Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Here's to another year London!

So I have just passed my year anniversary of moving to London, and it does get you revaluating your goals and dreams! A year ago I was waving goodbye to my friends and family with my big backpack on ready to discover the world! Well it has been a crazy year indeed! Starting from scratch and setting my life up in London has been a great rewarding adventure. It’s something I never thought I would be able to do. Of course I’ve had help and support from my lovely family back home.

Here’s to another year London!

xxx


Monday, July 16, 2012

Subway salad

So this is a recipe that I made up using fridge treasures. It’s a great side salad for any dish, but is also tasty enough to pack for lunch the next day. I call this salad the subway salad because to me it tastes exactly like my favourite sub!

Ingredients

·        1 bag of mixed lettuce
·        Half a red onion diced
·        2 medium carrots, grated
·        A handful of mozzarella cheese, grated
·        3 tomatoes wedged
·        (and the secret ingredient) 3 large pickles diced


For the Dressing (Sub ranch)

·         1 half a cup of thick olive oil
·         1 teaspoon of salt
·         1 teaspoon of pepper
·         1 table spoon of mayonnaise
·         1 table spoon red wine vinegar
·         1 table spoon of mustard (English)


Preparation method

In a small bowl whisk together olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, mayo and mustard. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together lettuce, red onion, carrot, cheese, pickles and tomatoes toss to combine. Refrigerate until ready to serve.



Enjoy! And just a little tip- add the dressing before serving- you don’t want to end up with a salad soup!

Dinner with the Donaghys

This week we invited Joe’s parents to come over for a home cooked dinner. We were a little excited to have them over for the first time be fair. They arrived and we served bruschetta and vegetable soup to start and then the main course was ready to go. Joe had prepared brie stuffed chicken wrapped in streaky bacon. It’s always nice for parents to see their kids all grown up and able to cook a meal without burning the house down. I love doing little dinners like this because family time is very important to me.  








Hope everyone had a lovely weekend !



Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The things that make me smile today in the office

So today I’m day dreaming of the little things in life that make me want to quit work today and go do tomorrow.










I hope I made A few people smile today!

Monday, July 9, 2012

I can not believe I missed this!

When I used to catch the tube every day to work I always hoped something amazing/exciting/fabulous would happen. It can get very repetitive if you’re not one of those 10000s of people obsessed with game of throwns/52 shades of grey. Sure the occasional crazy man would get on and start yelling at random people, but nothing like a bunch of pandas rinding their way to work. I’m not going to lie, when that crazy man started yelling it made me smile, it almost made me want to get up and start yelling with him.

Because sometimes every day life needs a crazy yelling man <3

Joes Birthweek/Birthday

So this week has been extremely busy!! I feel like I haven’t taken the time to wind down after returning from my crazy trip to Amsterdam. I returned back to work as soon as I arrived back into London wich was hard enough. I had about three weeks of washing piling up at home. My hair needed washing and to tip it off I try and be good and go to the gym straight after work (which puts me even futher behind). It was mY friend Elles birthday so I took her out for a birthday dinner for at Azteca latin lounge and enjoyed some well deserved street tacos after a long hard workout.
The following day it was Joes Birthday so I took him out for a seafood dinner at Cape town Fish Market, Oxford Circus. We started off with the Oysters and then followed with a massive cold/hot seafood platter for two. Having seafood in London is a Luxury (even though we live on an Island) it seams to be lacking in quality and set at such a high price it’s bloody ridiculous.  On Friday Joe decided he wanted to go bowling with all of his friends. So we all heading to the Bloomsbury bowling centre. I absolutely loved this place! The music was fantastic and every one was having a ball. It was like when you used to have those bowling parties when you were five but this time alcohol was in the picture. Lets just say that the dancing scene from Dirty dancing was replicated that night…. A few times…






Over all such a great weekend with great friends! And to Joe- I promise one day Ill get you a pug for your birthday and we WILL call him Pickles J x



Friday, July 6, 2012

A weekend in Amsterdam why not!

So this year I have made a promise to myself to go on a few trips to exotic places that I have always dreamed of going since I can remember. This time it was Amsterdam! It’s been a place that always seemed so far away from home, a year ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of being able to jump on a plane and be there in an hour.

My friend Matteo was kind enough to use his B.A air points and bout us a return ticket from London. The plane trip was an adventure in itself! Firstly the plane got delayed, so we made the most of the extra time and decided to get a few drinks to start our holiday off early. The next thing we hear Matteo and Elisha please make your way to Gate ***. I have never run so quickly through an airport in my life. I was laughing so hard because looking at the situation from an outsider it looked like the scene off home and alone how the whole family were running through the airport to catch the last flight.

So we finally after a long debate with the flight attendant were on our way to Amstys (or so we thought). We touched down in Amsterdam and left the plane and made our way to Customs. I was searching frantically through my £20.00 H&M bag only to realise I had ‘misplaced’ my passport. This next part I would gladly wipe from my memory but I guess it’s one of those things that you look back at and laugh at. So to try and find my lost passport we had to get escorted by a police official through the whole plane I had the whole cleaning staff and policemen searching. After tears and panic and the thought of camping out at the airport until the Australian Embassy was open WE FINALLY FOUND IT!!!!!

Here are the highlights of our trip (and the red-light-Sorry! ;)
 

Getting there




The Food





Night life






AMSTERDAM <3






To sum up Amsterdam I’ll use just a few words:

Crazy, peaceful, busy, exhilarating & stimulating  

It’s a place that needs to be added onto any travel list. Not because of the chocolate goodness served up, but because it is a perfect example of how older folks can coincide with the younger generation- and all doing so while riding bikes!