I love Emma Bridgewater pottery and Friday night, before I went into London, I was browsing the Fortnum & Mason website and saw that they were doing an exclusive Emma Bridgewater collection. When I saw this tea towel, I just had to have it and bought it as a gift for my mum on Christmas Day.

Fortnum’s Christmas Tea Towel £12 – online and instore

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After the video, Barbra and Jason sing “How Deep Is The Ocean” which actually got me quite emotional. Their two voices intertwined together was like gold dust; so unexpected and even my insides glittered at the sound of it. They obviously have a great relationship and special connection which showed throughout the song. I thought to myself, he has the most special relationship of all with his mother and it’s beautiful to watch them. So I am so digressing here, but this song too just highlights everything good about his voice and his emotion within the song.

Thursday morning on the way to work, I streamed Jason’s EP through Spotify and discovered the rest of the songs he had recorded. I was totally chilled out by the time I got to work! This is definitely on my playlist tomorrow (Saturday) morning with my coffee and a good book! In the words of Harold Arlen; come rain or come shine, I’m gonna love this EP and whatever else is yet to come! It will paint the beautiful background for any occasion.

You can find Jason’s EP featuring “Nature Boy” and “How Deep Is The Ocean” on iTunes USA & UK now and on Spotify

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So off we went to the RAH. The Royal Albert Hall is an amazing venue! I first and last visited about 11 years ago with my High School for a schools choir thing. Our seats weren’t the best but I was happy enough! Front row in choir west, so behind the stage but the closest I could get to Joan. I wasn’t going to sit in the Gods or anywhere else for that matter. This woman is like “buttah” in England, how many times am I going to get to see her?

So the night gets started with her support act, two English guys who were actually hilarious and got the night started really well with some “Curryoke” – already started using that joke! And so after their set, there was a 25min break and onto the show!

The lights dim, my heart pounds and skips a million beats when I see a glimmer of glittering gold just down below on the stage behind the curtains and I yell and point. It’s JOAN!!! My brother at this point thinks I’m nuts. Then she appears onstage and the whole place erupts! As she turns up to us lot on the choir seats and says “What the F**k? What the f**k do you think you’re gonna see?” – probably the best words I could ever have wished Joan Rivers would say to me. Legend. I “LOLLED”.

It was really a laugh a minute from that moment and I wish I could remember everything that happened but it really went so quickly because I was enjoying myself so much! This woman can do literally anything; she was rolling around on the floor, waving a virtual tampon around her head like a lasso, climbing on-top of a piano amongst other less P-G things. This woman is an inspiration; she says what she thinks and gets away with it because she is who she is; a comedy icon who has proven she can stand the test of time.

We left on a high, crippled by the Michael J Fox in an earthquake gag. Even now, I sit here in a state with myself just thinking about it. I’m building myself a Joan Rivers collection; DVDs, Books etc. I can’t get enough!!! Until the next time, Joanie!

Love Her! – Joan Rivers @ RAH, London

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Basically the diet consists of eating vegetables and fruit with a little protein and lots of exercise too!

Lauren Conrad (The Hills) has a great blog on which she posts fantastic healthy recipes and ideas. It’s really easy to get bored of eating the same stuff everyday when dieting so it’s important to include variety in your diet.

Check out 101 salad ideas:

http://www.laurenconrad.com/post/dined-my-favorite-simple-salads-simple-recipes-healthy

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June 2012

I remember April last year, not being able to sleep due to excitement for Kate & William’s Royal Nuptials and this year I had the same feeling of excitement but no lack of sleep *thankfully!* The Golden Jubilee does not seem so long ago if I’m honest; Brian May playing the National Anthem by electric guitar on the top of Buckingham Palace, Prince Charles addressing the Queen as “Mummy”, The Queen mouthing “there’s Barbrara Windsor” and an hour of Paul Mc Cartney and the crowds in the palace garden singing “Hey Jude” for what seemed, back then, an eternity!

So here we are in 2012 and to mark the Diamond Jubilee I’ve done everything I stood against as a thirteen year old! I’ve bought into it and I think I can now say I appreciate our Royals. So much so, yesterday I took to the banks of the Thames to support our Queen and country. When I say country I mean everything that’s good about living in England, which is pretty much not a lot, nevertheless I would call it my mini thanksgiving for tea, fish and chips, Glastonbury Music Festival, Marks & Spencer and Baked Beans.

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Can’t say too much atm because of karma and all that jazz but just watch this space!

Whatever happens this blog ain’t going nowhere tho!

Hope everybody had a good Christmas and got everything they wanted! I’m loving my Beats By Dre, listening to Michael Jackson’s Stranger In Moscow on them now and one word…amazing!

Wow, that was all very deep. On the non deep side….I got nothing!

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It’s been snowing! 

I love the sleigh!! 

Cookie Bowl

Santa Claus & Gingerbread Man

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Day Off Number 2 of 3 this week:

What do you do? BAKE!

When I say these are super easy to make I seriously mean it because they SO are! The recipe is taken from Nigella’s Christmas. It’s been roughly 8 years since I looked to Nigella la Domestic Goddess’s recipe books for inspiration but I was looking for a biscuit recipe and she came up with the goods!! To make the cookies into little snowflakes I used a PME icing cutter press which I usually use for, you guessed it, fondant icing!! Don’t they look fab?! I put them into a little snowman shaped bowl on the coffee table in our conservatory where we have our Christmas Tree and where we tend to gather when we have guests round so people can help themselves. Because of the peppery and spicy scent of the biscuits they also smell lush combined with the pine scent of the tree!

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How fun are these Birthday Cupcakes?! Everyone in my house is born in December and has had a massive cake baked for their special day. My mum’s birthday is the fourth and final which is tomorrow so I baked her some Jazzy Birthday Cupcakes seeing as I’ve already made party ring and Oreo cupcakes this year and wanted to do something a little different! The cupcakes are vanilla topped with white chocolate buttercream. To get the jazzy-esque look I rolled the side of the cupcake in sugar balls. Find the recipe in More From the Magnolia Bakery!

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