The stuff in the background of the photo gives some kind of an idea as to what is actually all over my desk at the moment – STUFF. Just stuff, not even work stuff, clutter. Insane. Please help me clean it, someone. 

Saying that, I did find time to bake cupcakes for a couple of the girls I work with, I think they really appreciated them.

This is about all my brain can cope with at the moment! Last night I was watching TV with a friend and the news was supposed to be on before the programme we were going to watch… the programme started and I asked “wasn’t the news supposed to be on before this?” and she replied, “we just watched the news. We even had a conversation about swine flu!” oh. Well that’s me then.

I’ve had a really annoying cold all week, since I landed in London again. Yesterday was supposed to be my last day on the medicine but today I woke up feeling like total hell – I tried to work as normal for a couple of hours but have just succumbed to the thick orange gooey syrupy medicine and I’m already starting to feel a little better. It’s a shame medicine is so disgusting – I guess to stop kids drinking entire bottles of it, although saying that when I was 14 my friend’s little brother did drink an entire bottle of Calpol and had to be rushed away in an ambulance (he was okay in the end). I always found Calpol pretty disgusting anyway (way too sweet) but I can definitely see how that pink sweet sugary mess could be so appealing to kids. I’ve never been a very good patient anyway – I refuse to admit when I’m sick. Once when I was 9 I was really ill and my mum said “absolutely no school” and I cried for ages because I really didn’t want to miss a day (even though I hated school) and in secondary school I don’t think I ever even had one day off for illness. 

Hahaha! The medicine I took is pretty strong and I think that’s why I’m rambling about all kinds of stuff right now, I do apologise. If you were sitting here talking to me in person I guarantee that I would be slurring my words and giggling about nothing in particular. I’m shocked that I can even type really.

Today I had a load of research planned but my internet is going to be disconnected while some building work takes place. And since I’m not at my best, it’s probably not such a bad thing. So I totally intend to play The Sims for most of the day. Shocking. It’s probably not something that I should admit to, but it’s definitely one of my favourite ways to procrastinate that doesn’t involve the internet. 

Oh seaside I miss you!

Yeah it’s blurry etc but it was 4:30am, that’s my excuse anyway!

Anyway, I arrived in Brighton at about 5am and did my food shopping at the 24-hour grocery store before collapsing on the sofabed (I don’t have an actual bed yet!) with a friend who was visiting… we only managed to sleep for about 3 hours before waking up and going to the bagel place next door for breakfast (awesome, by the way). Spent the rest of the day walking around and then lazing on the balcony, basically.

Obviously it’s great having so many fantastic shops right outside my house, but unfortunately I can’t really buy much due to lack of funds. Hopefully soon enough, I’ll be able to sort that out and go on some kind of Brighton shopping spree! I love our balcony though, it’s great watching all the people go past and seeing what’s going on. 

This building is really interesting – it used to be a pub but now the bottom floor is a shop, the next 2 floors are offices and the top floor looks like it’s a flat. 

I did manage to get a new camera last week! It’s a Canon 450d, I’m still learning the ins and outs of it but overall I love it so far. I’ve been so busy with work I’ve not had much of a chance to use it, though. There are more photos on my flickr though, as always!

 I’m working on loads of things at the moment, hopefully I can get some of them on here and show them off, it’s difficult though because I need to learn to be way more organised! I seem to start on one thing and then move right on to another before finishing the first thing and then it’s a total mess. It’s like when you’re at school and you start a new workbook and say “this is going to be really neat all the way through” but by the 5th page or so, it’s all scribbled over and you don’t really know what’s going on (or was that just me?), that’s what my weekly planner is like – the first week is immaculate but slowly it turns into a major mess and now that it’s June I’m totally confused. But saying that, it’s not really done me much harm so far – it’s just how different people work through things I suppose! 

What I do know, is that I have a whole heap of work-related reading to do. So I will go and see if I can start that at least!

The yellow ones are lemon (flavoured with limoncello, as I lacked at actual lemon because I neglected to check that I had one before I started, oops) and the pink ones are vanilla. There’s also some macarons from Fortnum & Mason because that was part of her present, she’d never had them before so I thought it was pretty necessary!

(The post-it note on the macarons is directed at people in my house, the rule is if there’s no note it’s fair game!)

The photos I got aren’t amazing because I was more intent on seeing the actual show, and my camera also decided to do weird things with the low lighting, but you get the idea. (More photos at flickr!)

Overall, it was an amazing show and we had a great time!

And now it’s back to work for me, which is pretty rubbish considering the past few days have been really fun. One thing I really want to do is tidy up this blog because it’s still green which isn’t ideal!

(A few more at my flickr) 

Elsewhere, I finally managed to get to Westfield London – when it opened it was so close to Christmas that I was working too much to actually get there (and would you want to, so close to Christmas? I pictured the place totally heaving with angry Christmas shoppers!) and I was convinced I’d hate it anyway, so I wasn’t that bothered about getting there super-fast. However, yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised! Firstly, it was EMPTY. There was seriously hardly anyone there at all! It was also really easy to navigate, I did pick up a map when I walked in but I didn’t actually use it. There’s a nice mix of shops, from the ones you see everywhere (Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Office etc…) to those that you might not see that often – Hollister, for example, have their only UK store in Westfield (on a side note, does anyone actually enjoy shopping in the dark à la Hollister? I nearly bought a top thinking it was purple only to find that it was a rusty-brown colour…) and the food offerings are pretty special too. I stopped off at Sacred in the morning and had the most amazing coffee and chocolate fudge cake, and before leaving in the afternoon we had lunch at Crêpe Affaire which wasn’t bad. The only thing I really didn’t like about Westfield was the really pushy salespeople in EVERY shop (and I’m not even exaggerating, it was every shop).

MAJOR plan for tomorrow: I’m seeing Britney Spears at the O2! Pictures to come!

I’ve spent the past few weeks packing up my stuff to make the move from London to Brighton – including all my fabric/textiles projects, which is proving to be a difficult task. I was hoping to make the move over the course of a few weeks, gradually moving everything in small hauls (i.e. stuffing everything in suitcases and somehow managing to make the train journey) but it’s becoming clear that an actual van is in order. Shame. 

There is so much more to write with some pictures to come, but for now I just wanted to say hello! 

x