London

St Paul's Cathedral

Catching a glimpse of a bridal shoot!

Our room

The view from our hall way's balcony

John Torode's Smiths of Smithfield

Macaroni cheese with smoked haddock

Corn beef Hash

Enjoying the complimentary slippers

The Theatre

Enjoying American pancakes and root beer in Soho

The Diner

Afternoon Tea at the hotel

For my 25th birthday the boyfriend very generously bought me tickets to see Diana Vickers on stage in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. This was followed with my mum offering to pay for our hotel. Thanks mum!

We booked the hotel via lastminute.com's top secret scheme. For those of you who aren't familiar, the hotel has such a good deal that they choose not to put their name to it until payment is received. You are given the star rating and a brief description of the hotel, keeping the address withheld until your payment is processed. We took a chance and ended up staying in a brand new 5* hotel, right next door to St Paul's Cathedral for £95. Result!

What a fabulous weekend! Super-duper posh hotel, discovering John Torode's cafe and loving the peanut butter milkshakes, wearing my gorgeously pink suede ruffle shoes bought especially for the occasion, hearing Diana's voice live and finding her impressions of Marilyn Monroe, Edith Piaf and Shirley Bassey dreamy, being hugely relieved to find Balans restaurant (recommended to us by my step-sister) after running in the rain and trying to avoid the puddles, window shopping on Oxford Street, satisfying a pancake craving at an American Diner and having a girl-crush on the girl behind the bar (think blonde Dita Von Teese), wishing Manchester had an underground system, looking out for celebs and wishing we could visit more often.

Stitches

You may remember the fabulous Lipsy dress I treated myself to a few months a go. I bought it with a friend's wedding in mind and as the big day is only weeks away I thought it best I try it on and check all is still well. At the time it fitted beautifully but I must have lost some weight as the dress was slightly too big!

Drastic action needed to be taken. Spending the day hitching my dress up would not be ladylike, especially whilst juggling my glass of wine, camera and handbag, all wedding essentials!

Several of the men folk at work have their suits altered at Stitches so I decided to give it a try. Apparently they have contracts with lots of the big designer stores so if its good enough for them I thought its good enough for the Lipsy lovely.

One lunch time I wandered over, taking my friend for moral support, and waited in the queue to 'try on'. The fitting cubicle is in their reception area so having to stand in my socks and dress was slightly embarrassing!

I wasn't stood for long though, the staff were fantastic and very quick! A lady pinned in my dress, checking all the time that I was happy and then I was told it would be ready in an hour!

I collected the dress, paid my £14 and rushed home to try it! I was so impressed, once again it fitted perfectly and you couldn't even tell it had been altered, their work was faultless.

Fireflies

On Friday evening the boyfriend took me to see Fireflies at The Lowry in Salford. What a fantastic, energetic, hilarious and heart rendering play! 

I'm not even going to try and review it, I doubt I would do it the justice it deserves, so please click on the link and see what the professionals have written.