Easter

We've had such a lovely lovely day. As a family, we never usually make that big of a deal out of Easter, but we were so happy to all be together again in our lovely home that we simply just used it as an excuse to crack open some champagne and cook up lots of yummies.

I woke up very late as I went out the night before and though I didn't drink, I was still pretty tired and totally thrown by the clocks going forward! When I finally did make it downstairs however, I was greeted by a lovely breakfast table of eggs of all varieties, and a kitchen full of flowers and hot cross buns.

Lots of cooking and baking began to get everything ready in time for a late lunch at four. Dad prepared the lamb whilst we whipped up an easter cake, an apple tart and some lemon and passionfruit cheesecake easter eggs (inspired by Rose).

Blinis with creme frache and caviar were made up to accompany some champagne given to us from Ella's boyfriend George's parents for Christmas, and then we all sat down to eat.

We had roast lamb, roasties, peas, and the most delicious caramelised carrots with mum's homemade gravy. Delicious! My dad and I tucked into some nice red wine too, to accompany the lamb.

Afterwards we tucked into some cheeses - in particular some Godminster's Cheddar which was given to my parents at Christmas. It's the smoothest, richest, most yummy cheese ever, but watch out because it's strong...!

It was lovely to be all together round the table having a proper celebration - we sat down at four and didn't leave until seven! I love being around my sisters, they're both so grown up now it's terrifying. 

We finished off the evening by clearing the kitchen and doing the washing up (with a little help from Mousey...!) and then snuggled down by the fire to catch the end of Grease. The end scene where they all dance reminded my parents of rock'n'roll dancing at their wedding reception and they whapped out their wedding album so that we could all have a good gawp and a giggle at how young they both looked!

All in all, a lovely day. Happy Easter!

Application Submitted!

It's taken me a while to pluck up the courage to actually press 'SUBMIT', but as of about 30 seconds ago, I have submitted my application to UNSW! 

Ahhhhhhhh! My passport scan, all my finance details, my personal statement, my academic transcript and my module choices are all uploaded... so now it's up to them to check that all the information that they need is there and then get back to me! The actual deadline is the 1st April, and I have to wait 4 - 6 weeks for them to let me know whether they want me or not.
The wait is killing me already....!

March Lust List

Oh dear, being at home with not much work to do and not that many people around has re-ignighted my internet shopping obsession. Usually, I'm quite good and just stick to ebay, however with some imminent 21sts, I've branched out a bit.
Here are some goodies I've currently got my eye on...

Black Brick Mesh Bernice Bralet from Motel - £12 (on sale!)

Sky Blue Ankle Cuff Heel from Bondilove - £131

Religion Solid Spell Tale Dress in Black from Asos - £64 (on sale!)

Light Weight Stretch Jeans in Pavement Wash from Free People - £68

Free Styling Metal Chain Detail Dress from Sass & Bide - £450

Jet Plunge Neck Playsuit in Black from Motel - £48

Alexa Satchel in Chocolate Soft Buffalo from Mulberry - £895 (another 'oh dear'...)

ADONIS2 Cut Out Heavy Boots in Oxblood from Topshop - £75

The Magnificent Caplet Overlay Vest from Sass & Bide - £415

Two Years 3 Months

Domestic Goddess

This afternoon I turned into the ultimate Domestic Goddess and made these little Easter cupcakes. I bought all the decorations at Waitrose to be as hassle-free and well... lazy, as possible, and although they're not home made they make the cakes look great!

The recipe is so quick and easy:

YOU NEED: Two bowls, a whizzer, scales, a measuring jug, wooden spoon, cupcake cases and cupcake tray. Oven preheated at 180 degrees celsius.

CAKES

95g of self raising flour

30g of plain flour

175g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

125g soft unsalted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

90ml milk

ICING

200g soft unsalted butter

400g icing sugar

Half a bar of white chocolate (to melt)

Mini Eggs/decorations of choice/food colouring

1. Sift the flour together into a bowl.

2. Into another bowl, cream the butter and caster sugar together.

3. Add the first egg, half the milk and the vanilla extract to the butter and sugar and mix.

4. Add the second egg and the rest of the milk to the mixture and mix until well blended.

5. Gently fold in the flour and mix until smooth.

6. Put into cupcake cases and bake for 20mins.

7. Remove cupcakes and leave to cool.

8. Mix together icing sugar and butter until smooth, then add melted white chocolate and mix well.

9. Add icing to cakes and decorate!

Enjoy!

Home Again

I haven't posted for a while, apologies! Been recovering from my tonsillitis, shutting up the house in Newcastle and now I'm finally back down at home, snuggled on our new sofa (which is great, it's enormous and so comfy it's genuinely so difficult to get out of it...!)
Term finished on Friday and most of my housemates left that day, leaving just me and Poppy in the house. My original plan was to go home on Sunday, though I kept delaying it and actually got the same train as Pops down south on the Tuesday. We spent the days snuggling together watching films as we were both a bit sniffly with various flu-like symptoms, and as we began to feel better we began to clean the house to shut it down for the Easter hols. We became a bit delirious due to being left alone in Newcastle for too long (all cooped up in a house with snow outside) and though we were doing a good job of spring cleaning, we got a little carried away and I discovered that if we took the shelves out, that I could fit in the freezer...

Anyway....
We were adamant that we weren't going to buy any more food and be very economical and use up all the leftovers in the fridges. This meant that we began to eat some very bizarre combinations of meals (chorizo, pesto and grated carrot wraps!?), though we saved certain favourites for a feast on the last night. We enticed Oli over with the promise of steak, homemade burgers and sausages, and then the moment he put down his knife and fork, we dropped the bombshell that his part of the deal was to now mop the floor... and he did it! His inner-housewife was on flying form and the kitchen was spotless in no time. 

Five minutes before our taxi to the station we whizzed round the house and turned off all radiators, locked all doors, and closed all windows (in order to keep the baddies out) and then hopped in with our 6 items of luggage. Well, I say 'hopped', but it took all three of us (me, Pops and the Taxi man) to lift my suitcase into the car boot...! We arrived at Central Station, collected our tickets, and after a bit of huffing and puffing to squeeze our cases into the luggage racks we were settledon the  train in no time with a tasty Caramel Latte to accompany us. Though our seats weren't next to each other, Pops swapped with a lovely kind man so that we could sit together. 

The journey down to London was a long way but a total breeze, however when we got there it was a different story. Tackling the long walk from Kings Cross to the Piccadilly underground line, the escalators and the rapid boarding and disembarking of tubes amongst the hustle and bustle of London rush hour with 6 bags of luggage was impossible! I have never laughed to hard watching Poppy trying to time getting on the down escalators with two huge suitcases...! Joe-Public thought we were very odd and very annoying, however we found it all hilarious and I left Poppy at Leicester Square to head on to Waterloo with tummy cramps and that strange smug half-laugh smirk that lingers on your face when you're thinking about something funny on your own.
In Waterloo I had half an hour to kill so I braved another escalator and dropped in to one of my new favourite cafés called Benugo which is on the new top floor. They do amazing coffees and alcoholic drinks too as well as scrummy little muffins and paninis and I grabbed a refreshing lemonade and people watched for a while until my platform number showed up and then I made my way onto the train.
An hour later and I was greeted at the station by my Mum and Smudge (my lovely lovely doggy) and we drove home to spend the evening drinking lots of wine and munching on some salmon and fresh greens - my all time favourite home meal - by the fire.
It's been so nice to be back home all of today, I awoke to sunshine pouring through my top window andI stayed and enjoyed it for a good half an hour under my duvet before I got out.

Everything is good at home, however my poor little Mini is in the garage as it needs the head gasket replacing so I'm having to drive Ella's canary yellow Lupo.... YUCK. Look how sad it looks, all on it's lonesome...

Despite the embarrassment of my new wheels, I popped into town this afternoon to drop some things to school for my sister and meet up with a friend for a quick coffee before she headed on to bath. We sat outside in the Market Square and had a good old gossip which ended up just being an amusing reminisce of our lives three years ago. After dropping her at the station I went back up to school to see both my sisters for a bit, and I dropped by the Art Department to have a quick catch up with my old Head of Art and had a nice and exciting chat about Sydney. He told me I would love it and go at the application head on. Ahh! I left feeling very proud of my littlest sis though as she had painted the most incredible painting of a bull using inks and bleach - just look! It's amazing!

I'm now back home with all my family, minus Ella who's busy still at school, curled up by the fire with more wine again. Snug snug snug.

Spill The Gravy

My friend Josh put on a night called ‘Spill The Gravy’ for one of his modules on his Business Degree and he booked Melé and Skream to play in the Warehouse which Oli and I usually work in (for Shindig) and it was absolutely insane! Loads of people were up from Leeds to come and party with us Newcastle lot and it was great to see them all, felt like Outlook all over again…! Here are some of the photos from the night…

Zap

Last night was Zap, a huge student DJ night that happens a few times every term and it is ALWAYS guaranteed to be a winner. The music is always really good as the djs like to play music they like, like their own genres and mixes, but always throw in some crowd pleasers to finish off and it puts everyone in such a good mood! Plus my friend Jake was up to visit as he had his interview to get back into Northumbria Art School - and he found out today that he got back in! We partied pretty hard! Congrats to him, he was so happy - here’s a little snap of him taken by Oli from the night before:

This is the last song that they played at Zap, was such a good choice to end the night with:

Sweater Weather Productions

So, tonight was our event for our Music Business Enterprise module! Our concept behind our event was not to do a large club night, as they happen in Newcastle all the time, and instead to showcase what’s going  on in Newcastle’s live scene instead. We wanted to bring together bands from different genre’s from the local area who wanted to gig to a new audience. We were doing the whole thing for charity which was better for us as it encouraged the bands to agree to playing for free as the money was going to a good cause instead.

We headed down at about 4pm to go and buy the rider for the bands and to set up. They Cluny is such a nice venue, I cant believe I haven’t seen it before…! They bands arrived for sound check at 5pm and our sound engineer Kev was amazing and did everything for us so that bands were really comfortable as they had someone really professional doing the sound.

Whilst the bands set up we prepped the place with posters, set up the ticket desk and organised the backstage area. The bar and doors opened at 7.30pm and everyone slowly began to arrive.

Hannah D’Arcy was our first act on and she did a little guitar and vocals acoustic set. She’s been off the music scene for a while as she had a baby and took some time out for about a year, so she was super nervous gigging again! She sounded great though, her lyrics are hilarious…!

Next on was Deep South who’re a student based band from Newcastle made up of several of my course friends. By now more people had arrived so there was a bit more of an atmosphere and they did a 45min set and sounded ace with their added brass section!

After them, we had Tissue Culture come on to do an hour set who’re a well known rock band from Newcastle. They sounded amazing and had really good stage presence for 18 year olds! They’re music was a little too heavy for my taste but they brought in a good bunch of their fan base and everyone seemed to enjoy them.

Finally we finished off with James Joys and Pete Devlin who did a long hour set. Their music is predominantly quite weird beat-based live dj and vocals stuff. Not something to everyone’s taste but everyone was in complete awe of what was going on on stage - it was amazing! My friend Jake was in total shock, he’d never seen anything like them.

This last shot of us I absolutely love but sadly one of the Dream Team is missing because he left early to go on to another night. Shame!

All in all the night went really smoothly and we ended up getting about 100 people down which was really good! We covered all our costs and actually made a profit of about £132 which we’re giving to Marie Curie. Was really exciting to put on our own event and we’ve actually been approached by another band who want to work with us (Sweater Weather Productions) if we do anything in the future…! A massive thanks to Ol for taking such good photos, he managed to borrow a camera from the photography department really last minute which had a proper flash on it with loads of different filters and the photos have come out so well. Love!

(And this is a little shot of me, looking a little bit pissed, when Oli was practicing with the flash filters...)