Lifestyle // What I’ve Been Up To – September 2019

October is here. The weather has turned, it’s officially Q4 at work, Christmas isn’t actually too far away, and that means my trip to New York is coming up fast too! YAS! September was a bit of a hard month for me as my dad got unexpectedly taken into hospital, and I also had a memorial for a friend who sadly passed away. However I was well looked after by my work wives and we had some good distracting evenings out, including karaoke and a trip to a darts club (way cooler than it sounds!) I also joined a new gym (yep I’m still on the fitness wagon!), met Rochelle Humes at the launch of her New Look collection, and fully embraced the start of Autumn with park walks and roast dinners with Andy. Here’s What I’ve Been Up To – September 2019….

Darts at Flight Club

Alongside the resurgence of Bingo halls, darts is also having a hipster upgrade, and you can now visit a Flight Club in several cities in the UK. My work friends and I headed to the Victoria brach and had such a good night! Who knew darts was so fun?!

There were 13 of us and we had a dart board to ourselves, put in teams randomly selected by the computer every time we played a new game. No regular darts matches here though – we played a blackjack style game where you have to score 180 points – any over and you’re wiped out, Snakes and Ladders (where each throw’s points correlate to a throw of the dice) and Death Match where you’re throwing to take out your opponents. It was so much fun and I will definitely be organising another trip with our friends. They also do bottomless brunch which looks awesome!

Sister in Law’s Hen Do in Liverpool

My brother and his lovely fiancé are getting married at the end of November wahooo! I headed up to Liverpool at the beginning of September for Hels’ hen do and we had such a great time!

I was pretty nervous as I literally knew no one other than my SIL-to-be but it was so lovely to get to know all of Helen’s family and friends and put some faces to names I’ve heard so many great stories about over the years.

We didn’t see much of Liverpool itself but I’d love to go back and explore properly – the architecture looks absolutely stunning! We had so much fun though, and her bridesmaids had themed the whole weekend around Disney and Ru Paul’s Drag Race, including a Disney Dance Class and drag club night out. Roll on the wedding!

Curly’s Hospital Stay

September was a pretty hard month as Curly spent three weeks of it in hospital. He was rushed into A&E and then kept in as they discovered he had a pretty serious blood infection. Thankfully it hadn’t spread to his heart or brain, so after three weeks of intensive IV antibiotics he was able to come home hurrah!

The first thing he wanted when he got home? A chicken kiev! What. A. Mood! He’s been doing so much better since, and is now able to continue with his chemo treatment for his cancer which is good, and my lovely mum is doing a great job of looking after him (and fulfilling his very specific dinner cravings!) I did what I do best too – took him to the pub! (For a non alcoholic beer of course! Doctor’s orders…)

Karaoke at Lucky Voice, Soho

My god I love karaoke. There’s something so beautiful about gathering your best mates, having some beers and belting out some absolute bangers (and it’s not my voice!)

My work friends and I headed to Lucky Voice Soho and had an absolute blast! We sang some absolute classics – All Coming Back To Me, Sex is on Fire and various Spice Girls, Oasis and Disney medleys. It also turns out we’ve also got some amazing voices in our team! What’s your favourite karaoke classic?

Meeting Rochelle Humes at the New Look x Rochelle Launch

I love The Saturday’s. One of the earliest posts I ever wrote for my blog was a review of their Headlines Tour in 2011 – lol at *that* content! I’m also a massive New Look fan so you can imagine my excitement when I won a competition to head to New Look Oxford Street to listen to Rochelle Humes talk through her latest collection.

I took my friend Niamh and we had such a fun evening listening to Rochelle talk through her favourite pieces while sipping on cocktails and munching macarons. The collection is absolutely beautiful – a real mix of cosy coats, nudes and camel colours, and the check trouser suit of dreams. I fell in love with her Light Grey Houndstooth coat and cream Teddy Bear coat, both of which I’ve picked up for my trip to New York in December.

Memorial for SK

I spent a beautiful day in the Leicestershire countryside to celebrate the life of my wonderful friend and ex-colleague SK who sadly died in a boat accident in South Africa this summer.

While it was a terribly sad occasion, I think Sara would have loved the canal side setting, bright colours everyone wore, the amount of laughter and smiles as everyone shared stories of her, and the wind making the tent flaps billow like sails on a boat. It was a really special day and lovely to raise a glass to an absolute ledge! We’ll miss you SK, keep on sailing xxx

Joining a New Gym

As I blogged in my What I’ve Been Up To – August 2019 post – I completed the Couch to 5k challenge! Yep, I still can’t believe it either!

I took a couple weeks break from running as it went waaaaay down the priority list while my dad was in hospital, and I also hated my gym. The air con never worked and I had a couple near misses where I got so hot running over the summer I nearly passed out! That was fun…

I decided it was time for a refresh and signed up to a new local gym, which I am loving! They’ve got some great classes (including trampolining aerobics which is SO MUCH FUN!) and the gym is really big with more modern machines than my old PureGym (hello watching YouTube on the treadmill) It’s actually really pretty too! It’s massive and staggered up different levels so it feels a lot more private and spacious, as well as letting the air circulate so you don’t feel like you’re going to pass out. Always a bonus! It also overlooks the swimming pool which is so relaxing. Big fan – no excuse not to go running now…

Autumnal Walk in Dulwich Park

One of mine and Andy’s favourite things to do on a Sunday is to head to the Herne Hill farmers market for breakfast, grab a coffee and sausage roll and walk round a local park for a lazy stroll spotting all the dogs on their morning walks! We’ve not been able to do it for most of the summer as he’s worked nearly every Sunday, but they’ve got a new chef at his restaurant now, which means he can take Sundays off.

We had such a lovely walk round Dulwich Park, which looked so beautiful with its leaves changing colour for Autumn. There actually weren’t that many dogs out which was a shame, but we did head to the Nature Conservation area and see the squirrels which were so cute, squirrelling away nuts and conkers for winter. Adorbs!

We headed back to Herne Hill and stopped for a pint and roast at The Half Moon, which we’ve been meaning to try for ages. It was pretty decent, and the gravy was AMAZING! I’m sure we’ll be heading here a good few more times before the end of the year.

Sunday Roast at The Punch Bowl

There’s nothing Andy likes more than a good roast dinner. After our trip to The Half Moon, he went on a bit of a quest to research and book us into as many of the top rated Sunday lunches in London. What a keeper!

The Punch Bowl is Guy Ritchie’s pub in Mayfair which also boasts being one of the oldest in London. It’s a beautiful little place, very cozy, and nicely decorated with incredible staff and an epic Sunday roast menu!

Andy had some bone marrow to start then we went in on the roast dinners, sharing a lamb and a beef, which were both served with roasted potatoes, carrots, parsnips, cabbage, peas, cauliflower, green beans and a Yorkshire pudding, all doused in a delicious thick gravy. My god it was good! The meat was beautifully cooked and the vegetables were all so tasty. The Yorkshire puddings were a bit flat though which was my only criticism of the whole meal, but were still very nice and went really well with the crisp texture of the vegetables.

So that’s September over and out! October is looking set to be really exciting as it’s Curly’s birthday, I’ve got some blogging events, concert tickets, a trip to Peterborough and TICKETS TO HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD! See you in the next What I’ve Been Up To…