please don't ask me why

just this, this evening.

too much wandering around london visiting beautiful exhibitions and incredible little gift shops has wiped me out. i'm also emotionally wiped out and not thinking straight drinking gin instead of having dinner. #beingbetter.

...but please don't ask me why.

Lots of saturday night love,
Becca xx

early morning update

Hellooo! I've woken up early and made it into a Costa to use some internet before work to properly get back to the blog today. It. Is. Time.

I actually really miss making a note of everything I'm up to. I really like looking back - even though my last posts do make me a bit sad! Although this is another bit of a teaser return again I'm afraid. This time I do have a date when I'll be able to properly get back to the blog... drum roll please, the... 27th.

Its been a long slog waiting for the internet. I've been going crazy without being able to watch Made in Chels and a few of the other dramas about. Although I'm getting really back into reading and feel so much more civilized for it haha. I read the most beautiful book a few weeks ago now called, The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey and was just so much more in love and bowled over by it than any of the films I've watched. Although saying that I have got through absolute stacks of films in the past few weeks too. Highlights have been... My Week with Maryln, Submarine and Crazy Stupid Love and definite lows have been The Tree of Life and Eat, Pray, Love. I've even been to the cinema solo a few times which after you've got over the inital humiliation at the ticket counter from having to answer "How many?" or "Just one?" it is actually really nice to just sit in a room and watch something outside of your bedroom. Skyfall was beyond what I thought it would be completely... really beautifully filmed and a lot more depth and quirks than the normal kill everybody in sight saga. Also The Perks of Being a Wallflower is beautiful too. Quite funny and Emma Watson is suprisingly not that irritating! Anywaaay, there's been so much on the past few weekends to really comment on it all but I'll go into the variety of events that have recently occured... A few very eventful nights out in Wycombe SU An unexpectantly unclassy night out in Beaconsfield A few nights out in London, including lots of catch ups with both home friends and uni friends Day trips to London for fireworks, gallery trips, shopping and gin/vino Shopping trips in Wycome A carvery in Buckinghamshire A trip to see Jesus Christ Superstar in Nottingham And also lots of pub lunches, coffees and field trips with work It sounds a bit less exciting when put in a list, but I haven't really stopped or had many dull moments since moving to this new little life adventure. It's made me realise how lucky I am really to have so many lovely friends around that I can visit or meet up with and vice versa. Although saying that if any of you reading would like to offer me New Years plans, please do. I'm struggling. I can't believe its already nearly xmas and I'm almost 2 months in to my employment. I think the honeymoon phase must be lasting a while because I really do still feel overwhelmingly happy with it all and it doesn't feel horrible at all going to work every day like I really thought it would. And on the social/man front... I guess I should be honest as it is a personal blog. Chloe sent me this a few weeks ago that I need to attach to my actual forehead.

I'm not really very good at "losing" people. I very rarely can just even lose touch with any friend, male or female unless they've reeeally upset me or just not someone I can put up with. I guess that's why I still talk to most of the guys I've been "romantically linked" with haha. So I think I let myself feel more hurt than I really should. But its probably not always a good thing to do that to myself. I am known for my whine...
 
Buuut I'm on such a mission at the moment to lose shit loads of weight and completely change. I'm not interested in being the girl that my past 2 previous relationships have dumped in favour of their careers. If I was better I'm sure I could be shoehorned around that surely. And its going really well so far. I'm so motivated. As Beyonce would say... "I've finally found the good in goodbye." Hahaa.
 
And finally, what's set for the future? Next weekend I have lots going on, I'm going in london for the day on saturday to meet my mum and brother for a day out in london. I'm so excited, its been aages since we've been in london all together. I think we're gonna go and check out Hyde Parks winter wonderland stuff. Then I'm going back to Davids flat on saturday to finally see where my little bro has settled himself down in and see what Ipswich is sayin' on Sunday. 
 
There's also lots of exciting weekends coming up - Leeds, chlo's leics partay and xmas shopping in london. Bring. It. On.
 
(I've just read this back and its very long winded and a lot of it if far too real talk than I normally whack out onto hear. Probably not going to keep up blogging at 8am... Ha!)
 
Lots of back to blog love,
Becca xx
 
(P.S I was gonna add all the photos taken from my new instagram profile but I have completely run out of time. I may sneakily add these in at work during my lunch, but until then add me on rbuchanan91. thank you byee.)

Guess who's Back!

Hellooooo.

Wow it's been absolutely ages, apologies for the hiatus! As you all know I'm sure, my life has undergone an absolutely massive change.

I'm writing this on my company iPhone and still not really sure what the code of conduct is on how much im meant to use it for personal things, so im afraid it'll be a very brief update for now until my housemate finally sorts out our sodding Internet!!

In fact for now I think I can sum it up in 3 short points...

1. I am so blessed to be straight into an amazing job that doesn't feel like work at all, with lovely people and for fantastic clients. I'm already half way through my 3 month probationary contract and time has just flown by and I feel so proud and successful!

2. My housemates and new location is perfect. They are both exactly on my wavelength and being this close to London as alot of my really close friends know has always been a dream.

3. I got spectacularly dumped on the day I moved down to start this perfect new adventure. Whilst I'm still gutted it has made me realise I need a break from men. It's damaged me a lot to put so much into what I considered really good and have no idea what I could have done to suddenly lose something I was so happy with.

Oh rubbish that's a bit of an emotional point to end on. But genuinely I am so happy with how things have shaped out... I've even lost 2 dresses sizes through the past months! Cheeeeeky!

Sooo here's to fabulously good life changes and those that hopefully will build into fabulously better character changes.

Lots of new adventures love,
Proper posts to follow very soon
Becca xx

my love, it's very late

(i've got absolutely no plans during the day times for the rest of the week this week so expect a lot of blog posts about absolutely nothing. haha!)

Here's a quick run down of whats been occurring since my last post.

1) Everybody went away.

Most of the Leicester girls have now gone back to uni around the country. So sad because we've had a really nice summer with lots of group meet ups and lots of fun catch ups, drinks, nights out and entertaining day trips...not even to mention a cheeky week away in Spain. So on Thursday night we had one last send off night of the official summer and went for a meal and some drinks before Grace and Hicks had to start their shifts. Highlights were checking out the little cute pub that Grace has been working in and then hitting Bruxelles to take Hicks to work but then realising they had pretty much set up an O2 Academy inside... Haha!

But anyway, good luck girls in your last year of unaaay. I'll be visiting when i'm absolutely breaking down when the reality of the new full time working professional life kicks in a few months/weeks/days. And Hicks... last one standing, i'll race you to who breaks down first. Haha I mean, good luck holding the fort in Leicester.


2) I got paid for my first ever Freelance Job.

This is quite a big deal actually, now that I put it like that! I've been working on the Leeds University Union Swimming and Water Polo website for a few months now. Originally I signed up to do it back in June then we only really kicked off the project in July, but then things kept getting hectic and I was away from my computer and progressing in job applications, so it has frustratingly been a bit of a longer project! But it's finally done and i'm quite pleased with it.

I hadn't planned on it being a new website completely. The plan was to bash out a few new graphics and change the layout on the template site they were already on. But I got frustrated with that so decided to push myself and design one from scratch using a blogger template. It's not entirely perfect because i'm not brilliant at the techy HTML side. But i'm pleased with the improvement from their last site and over the course of Freshers week they've have over 200 students wanting to join up. So i'd say that's a positive outcome.

If you're interested in having a look the site is: www.luuswp.com

3.) Went away to Exeter for the weekend again.

Decided to see Matthew in Exeter for the weekend again, in the hopes of celebrating him passing the first half of his pilots license course. It didn't go as well as he hoped which was a bit awkward on Friday evening, but he went back in on Saturday and after the most nervous solo brunch ever, I found out he passed it and we had a lovely evening of drinking and chilled out celebrating on Saturday. We had a lovely meal at Harry's Grill Bar which I fully recommend if anyones down that end of the country. Also we had a swim/wander around a very rainy Taunton on Sunday afternoon.

4.) I started a new formal power wardrobe for the young professional life.

I was gonna post a few pictures of my purchases yesterday on a big shop, but 2 of the 4 items aren't online so I've given up on the images front. But I can tell i'm gonna get a little bit too enthusiastic about formal and smart work wear. I saw so much I wanted to buy, but I guess it'll have to wait until next month when the young professional wages come through. I'm not going to lie though... i've still been using the whole "Oh do you take a student card in here?" line and acting all fresher to get away with using my out of date discount University of Leeds student card. I took it too far in Debenhams though with my Mum standing watching. The man behind the till fully believed I was a fresher and talked me through which shops it works in and about a freshers lock in event coming up. Mum about died holding laughter in and I wanted to cry at the realisation this means a) I must still look 18 and b) I am definitely not a fresher anymore.


5.) And finally, Mumford.

Whilst doing nothing today I managed to catch the Mumford and Sons Radio 1 Live Lounge. Amazing, i'm fully in love with them, especially their cover of Tesselate by Alt-J - another fave band at the moment. Here's a cheeky you-tube video of the beautiful cover.

Thats it, lots of five-pointer love,
Becca xx

it is definitely time for an update

Whoopsie actual massive apologies for the lack of update on here for a while, i've actually had to write written notes and a blog essay plan for this one, theres that much to update on. Huge nerd alert!

Ok, so I think first and foremost should be the news about my job! Wooooohoooo!! A couple of weeks ago now I got the news that I had been successful in that exciting interview i told you all about, and I am now going to be an officially employed "Designer" for an amazing dream first job. As a part of the design company which i have chosen not to name (for mainly annoying course people trying to find out where my job is purposes) my first client will be Paddy Power, one of the biggest gambling retailers across the UK. I'm so thrilled, not only to have been so successful with this really perfect company, but also to have got a job so quickly and to have beaten the whole university stigma YOUNEEDTODOAPLACEMENTTOGETAJOB situation. Last Summer's Drama 0 Rebecca 1.

So yesterday I went to go house hunting. Quite possibly one of the most stressful days of my life, but eventually after lots of cancellations, building sites and cell rooms, I found a perfect little house share with a great room and in a good location to be able to commute to my job in Beaconsfield (which is a leeeeetle bit too pricey and a poshie playground for me to live in on my first job!) At the moment, I'm not entirely sure who i'll be living with but again I'm hoping i'll beat Last Summer's Drama yet again and not get the odd mixture of people that sprung up at me.

The new house is in High Wycombe which looks like a fun little city to live in. It had quite a big shopping centre and quite a few nice restaurants dotted about which is all I ask for in a city really haha, but when i'm working 9-6 full time and planning on learning to drive, I guess I won't have too much time to play out in the area anyway and being so close to London, I think i'll be more going on adventures around there than staying local. But we'll see...it all made it feel very real that I'm actually moving away. Not uni moving away for a month here and there with 6 weeks back at home every now and then... 20 days home will be all i'll see. Eeek.

So thats the formal job and life stuff out the way. Next is the Leicester love over the past few weeks.
Last Tuesday on one of a very rare days off from the Pharmacy we took our first day trip in yeeears to Bosworth Water Park. It was very outdoorsy for us haha... a little bit surreal! But after a play on the park... never too old for an adventurous pirate ship area... we headed out on the water in a pedalo for 4... with 5.

The guy wasn't very optimistic about us getting very far because of how cold and windy it was out on the lake but we actually managed to go a cheeky distance and had some entertaining role changes. It didn't all happen without faults though... we ran into a spot of bother with a pack of ducks and ended up accidentally jamming ourselves on shore about 10 feet from the car, 20 feet from the least responsibe onlookers possible and 30 feet from the least responsible pedalo seller ever. After about 10 minutes though we managed to dry hump the boat/air out of the predicament and went on our merry way.

Then I watched Hicks, Gough and Kat JLS play a very entertaining round of mini golf before being told to clear off by a very professional 4 year old golfer coming up the rear of the course.

Then further Leicester loving occured on Friday night when we took to the streets for what felt like the first night out with the girls in aaages. We finally discovered Hakkamous, which was a fun little cocktail and Hawaaiin style bar, suitable for the climates of Leicester... then took off to the standard back alley locations bumping into an unbelievable American basketball giant on the way and completey forgetting my manners, shouting to Bowls whether she'd put him on Facebook yet. Haha! Possibly more amusing than his disasterous height was his wing mans lack of height and his desperation for anyone ever in his life to want to talk to him rather than his friend. Err why would we?!

Then after an interesting rediscovery of fan club we headed home via a chicken place avoiding kick offs "only because my mates were there..."

And finally a cheeky note about things with the man. They're going well :) He's unfortunately spending a few months on the furthest end to the country at the moment to get more pilot qualifications in Exeter. But when I got my job news I went down for a weekend to celebrate and we had a lovely weekend of meals out, an interestingly slow river cruise, a trip to a very elderly southern coastal town and an expensive walk around a castles grounds. A very entertaining and lovely weekend. And also this weekend he decided very last minute to come up and see me on Saturday night and for a day in Leicester on Sunday. The perfect sudden arrangement when I was having a bit of a boring hungover Saturday!

So, I think that may be all... I feel like i've rushed through lots again, so I will definitely be keeping it more regularly updated from now. If you've actually read all that, you must be mental but congrats. Haha!

Lots of updated love,
Becca xx 

exciting interview

Today i've had a right good adventure across the country for my first big graduate design job interview. As always i won't discuss the details too much, but it was in a lovely little town on the outskirts of London in Buckinghamshire. The actual job being interviewed for is perfect and the company seem so great. They do a lot of work for all the big national retail companies and the company that i would be working on is also an exciting national company and the opportunity for my first proper client to be a huge one.

I got some really great feedback from my interview which is really exciting and positive towards possibly being offered the job, but if it doesn't happen in the next few weeks, it was just what i needed anyway and i'm really pleased that I got told my work is strong, i have good interview skills and technique and my written communication is excellent.

I was a bit anxious about making the journey today as although i've been on the London Underground more times than I could possibly count... I've never actually made a journey across London on it, on my own. But I smashed it and to be honest, was loving whizzing along and past people in my proper pretend Londoner suit jacket on, haha!

(none of these are my images, sourced on tumblr.)

On my way back through after the interview, the temptation whilst changing at Oxford Circus got too much and I asked to be let out of the barriers and then I'd buy a new ticket to get back to St Pancras. I couldn't face having a few hours in the afternoon left and being so close to the flagship Topshop. There were so many things I wanted. Here's a few things off the website that I liked in store...

 

(Topshop)

It could get a bit dangerous living that close to London with a new junior graphic design salary.
But anyway, as I keep going on about, i've got new job prospects, new man prospects, a big catch up with the home bessies on Thursday, a big reunion with the uni bessies on Saturday and even a cheeky bit of weight loss. There is definitely something not quite right here, things are going too well...

Don't jinx anything.
Lots of interview love,
Becca xx

gatsby

Just a quickie fashion post today. I've just been flicking through the Style magazine from The Sunday Times, like I do most weekends when I'm around at home and saw this dress from the Ralph Lauren collection ...

Oh my word. I'm actually a little bit in love with all of it. The glamour, the colour, the style. The whole collections amazing. Back in Easter I really wanted to pull off a really glamorous 20's/30's style art deco cocktail party and this would have been perfect. However as most of the guests were going to be mum's age too, we decided against doing a particular theme and dress code. But this whole collection is so right up my street on that kind of style.

Ralph Lauren Fall 2012 Collection

So if anyone has a spare couple of grands lying around that would be great. Or more realistically, i'm hoping this will be a trend that Topshop or River Island get fully on board with in their next season ranges. Especially as Style Magazine pointed out, it's very The Great Gatsby inspired which is finally coming out in the winter ! I've been so excited about it since they realised the trailer a few months ago. This whole 20's glamour style plus Leonardo Di Caprio should be incredible.

Lots of Gatsby glamour love,

Becca xx

images

A collection of the nicest and most inspiring images and photos i've found on tumblr, flickr and image sharing websites recently.

My trip to lincoln was really nice on Thursday evening. We had such a nice meal in a little restaurant on the outskirts of lincoln and then enjoyed some wine and a dvd. Then we had a nice breakfast in Patisserie Valerie on Friday morning :) Things are lovely.

Lots of images love,
Becca xx

collecting visits to the UK capital cities

Whoopsie I didn't even have enough time to post that last weekend post I wanted to do before I had to go to Scotland for a long(gggg) weekend to visit a handful of relatives on the annual trip.

Basically I was going to post a few words and pictures about a lovely second date up in Lincoln, sitting drinking wine overlooking the cathedral in Cloud Bar and whizzing around another few lovely bars and as a result having to sit in Nottingham train station at 10pm on a Saturday night for an hour. Then solo sprinting across Leicester at about 12pm on a saturday night and meeting Bowls and Hicks to tell them everything!

Then I was going to post a few words about London the day after. I was exhausted waking up at 6.30am to get on an early train but it was worth it as we got a prime spot along the barriers to cheer on the very sweaty men on a very hot sunny day in London. I can't even explain the atmosphere in the city on that last day of the Olympics... everyone was just loving it. We didn't really know much about the runners haha but we had such a good time watching general people walking by and guessing where they were from. Also we were within touching distance from a silver medal, bumping into one of the volleyball silver medalists on the tube, no biggie.

Also whilst we were in London, in the afternoon I finally got a chance to go to the Tate Modern Damien Hirst exhibition. I had already seen a lot of it in Leeds at the Leeds Art Gallery last summer, but the stuff I hadn't seen was incredible. I'm a huge fan of Hirst's and its strange the similarities of both living in Leeds at some point, and both having interests in pharmacy and art. The live butterfly room was terrifying and the piece showing flies hatching and then being killed on an electric light is ridiculous but such icons of modern art. Such a nerd about this man, but I really recommend you go and see it if your into galleries and modern art!

So... that's my rushed attempt at my original planned post!  I've been loving being literally non-stop busy this past whole month really, but now its starting to already bum me out a bit and I already feel like i'm forgetting to catch up with people or ask them things about what they're doing and I keep missing out on meet ups that my bessies are having and i'm never one to cancel on that! So hopefully i'll get a bit more settled down soon. Although theres still a lot going on in the pipeline. Freelance design projects, the annual village show, working full time, more responses about jobs, flat partay in London for a uni reunion and I very long overdue visit to Ipswich.

My trip to Scotland was interesting. I love my gran to bits but she drives me absolutely insane. Living in her house for 5 days was too much and by the end I was just biting my tongue at everything and hoping she would just avoid talking directly to me haha! She's getting to be an older lady who has to be right about everything, even when she is clearly and definitely not. But we had a nice few days doing lots of different things, like visiting Edinburgh Fringe Festival, touring the Royal Britannia, shopping in Stirling, hiking up the hills in Clackmannanshire and having a sleepover with my amazing 10yr old cousin Katie.

(i'll post some proper pictures when they're uploaded from the family cam!)

It's ashame that we don't live nearer to my Scottish relatives because I love seeing my Aunty and cousins and I think I would get on amazingly with my Gran in short visits haha. It's so interesting the different stories that she tells me about her upbringing too.

Anyway, i'm blogging shit now haha! Hopefully keep this posted again soon, for now i'm off on another trip to Lincoln with the talk of bring flown back home tomorrow!

Lots of all over the United Kingdom love,
Becca xx

throw those curtains wide.

(image via)

struggling to find enough hours to properly update this. i'm currently completely on overdrive, working full time, going on dates, swanning off to the olympics for the day, applying for countless graduate jobs and internships, running and squeezing in some freelance design work.

but standby for a proper post, maybe tomorrow evening about my non-stop but perfect weekend. i've got lots to tell, i went on quite the weekends worth of adventure!

and for now, all i'll say is... things are still unsettlingly brilliant. :)

lots of brief love,

Becca xx

"i'm free but i'm flawed..."

Yet again I have lots of happy news to report. Things are all going a little bit too well at the moment, it's a bit unnerving actually....

Since my last post (another week actually, need to up my blogging game again) I have had an exciting job lead, developed a website, had a really nice first date, been on a fun night out in Leicester with the girls for Grace's 21st, had a lovely meal with the parents for the anniversary and worked on some nice catalogue and promo design work for the pharmacy. Bit busy.

The job lead has involved me getting to the next stage in an internship application process and I was given a pretty tough 48hr brief to produce 3 concept designs for 2 very different companies. Again I don't want to write too much about this yet, because I'm hoping i'll be successful and get to an interview stage and I don't want to jinx anything or talk about my work on my searchable blog before selling it to them. But I was really proud to have still managed to work the whole day yesterday and still produce some really good designs in pretty much a 8 hour disadvantage. I'm so tired now though from staying up into the early hours last night working away at it. Hopefully i'll post up some of the concept pages on here when I can.

Then Saturday night was really fun for Graces birthday :) Here's a few pics from that.

It's only been about a month that i've been properly back in Leicester but I am getting a bit sick of not having Call Lane to go out to. There's only really one bar that matches it in this city. But on Saturday night we proved your never too old to get out on the dance floor and have a dance in a proper club with a breezer. We bumped into a few old Groby faces too... not everyone was that bothered to see us though haha!

In the downtime between all of this, on Saturday and on Sunday whilst on a massive hungover day-in-bed session, I watched the 4 part This is England 86 series. I properly love Shane Meadow's entire This is England film and series work. I love Vicky Mcclure, she's incredible as is Joe Gilgun before he ruined it by getting involved in all that Misfits new series stuff. The costume and the whole way its put together is incredible and in my eyes it's still the most disturbing sexual assault scene i've witnessed on a tv drama. There was also a scene I had completely forgotten about from watching it back when it first aired which involves a really brutal hammer attack. I literally couldn't watch it after what happened to Bowls last summer, I felt so sick.

But ending on a happier note. Last night my mum just suddenly declared she couldn't face not being in London at all over the Olympics and has booked for us both to go down on Sunday to hit the streets to watch the mens marathon and just generally say we were in London for the closing day of London 2012. I'm literally so excited. We've got the tshirts today and defo gonna paint our faces and get fully involved. I don't even know if theres a British man in the marathon, but TeamGB anywaaaay!

Lots of application next rounds love,
Becca xx