Hola chicas.

Hope you are all having a happy & relaxing Sunday! I've just been napping in the sun in the garden, so so peaceful and relaxing after a hectic weekend. Last night I went to watch my friend Sean's band Room 94 performing in London

The trusty backstage pass

Chilling in the dressing room before the show

Sean and his brother performing

It was a fun gig, but I was so tired from the previous night partying at Tiger Tiger.
I wore my trusty red dress from Jane Norman:

Laura wore this gorgeous orange dress from Topshop's Motel concession range:




How was your weekend? Hope you had a good'un!
I'm seeing the Crush tonight...sooo excited :D

Last night I tweeted my lover Example with a picture of when I met him. Needless to say he didn't retweet me, but at least he knows I love him.

I really don't know how to work Twitter, however do feel free to add me (?) on there..or is it follow? Either way...im @hollyxwould

Had my nails foiled today, took some sneaky step by step pictures so I'll do a post on this tomorrow to show you how they turned out.
Off to London tonight for some drinking and dancing with my pal Laura - very excited!
Cheesy smile, sans makeup and mid hair curling



Hope you all have a fun night.

Ladies, I lied to you. These beauties are actually from Miss Selfridge - I was so distracted looking on riverisland.com when making the graphic that I wrote RI instead. Graphic all corrected, unfortunately I had to redo the whole post because my laptop won't let me publish anything, in case you think I deleted your comment!

*** I have now ordered these, pictures to come upon their arrival!

Over-priced things that I...well, I want them!

There are certain things in life which, lets face it, are not remotely worth the extortionate price tags that brands like to put on them. Despite this, I am a sucker for and still would buy certain things that fall into this category.
1. Chocolate Ugg boots - I've always wanted a pair of Uggs. Hell, even my ex BOYFRIEND had a pair!! In what world is that fair?!
2. A Onepiece. As so adorably endorsed by One Direction of X Factor 'fame' (before Nintendo DS snapped them up) - i can imagine many a cosy night in watching movies and eating junk food (ahem..do not refer back to previous healthkick post) wearing one of these badboys. Particularly if your other half had one too. His and hers Onepiece...amazing!
3. Juicy Couture handbags - I'm not even a huge fan of the Juicy Couture brand. I just really.want.this.bag.!!

I stole this from someone on my Facebook so unfortunately I have no idea who to give credit to - if this image happens to be yours let me know and full credit will be coming your way!

I have no willpower

This is a chocolate muffin cake. It is a giant chocolate muffin, almost as big as a dinner plate filled with fresh cream. It is beautiful.
It is also nearly 300 calories per ONE TENTH of the cake, and I damn near devoured the whole thing to myself.

It is because of this, that I have realised I have a slight problem when it comes to sweet things, and that I should probably stop eating them. This, coupled with the fact that i shouldnt even be eating chocolate anyway due to my migraines (bad Holly, bad!)

So as from now going forward I have decided to be a lot more sensible with my diet. And by going forward I mean after I have consumed this beautiful malibu, orange and grenadine concoction. Heaven.

Hey there!
Been a bit off the radar for a little while now. This is due to a number of factors.
1) Work
2) Headaches
3) My laptop is a piece of crap

We've been covering a South American football tournament for the past month (Copa America) which finished last night. It's been a month of working weekends and working late into the night, so I've really not had that much time for/given that much thought to my blog. Which is a shame, because I love writing posts and catching up on reading the blogs I love.

I've also been suffering from really severe migraines. It's got to the point now where I'll have a migraine at least twice a week, always lasting for more than 24hrs, sometimes lasting a couple of days. Been to the docs, and theyv put me on some medication which I have to take everyday. I'm also experimenting with cutting out chocolate as this is probably the likliest cause. Sad times!!

My laptop is literally completely useless. If it doesn't malfunction and switch itself off halfway through anything I happen to be doing on it, then for some reason it doesn't publish my posts which I then have to do via my phone. Just very annoying. Hopefully will be getting a Mac Book before too long, woohoo.

Have had a pretty busy weekend really! Met a uni friend for drinks on the Southbank on Thursday. Had a girls night out on the Friday at a cocktail bar called Gem (Happy hour til 8, woohoo!) so many sex on the beach cocktails were consumed! We then went on to Tiger Tiger club in Leicester Sq, which is always a fun and pretty cheap club to party at! On Saturday night the Crush asked me to come out for his friends birthday at a bar called Zebranos in Carnaby St. I was really excited about him wanting me to meet his friends, seemed like a positive step! Can't get over how much I fancy him haha.

Sunday turned out to be quite a football-related affair. Crush and I had breakfast at a lovely, bustling cafe called Miracles. Midway through our cooked breakfast, in walks Robbie Keane of Spurs and sits down opposite us. Transpires that he is a regular (which we gathered when he was high fiving the staff) and its cute because there were little kids in there with their Spurs kits on and their notebooks ready for signing knowing that he would probably come in for breakfast. I went off to work afterwards, and at the end of the night we had a bit of a wrap party, drinking champagne with football legends Ricky Villa and Ossie Ardiles. My brother is a huge Spurs fan, so I managed to get them to sign Ricky's book which my colleague wrote!


So excited to give it to him when he gets home from work :)

Hope you are all well and looking forward to catching up with your blogs now that I have a few days off :D x

Feeling blue...but not for long :)

Since I came back from Tenerife i've been enveloped by my usual post-holiday blues. It's a strange feeling but I just feel really down all the time and have this deep longing to be back out there. Who wouldn't want to wake up to the sound of the sea and glorious sunshine? And the Spanish men of course!

My Spanish friend Ricardo has invited me over to stay whenever. So I figured, whats stopping me? All i'd need to do is book the flights and then i'd be on my way. I've been so busy moping around that i've completely forgotten that the world is this huge window of opportunity - who's to stop me making the most of every day and doing spontaneous things like a quick trip away to the 'Isle of Fernando'!? (hurry up and bring back Take Me Out!!)

The urge to travel aside, I sat down tonight and had some serious words with myself, and realised that I am such a lucky girl and really I have no right to be sitting around moping over nothing. I have wonderful friends and family around me,a job that I love and look forward to going to, i've just passed my Masters (thanks so much to the lovely ladies who responded to my Dissertation post and filled in my questionnaire - really, truely appreciate it), and I have my whole life ahead of me. I need to get out there and start enjoying it.

Hello new positive mental attitude!

So yesterday the Crush came for dinner. Here is the menu I ended up cooking:

Starter:
Prawn Mornay - mash potato piped around the edge of a dish, filled with prawns, covered in a cheese sauce (cornflour, milk, butter, salt & pepper, cheese) and then sprinkled with cheese on the top and grilled til golden


Main Course:
Organic Sirloin Steak - seasoned with lots of salt and pepper and studded with garlic, fried in garlic oil and garlic butter
Served with roasted rosemary new potatoes, shallots, garlic and roasted red pepper, all drizzled with and cooked in Truffle oil
Also served with fresh asparagus drizzled with Truffle oil and garlic sauteed spinach
I scattered mozerella pearls over the veg to make it look pretty!



Dessert
Creme Brulee
Strawberries dipped in chocolate




I do believe it went well! Aside from slightly overcooking his steak and nearly setting the kitchen on fire numerous times, and having three attempts at the cheese sauce for the starter, it all came together well and tasted very good if i do say so myself!

They say food is the key to a mans heart so we shall have to wait and see whether chanelling Nigella has had any impact on how he feels...!

Need Nigella on speed-dial...

Ladies, I have a dilemma.
On Thursday I have, in a momentary loss of sanity, invited the Crush over for dinner, where I have promised to cook. Trouble is, I can't cook. Unless beans on toast counts, which I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

So I need to enlist the help of you ladies who CAN cook so that you can advise me of a recipe to cook that will knock his socks off because he is a Gordon Ramsey in the making. Literally he is such a good cook. Even if I cant outcook him at the very least I dont want to poison him.

So I'm thinking some kind of steak because fellas love steak...but I want to make it really garlicy and buttery because he loves anything garlicy and buttery...but what to go with it? Some of kind salad and some kind of potatoes?!

HELP!x

I love it when you hear a song that really 'does something' to you - this one tugs at the heart strings for some reason! Always loved You Me At Six, really should start listening to more of the bands I used to love. Since I went to uni my music taste changed so dramatically. Gone are the days of crowd-surfing, stage-diving Holly:(

What music do you like?

My holiday! (Potentially long post...)

Hola...i'm backkkkkk!

Tenerife was an absolute dream of a holiday, currently feeling my usual post-holiday depression and wishing I was back there...

So we flew out on Saturday morning and arrived at Tenerife Sur airport at about 3:30 in the afternoon. The flight was about 4hrs 25 but seemed to take ages because we were so impatient to get there! Arrived to glorious sunshine and heat, took our transfer coach to the hotel, arrived at our gorgeous hotel (Hotel Paradise Park, highly recommend!) only to be told that there was a burst pipe and we would need to stay one night at a different hotel. We were feeling pretty agitated because we wanted to be at this hotel, and even more annoyed when they called us a cab to a hotel down the road which is the ugliest hotel in the resort but also a 3* with a rubbish pool so we were downgraded, not happy! The room was fine but the pool was not nice at all. We made the best of it though and went out for a lovely dinner at a restaurant called Charlotte's (best garlic prawns and chocolate cake on the island...8.95euros for three courses, cant go wrong!) and it was right on the seafront.

The next day we got up early for breakfast and then headed over to Paradise Park. They were really apologetic for the night at the other hotel and upgraded us to all inclusive for free! Happy days. As much alcohol as we wanted and breakfast lunch and dinner at the hotel if we wanted to. The downside was that our room wasnt ready so we had to put our suitcases in storeage and go and lay by the pool all day (what a hardship lol) We eventually got to our apartment at 4pm and they had given us a massive fruit bowl and champagne to compensate. They really couldnt do enough for us, the staff were so lovely.
The pools were AMAZING. There were 5 to choose from...

The natural pool, set in a gorgeous rocky setting with heated water! Adults only too, bonus of no screaming kids! ([picture stolen from the website)

The rooftop pool...this one was awesome, it has a rooftop jacuzzi too and a whole sundeck to sunbathe on, also adults only, amazing view of Los Cristianos (picture also stolen from the website)

This was our favourite as its an infinity pool which falls down into another pool! It had three jacuzzis built into it too...gorgeous. We spent most of our time by this pool :)
On the third day we went parasailing!! Absolutely incredible. It was 35euros per person to do a tandem parasail. We were picked up at the beach in Las Americas in a speed boat, and then taken out to sea to the parasailing boat. No pictures of this yet as they are on my friends camera but will upload some soon! We were harnessed up and then lifted up into the air, dunked in the sea, and then lifted right up high above the sea. It looks so scary but was actually the most relaxing and theraputic experience because its so calm up in the sky! When we landed they dunked us in the sea again and then the spanish boat men got me involved reeling in the parasail, and trying to throw me in the sea! The speed boat came to pick us up and the driver let my friend drive it, and again tried to throw me in the sea! I dont know why but i must have given off the vibe that im scared so they loved to wind me up!
We chilled by the pool the next day and in the evening we met up with my Spanish friend Ricardo who I met two years ago in Los Cristianos. He was a waiter at the bar my parents and I went to a lot and on our last night he chased me down the road asking me if I had facebook lol, and we've been in touch ever since (with the help of Google translate!) He picked us up and took us to a gorgeous bar called Buddha bar with outside marquees, sofas and sheesha pipes, and the most delicious cocktails. He then took us to a Reggai bar with more delicious cocktails.


On the Thursday we had a very action packed day.
We got picked up at 10 to go to Siam Park, the most awesome water park EVER. Here are some videos...
Tower of Power - scariest/highest water slide that takes you through a shark tank!
Wave Machine - amazing!!! Its huge and scary but so much fun!
The Dragon - your in a rubber ring and thrown full pelt down a tube in pitch black that eventually opens out onto this ENORMOUS bowl where you are thrown high speed up each side of it!
Really couldn't recommend Siam Park enough, definately google it, its awesome!
There is also a 'lazy river' where you sit in a solo or two person rubber ring and just float along slow moving rapids, which eventually take you through a tunnel through the shark tank! Amazing.
That night we went on a Mayhem bar crawl (which we got TOTALLY ripped off for..if you go to Las Americas resort do NOT trust reps who say that it is the best deal on the island because the bars you go to dont even charge you entry anyway and other bars do way better deals!!) We got very very drunk and ended up meeting two lovely Norwegian girls and partied the night away.
On Friday which was our last day we went on a whale and dolphin boat trip. I've been on the trip before on the same boat and it was incredible. Its a 5 hr trip with lunch included and the boat takes you out to see the Pilot whales, then all along the coast before stopping for lunch in a cove by Los Gigantes which are some of the highest sea cliffs in Europe. It is truely breath taking and i dont think any of my pictures do it justice.











Home now in not so sunny England...back at work tomorrow, very excited to be going back:) Saw the Crush last night, he took me for a walk in a gorgeous park in north London, then I stayed at his and we went shopping today (where I helped him to pick out clothes..he's definately onto a winner haha)

Sorry for the long post - hope you are all well! I've missed blogging:)
x