea boots.

For starter me and two of my friends had a haddock fishcake in a creamy and mild curry sauce, topped with crispy leeks. My other friend had tomato and basil soup which was decorated with a swirl of basil sauce, it looked delicious.

For main we all chose roasts, either opting for beef or pork. Normally you expect portion sizes in nicer restaurants to be small but this wasn't the case here. We were served a few slices of meat, two fluffy homemade Yorkshire puddings and then dishes filled with smooth mash potato, crispy roast potatoes, caulifower cheese, carrot and swede mash and a meaty thick gravy.

I unfortunately couldn't manage that massive plate as I decided that saving room for dessert was a much better option. I have a serious sweet tooth so often the pudding menu is more important than the other two. We all chose different which was excellent as we got try each others. There was a rich sticky toffee pudding smothered in butterscotch sauce, a tangy and smooth caramelised lemon tart with buttery pastry, a decadent and indulgent chocolate cheesecake and a hot, comforting apple and blackcurrant crumble with a sweet chewy topping, all served with icecream. Don't they look incredible?

In between the meal and pick and mix we stopped off for a walk in the woods with my friends dog Buddie. We thought some fresh air and movement would get us in the mood for sweets and wine. We all felt like we were walking through Narnia in the woods because of the tall dense trees and eery silence. Unfortunately neither of us caught a glimpse of Mr Tumnus or Aslan.

Hope you all had as lovely a weekend as I did and indulged just as much.

Here's a quick outfit post from an open mic night me and my friends went to last week.

I wore:

• Dogtooth shirt from Thailand
•  H&M sparkly jumper
• Dorothy Perkins necklace
• Levi shorts
• Primark skinny waist belt
• Topshop Chelsea boots
• Armani silver watch
• MAC red lipstick.

I wish I could sing and play the guitar as I'd love to be musical, unfortunately I can do neither. Having a musical talent makes people so much more attractive, look at Alex Turner bagging Alexa Chung. I'd definitely love to marry a boy in a band.

Love
Jade x

Outfit Post

Here's just a quick outfit post of what I wore yesterday when I went out for some lunch with a couple of friends. Apologies about the mirror shot, I really need to find somewhere in my house that is the right height for me to use a self timer.

I wore:

• Hat from Claire's, I bought in the sale for £8 in Manchester Airport.
• The Beatles t-shirt from Thailand I got on my travels from the most amazing market in Bangkok.
• Cardigan hand-knitted by my lovely mum.
• Pleated midi skirt from Topshop
• Dune suede wedges which I bought for a placement I did at a PR firm last September.

We went to a new cafe that's just opened up where I am from. It's adorable, it has a vintage and cosy style to with big luxurious sofas to relax on and fairy light strewn mirrors. It even has a book and gifts shop upstairs that sells homemade jams and chutneys. Not only that but it has just got it's alcohol license too, so will be open on a night, if it starts hosting music events I will be so incredibly jealous as I would love to own somewhere like that. I ate a chicken, pesto and brie panini too which was very yummy but extremely garlicky, not so attractive. The nice man who served us even complimented me on my t-shirt, he had a cool twirly moustache too, if I was a man I'd certainly rock some impressive facial hair.

I am in the process of completing a post on catwalk trends for this spring/summer so I will post that either later tonight or tomorrow.

Hope you are all well.
Love
Jade x