25 November 2016

a little trip to st aubin | jersey

st aubin london lifestyle travel jersey blog

st aubin london lifestyle travel jersey blog
 st aubin london lifestyle travel jersey blog


It's been a while since I carped on about being in Jersey (you can my trip to Rozel here), so why not go for another one? Even though these photos were taken in the middle of summer, they look slightly more like they belong to November anyway, thanks to the fact it was tipping it down when we arrived. When I first went to Jersey - I must have been about twelve - we went for two weeks and I can only remember it being boiling hot and getting sun burnt because we spent every minute of the day running around on the beach. The last two times I've been back it's been a real mix, but always with some form of bad weather, whether that's fog or rain. Also, St Aubin is supposed to be one of the warmest parts of the island. Pretty typical of my bad luck!


st aubin london lifestyle travel jersey blog

st aubin london lifestyle travel jersey blog

St Aubin was a part of Jersey I'd only ever been through on the bus and pretty much only because it's on the way to my favourite restaurant on the island (Oyster Box, in case you were wondering -  the best food on the island and you can really understand why it can be so difficult to get a reservation in there!). I'd always wanted to get off the bus and have a look around, the harbour always looked inviting and colourful, so finally I made some time to get off my bum and explore. If it hadn't been raining, then it would have been possible to walk along the beach from the capital in St Helier, and if you're more of a kid at heart there's a small train which goes along the beach from St Helier to St Aubin. 

st aubin london lifestyle travel jersey blog
  

st aubin london lifestyle travel jersey blog

St Aubin is probably one of the busier parts of Jersey (which is saying something) - clearly it's not as busy as St Helier, but is much prettier than St Helier, which personally, I think is lacking in any sort of character at all. That means there's plenty of small shops to explore, restaurants and pubs to visit - unlike in some areas of Jersey where you can go to the beach and have the grand old choice of one place to go to if you want a drink or a sarnie afterwards. Having said that, it's pretty easy to get away from the crowds too - you can take a walk over to the fort (if the tide it out far enough) or you can head up along the cobbled streets into the hills - bonus points if you take this option because you get quite the view from the top of the hills and because who doesn't like pretty colourful houses? Notting Hill - eat your heart out.

Let me know if you head over to Jersey at any point, or if you've been and can give some more tips!
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21 November 2016

lemon & lavender drizzle cake | a recipe




You'll have to forgive me. Ever since I found a place which sells lavender and rose and whatever else, I have become obsessed with finding recipes which use all of the edible flowers and my blog is soon to be groaning under the weight of them all, not to mention the baking box where I keep all of my baking junk, which is balanced on top of the fridge with the alcohol. It's piled so high that one day I will come home from work to find angry housemates, smashed bottles of gin and I'll wonder why I didn't just go to Ikea for storage sooner...

And so we come to this lemon and lavender drizzle cake. And I know, drizzle cake is hardly about to set the cake world on fire, but they are so easy to make and lemon drizzle is such a classic - and hey, classics are classics for a reason. Plus this cake comes with one massive benefit, which is that when you make the crystallised lemon slices, the lemony sugar syrup which is left over is perfect for making a Bramble cocktail. So cake and cocktails? Win win really. 


Let's just ignore the fact that this looks off centre and the icing went a little wrong. It wouldn't be a cake I'd made if something hadn't gone wrong with it...

Ingredients:

Cake:

225g butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
225g self-raising flour
1 teapsoon of lavender

Drizzle:

Juice 1½ lemons
85g caster sugar

Icing:

Icing sugar
2 teaspoons of lavender

Candied lemon:

3 slices of lemon
150g caster sugar
170ml water

Method:

Cake:

Heat oven to 180C.
Beat together 225g butter and 225g caster sugar until pale and creamy.
Add 4 eggs slowly, bit by bit
Sift in 225g flour
Add grated zest of 1 lemon
In a pesltle and mortar, crush the lavendar and add to the mix
Mix well until combined
Line a loaf tin then spoon in the mixture and level the top
Bake for 45-50 mins

Drizzle:
While the cake is cooling in its tin, mix together the juice of 1 1/2 lemons and 85g caster sugar to make the drizzle
Prick the warm cake all over then pour over the drizzle
Leave in the tin until completely cool

Icing:

Mix icing sugar and water to desired thickness and slather over
Decorate with lavender
Candied lemon:

Combine the water with the sugar in a saucepan
Bring to a gentle boil and simmer for 5 minutes
Add the lemon slices and simmer for another 5 minutes
When the slices have become transparentish, remove the slices
Dry on grease-proof paper
Place on top of cake
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18 November 2016

10 things you'll recognise if you're on a job hunt



When I first started working in Parliament and I went on a tour of the Palace of Westminster, I was told that if I didn't look at everything like it was one of the most special buildings in the world, then it was probably time for me to leave. And even though I thought that it would never be possible, because lets face it, the building is incredible, I can now walk past central lobby without giving it much of a second thought. When we have work experience guys in our office, or interns who tell me how much they'd love to work here and I don't feel the same excitement, I just feel guilty. So, I think, my time has come. The job hunt has begun. 

I'd be lying if I said I was taking it really seriously - I'm sticking it out until I can find a job I really want to move to. Having made a job move mistake once in my life, I'm pretty determined not do it again. I'm in no desperate need to move, and I'm not unemployed. There are still pockets of enjoyment to be found in this job, just not as many as there once were. My hands are itching for a new change, for something challenging. It's not just interview speak, I really mean it. Eeek

Here are a few observations on the job hunt so far:

Updating a CV is pretty miserable. From now on, I'll be updating it throughout the year, instead of desperately trying to remember all the "skill improving" things I've been up to. 

Writing a cover letter is even worse, and completely goes against my natural tendency to chat shit about myself even though I don't really mean it. 

I have to constantly remind myself that nothing can be as bad as the time I was unemployed after University. There are very few jobs which is worse than being unemployed for 8+ months. 

My LinkedIn is now being viewed by some of the most random recruiters I have ever seen, which only leads me to think they fell down an internet black hole when they landed on my profile. 

Even worse, I now have to log in to LinkedIn every day and see those bloody awful motivational posts, and wonder why someone who works down the corridor to me and does the exact same job as me describes himself as a "political thinker" in his job title. No mate

This extra LinkedIn searching has found me turning a bit green eyed. That girl that once volunteered in my team and came in hungover every day has got that amazing job? Sweet Lord tell me how. 

A non-existent interview is a good excuse to spend a lot of time flicking through ASOS in an attempt to find that perfect interview dress. Gotta look up to it right? 

I have become obsessed with refreshing job advertising websites. Obsessed. Even though I now know when they update and can pretty much guarantee I won't even look twice at the 90% of job adverts

I have re-considered putting my law degree to use. Even though I can't afford to go back to University to do my LPC and even though the three years of law at Uni made me never ever want to study it ever again, I still think what if?

I have genuinely worried about the sanity of some employers. You're advertising an "amazing" position for £16K in London for someone with experience? Hmm...

Anyone else?!
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16 November 2016

gin & tonic macarons | the macaron failure diaries

gin and tonic macarons

Macarons are sweet meringue-based confection made with egg white, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder and they are also the bane of my life. This is my third attempt at making them, and when I began making them, I began naively. I thought, how hard can it be? I can make meringue, so how can it be much harder?

Wrong, wrong, I couldn't have been more wrong. So many things go wrong with these stupid things. But they taste so good. And there are so many different flavour combinations and colours you can make with them, and when you get it right, you make something which is absolutely lovely. When you get it right...if you get it right. 

But I'm determined to get it right. And I'll be documenting my troubles along the way, in an effort to document what went wrong so it doesn't go wrong the next time. And hey, some of the flavour combinations work, so if you can make macarons already, maybe you start by giving me some tips, and then you can take inspirations from my fillings. But tips please. Please. The only good thing about macaron failures, unlike for example, a failed cake, is that you can still eat them and they will still taste okay, and sometimes they will still even taste great. 

gin and tonic macarons

So there were too things that went wrong this time. Firstly, the colour. They'd gone brown on the top and the colour wasn't as a strong as it should be. Apparently this means that I'd used the wrong kind of food colouring, or hadn't added the food colouring in at the right stage. The browning on the top was probably because the oven was too hot. This tends to be an issue with my oven anyway, even if I'm not making macarons! 

Secondly, the tops were still a little rough and not shiny like macarons should be. Apparently this is because I didn't pulse the ground almonds enough. I'm always guilty of this too, because I get carried away and when it comes to baking, I'm not patient enough.

Anyway, moving on to the gin & tonic flavour, which is definitely good - if you can make macarons, then I'd definitely recommend giving them a go.  

Ingredients:
  • 50g egg whites
  • 90g caster sugar
  • 30g water (about two tablespoons)
  • 100g unsalted butter, soft
  • 170g tonic water
  • 30g (about two tablespoons)

Method:
  • Boil the gin and tonic water until it reduces
  • Whisk the egg whites
  • Place the caster sugar and water into a pan and boil 
  • Pour over the whisked egg whites
  • Increase the speed and whisk the egg whites 
  • Gradually mix in the soft butter and whisk until smooth and fluffy
  • Add the tonic reduction and use immediately
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14 November 2016

a little visit to royal tunbridge wells | england

london lifestyle blog tunbridge wells

london lifestyle blog tunbridge wells

london lifestyle blog tunbridge wells

london lifestyle blog tunbridge wells

I mentioned a little while ago about wanting to escape London for a bit - that I found London to be quite exhausting and that it helped me, well, not hate living here so much if I could just take a break once in while. If nothing else, sometimes it's nice to be able to walk down a street without being bashed out of the way, or without wanting to bash a tourist out of the way. Anyway...this little trip was to Royal Tunbridge Wells. A slightly odd choice, but I needed to go to Lakeland and there are no where near enough stores in London, and I sure as hell don't want to spend my Saturday afternoon fighting with people in White City or Stratford. 

So why not combine it with a trip somewhere? It was a pretty quick and easy journey out of London, which would have been quicker had I realised that the train station near my boyfriends house was the second stop on the trip, rather than us walking half an hour to get the train from its first stop. Div. At at £15 for a return, it wasn't extortionate either. Plus - I'm trying to see more of England one weekend at a time. 

The first thing we did when we arrived was head to The Grove, which was probably the perfect place to start for a trip to Tunbridge Wells in Autumn. The Grove is well known for its trees, and there are hundreds of them, which also meant there were thousands of leaves. I resisted the urge to run through the park kicking them all up into the air, but other people in the park definitely didn't - I can't say I blame them!

london lifestyle blog tunbridge wells

london lifestyle blog tunbridge wells

london lifestyle blog tunbridge wells

Afterwards, we headed to some of the smaller streets surrounding the park, moving towards our ultimate aim of going to the Pantiles. Tunbridge Wells is well known for its Victorian and Georgian architecture (which are my favourite, so I was completely in my element). Just near where one of these photos was taken, there was a pub called The Grove, where the drinkers appeared to be having a singalong, just like they do when they crack the piano out in the Queen Vic in Eastenders. I probably could have spent a lot more time wandering the streets to have a look at the gorgeous houses which were squeezed down some of the back streets 


london lifestyle blog tunbridge wells

london lifestyle blog tunbridge wells

Finally, we went to what is probably the biggest attraction of Tunbridge Wells (!), the Pantiles. The Pantiles is a Georgian colonnade of shops, with some of the prettiest buildings in the whole town, full of shops and restaurants. A lot of the restaurants allowed you to eat outside, and the whole place felt slightly more French than being sat in Kent. The first shop we went into was Chegworth Farm Shop, which stocked Monmouth coffee and some tasty looking juice options and had a really pretty and Autumnal window display. 

We also spent a lot of time in Trevor Mottram, which is one of the best kitchen shops I've come across in a long time (and actually, much better than going to Lakeland, which was half of the reason for the trip in the first place).  The shop was stuffed full of kitchen stuff, and there were some incredibly good bargains in there. I managed to stock up on cup measuring pans, icing syringes, edible glitter and two cookie cutters for under £15 - but even better were the staff, who were friendly, helpful and up for a chat. If you ever find yourself in this corner of Kent, it's definitely worth a visit. 

So if you fancy a quick trip to escape busy crowds and you're in need of bakeware, you probably won't go wrong with Tunbridge. I'll probably be back! 
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11 November 2016

the last postcard

bath visit london lifestyle blog

I've always sent postcards when I go away, usually for one reason: my Granny has always loved receiving them. They're displayed in a special place in her kitchen (below the radio, above the microwave) until they've been there too long, and then they're stored in the outside loo, where there are hundreds of postcards from family holidays dating back decades. Once, me and my brother both forgot to send a post card and she was so upset, it was so horrendous, I've not made the same mistake again. In the last year or so I've moved away from sending handwritten postcards. I'm still not entirely comfortable about it - surely handwriting them is half the point? But my handwriting is atrocious, and my Granny's eyesight is getting worse, so I moved to an app where I can take my own photos, add a location and type instead. 

As I was writing my latest batch from my trip to Iceland, I realised you could see all of the past postcards which had been sent. The first one I ever sent was from my trip to Bath, and it was sent on the April 11th - addressed to "Granny and Grandad" and signed off with "I hope Grandad feels better soon". The next postcard after that was sent in May, addressed only to my Granny, because on April 17th my Grandad died. 

I'd never really known grief before, no one I knew had ever died before. To get to 25 and to still have all four of my grandparents felt lucky, and I was grateful. And then it all disappeared in the space of a weekend. I hadn't realised just how much of an impact a death has on a family. I know it sounds so naive, but I didn't really think that six/seven months on we'd still be sat in my Granny's living room looking at his empty chair and crying about it.

The funny thing was that my Grandad was a quiet man, and we rarely spoke. He couldn't hear me on the phone, so when I called my grandparents he would quickly pass me off to my Granny so we could chat. But I knew he loved me and my brother - there were many stories about how we both could get away with anything and my Grandad would laugh it off, but had my Dad and my Aunt done the same things, he would have shouted at them. Even though I'm in my twenties now and live in London, whenever I visited and was about to leave, he would tell me to "mind how you cross the road". When I started secondary school, at a school a train ride away, he used to catch the train and follow me to school to make sure I got there safely, even though I sat with my friends on the train. His funeral was packed, rare for a 92 year old, but it showed how many people loved him.

I didn't realise that seeing that postcard would jolt me as much as it did, or how many feelings it would throw up. But it did make me glad of one thing, because I know my Grandad would have seen it, would have read it and would have known I'd thought about him before he died. And even though it's just a postcard, now they seem to mean a little more to me, and now I know why my Granny likes them so much. 

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9 November 2016

hazelnut & espresso cake | a recipe


I was going to take part in the last week of Bakealong. I was going to go all out and do the picnic showstopper at the end - cakes, quiches, tarts and sausage rolls and whatever else. I was going to have a picnic tea, which are basically my favourite. I hadn't had a good run with Bakealong and couldn't even entertain the idea of taking part some weeks (Tudor week, I'm looking at you) so maybe this would be my week to make up for it all? Go out with a bang? But...

Well, recently none of my bakes have gone well and I've found myself at 1am standing in the kitchen, covered in icing sugar surrounded by a mountain of washing up, longing for my bed, but with absolutely nothing to show for it, telling myself that I would never bake again. So I thought I'd scale it back to just doing the chocolate cake. And then for some reason, when I was looking for recipes, I ended up deciding to make this hazelnut and espresso cake instead. However, this cake didn't manage to escape the recent baking disaster curse, because it took two cakes (hello cake tins that leak) and two batches of frosting (always follow recipes instead of being lazy!) to even come close to this one. Even now I can see some pesky crumbs on the side and some over squirted icing on the top ruining the effect. 

If nothing else, it's probably the most ridiculously fattening cake I've ever made and those are usually the best ones, amiright? I never managed to eat any of it myself, but it went down extremely well at work and someone even took some home for their kids. In fact it went down so well that I'm declaring the baking curse is now over. Fingers crossed. 


One of the great things about this cake is that it's quite easy to shake it up a little and change around. For example, I was going to use Ferrero Rocher on the top instead of Kinder Bueno but I got to Tesco and realised that it would definitely not have been the cheap option. If I was making this cake again for a snazzier occasion, then I would have definitely chosen that instead - and maybe I will give it another go, as all the Christmas chocolates are out on the shelves and reduced in price now. Tight? Me? Never. I used espresso in the cake and in the butter cream inside, but different kinds of coffee could change it up, or make it weaker, or a chocolate flavouring could be used instead if you're not a huge fan of coffee. Finally, I was going to make a coffee syrup to decorate with, but I ran out of steam. It probably would have been a great addition. 

The recipe is below, good luck!


Ingredients:

Cake:

  • 150g caster sugar
  • 150g butter or margarine
  • 3 eggs
  • 150g self raising flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tbsp hot water
  • 1 tbsp espresso 

Frosting:

  • 230g unsalted butter
  • 240g icing sugar
  • 220g Nutella
  • 45ml double cream
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Coffee buttercream:
  • 100g unsalted butter
  • 200g icing sugar
  • 2 tsp espresso powder
  • 1 tbsp boiling water
Decoration:

  • 5 x bars of white Kinder Bueno
  • Chopped hazlenut.
  • Grated hazelnut chocolate (I used Chocologie)

Method:

Cake:

  1. Preheat the oven at 160C
  2. Grease two sandwich tins
  3. Add butter and sugar together and whisk until fluffy
  4. Beat the eggs with a fork and then add them gradually to the mixture with 1 tbsp of flour with the last bit of eggs
  5. Add the rest of the flour and the baking powder to the mixture and fold in
  6. Dissolve the espresso in the boiling water and fold into the mixture 
  7. Divide into the sandwich tins and cook for 30 minutes
Coffee buttercream:
  1. When cakes are cool, remove from sandwich tins
  2. Place softened butter in a bowl and mix with electric mixer
  3. Add the icing sugar and beat together. 
  4. Dissolve the espresso in the water and add to the buttercream and stir
  5. Spread out on one cake and sandwich the two together
Frosting:
  1. Beat softened butter with an electric mixer for 2-3 minutes until smooth and creamy. 
  2. Add icing sugar and continue to beat until soft peaks form. 
  3. Add the Nutella and continue to beat on.
  4. Add the double cream and vanilla extract. 
  5. Whack on the cake. I will give no tips on this as I am crap at it. 
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7 November 2016

a little trip to rochester | england

london lifestyle blog rochester travel

london lifestyle blog rochester travel

london lifestyle blog rochester travel

In recent months, I've started to want to get out of London each weekend. I don't know whether this is because I just find the whole London lifestyle exhausting, or because I've just realised that there is more to life outside of the big smoke. Obviously I'd love it if I had the money to travel a little further, go somewhere and book a hotel and feel like I'd explored more of England - I can't remember the last time I went further north than Manchester for example - but the budget doesn't always stretch that far. And so, sometimes, options a little closer to home have to be explored. A couple of weekends ago I headed out to Rochester, which is a perfect little day trip as it's only 35 minutes away on High Speed 1. Just don't do what I did, which is get the slow train by accident and arrive an hour later feeling like a bit of a prat... 

london lifestyle blog rochester travel

london lifestyle blog rochester travel

I'll be honest and hold my hands up to not knowing that Rochester had such a connection with Dickens. It's where he started and ended his life, and there are buildings he wrote about in his books which still stand on the high street today - you can find Miss Haversham's home and various  other buildings from Great Expectations, which sent a few shivers down my spine and lots of memories of GCSE English. There were also a lot of buildings from The Mystery of Edwin Drood, but I have to admit that that's not a Dickens book I've ever clapped eyes on. 

It's clear that "kentrification" is alive and well in Rochester, you can see that while it was probably once a little bit poor, it's now starting to get elements of money flooding into it. There are loads of independent shops to potter about it, I spent quite a bit of time in City Books, which sold a lot more than books, and managed to pick up some old bottles from the 1860s for a couple of quid, which I'm looking forward to using as vases once (if) I get them looking sparkly again. There was also Baggins Book Bazaar, which had thousands more books to rummage around, and lots of old sweet shops, which was perfect for me as I'd been after parma violets for ages and London just wasn't stumping up the goods. 

london lifestyle blog rochester travel

london lifestyle blog rochester travel

london lifestyle blog rochester travel

I quite enjoyed visiting Rochester, it's opened my eyes to the possibility of not living in London for the rest of my life, and I can see why Londoners are flocking to move there, not least the fact that you can buy a bloody massive seven bedroomed townhouse for £1m. Not that I have that amount of money, but it would barley get me a flat in London. If you're a bit sick of London and need to get out for a day then I fully recommend jumping on the fast train and coming down to Rochester for a quick day trip. Now, where next?
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4 November 2016

a few icelandic places to eat (but mainly sægreifinn...)


london lifestyle blog travel sea baron reykjavik travel

london lifestyle blog travel sea baron reykjavik travel

london lifestyle blog travel sea baron reykjavik travel

Eating in Iceland was not an easy thing to do, and that's mainly because of the cost. Before you even think about eating somewhere fancy, a meal at an inexpensive restaurant will cost you £20 and that's without any drinks or starters or any added extras. At prices like that, it doesn't make you want to go and find the best food out there, just any food that won't bankrupt you. Despite that, we still managed to find a couple of places to eat during our whirlwind trip there, and these are a few of my suggestions. 

Firstly, our favourite restaurant while we were over there was definitely the Sea Baron, or Sægreifinn. In fact, even though we were only there for two days, we ate here twice. It wasn't horrendously expensive and the food was exceptionally good. Even though the decor reminded me slightly of a school skiing trip cafeteria and had a major hostel vibe going on, it was a brilliant place to eat. It wasn't horrifically expensive, there was some good choice and the portion sizes were good too. The original owner, Kjartan Halldórsson, used to be a fishmonger and still worked the grills until he died - a little lifelike statute of him remains in the seating area - and you can tell he was loved if you ever google this place. It still feels like it's a little family run business, who think more of the food than they do anything else.

On the first night we had some of the fish - which they serve on grill spears - and which were all fresh the sea around Iceland. It meant we got to try some salmon, some trout and some scallops. And they were all incredible. We also had some lobster soup to go with it, and this is basically what we went back for on our second night. Sægreifinn says it has the best lobster soup in the world, and actually, I can kind of believe it. We did have some other lobster soup while in Iceland, and it didn't come close to how this stuff tasted. It's worth going to this place for the soup alone and there's not many restaurants you could say that about. If you're ever in Iceland, make sure you stop and enjoy this place.

london lifestyle blog travel icelandic tapas reykjavik

london lifestyle blog travel icelandic tapas reykjavik

Another honourable mention for a place to eat in Iceland is Smakk Barinn, where we had Icelandic tapas. It was served in jars, which was utterly bonkers and felt like the place was trying a bit hard, but the food contained in jars was pretty good, and it was a great way to try Icelandic foods that maybe you wouldn't want to have whole portions of. This included puffin heart and hákarl, which is basically fermented shark. It was a little touristy, and not the cheapest meal, but still a great way to try some delicacies and have some lunch.

london lifestyle blog old laundromat cafe reykjavik

london lifestyle blog old laundromat cafe reykjavik

Finally, we picked up breakfast on our first day in The Laundromat Cafe. The food was quite mid range, as were the prices, but the pancakes I had were quite good. The main selling point of this place was the atmosphere. It was cosy, you never felt rushed and it was a perfect place to hide from the cold weather outside in Reykjavik. There's definitely something for everyone on the menu, and the decoration was pretty top too. Plus, you really can do your laundry there. 

If you've ever been to any of these places, let me know what you thought! 

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