The Wrong Knickers by Bryony Gordon: A book review

Scowling the non-fiction shelves of Euston station looking for the next book to fill the emptiness in my morning commute and my night time routine, I stumbled across this copy and thought it sounded like a laugh. On that 2 hour train to Manchester, I couldn't put it down, not even scathed by people beside me, looking alarmed at the title 'The Wrong Knickers', I was too engrossed. 

The story line follows Bryony through her twenties to early 30's on a whirlwind adventure (without sounding too Enid Blyton) of a career, boys (mainly boys), friends, drugs, sex, food and happiness in a discovery of realisation that your life will not pan out how you dreamt it, but the journey brought you self actualisation and a book deal. 

Critics are calling it the new age Bridget Jones, and I wholeheartedly concur, although I would say she is also a cross between Bridge and a grown up Georgia Nicolson (from the Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging series, for those who live under a rock). However be warned, only read this book in public if you are comfortable spluttering and snorting with laughter in front of on-lookers. For me, reading this book and giggling quietly to myself was not only fun in itself, but a revelation. How often do you see people genuinely about to wet themselves purely by what they are reading, and thats what this book did to me! The disastrous attempts at being the 'cool-girl', the numerous cringeworthy dates/ sex-capades and embarrassing tales left me in stitches and even better, left tube goers flocking to different seats, because heaven forbid I laughed in public. 

It was even weirdly relatable, it was like she was living my life, but doing it better. It started as her being a 22 year old (my current age), living on bethnal green road (my current address) with a best friend called Sally (my current housemate), the job I longingly crave for (working for a magazine) and crazy single girl nights out (not too fussed about this one for now, boyfriend and all). She became a writer for the magazine, and like most bloggers who don't have the bottle to pose for the camera in their OOTD but take to their blog to write, thats my dream job. For years I've wanted to write a book, and it almost felt like she was ripping the words from my mouth, but with greater conundrums and anecdotes and fuck up stories. By page 50, I was getting down right freaked out! But the pages turned and the plot changed. As Bryony progressed into her later 20's, the similarities faded and what was left was more hilarity, gossip, drama, and a rather happy ending.

The only downside to this story, of which I always find being a pessimist, is that I started to get irritated by how much of a f**k up she was being without doing anything about it. I'm putting that annoyance down to my uptight personality and inability to do anything spontaneously, so maybe more a pinch of envy more than anything. 

If anything this book inspired me. It made me realise I want to write, it's what I really enjoy. It's also an easy read, one that doesn't require much thinking, which is perfect for a half asleep journey to work. A thorough recommendation and a 4 out of 5 star rating from me. 

Thanks Guys! 

A Face to a Name

I have made some little changes to Stray, or minor improvements if you will! 

I am rubbish at the whole technology thing, and I don't have Photoshop which makes blogging life much harder! 

(if anyone knows any good free editing programmes for macs, please let me know!)

As you can probably see to the right of this post is a honking great photo of my face. 

After traipsing through hundreds of blogs for my dissertation, I find the ones with a photo of the writer just adds a bit of personality and someone for the readers to relate to at a first glance. 

There is also a bit about me. 

I'm working on some buttons for the side bar, but the process is seemingly slow! 

But yer, there's my face and below is a book I got from the Urban Outfit sale, so funny! And some spaghetti bolognese I proudly made, because words without pictures is boring.

Happy weekend! 

India through Instagram

Here are a few Instagram snaps from my holiday to Goa. 

Everyday was an experience, some good, some not so good and some amazing. 

I wrote a diary of our time there, but will not bore you all with the details. 

But I will say that it was like stepping into another world. 

The culture, the people, the way of life was all a definite shock to the system, and I'm grateful to have witnessed it and see a little slice of a country so different to ours. 

I'm quite a travelled girl so it's always great to have another place ticked off. 

A few things we did in Goa - sunbathed, went to local markets, perfected our haggling skills, bought some beautiful local merchandise including spices, tibetan silver jewellery, elephant ornaments, a wall hanging (below), we rode and washed elephants, fed some monkeys and ate some great seafood. 

I hope these photos give an idea of the holiday. 

I am working on a full post about the trip, I will put the link on here when I'm done, so you have the option to read. 

On a final note, if you don't like curry, this isn't the place for you. 

Graze Craze

You might have seen these little boxes around, I'm a bit behind with the craze but I recently jumped on the Graze box band wagon. If you haven't already heard of them, their a small company producing healthy, natural snacks, which are posted to you every week in a little box. With a choice of 4 nutritious selections out of hundreds, its part of the fun when opening the box to see what goodies await inside. 

They have plenty of offers and deals which make receiving these weekly treats all the more tempting. Your first graze box is half price, however if you know someone who's already bought one, they should have a voucher for you to get the 1st one free!

After creating your account on the website, you can then go through each of the snack boxes and choose which ones you don't like, to make sure you'll never receive them in your Graze.

If you decide you really like a particular snack after you've tried it, simply click the 'love' button, to ensure you'll get it more regularly! easy peasy! 

Below are all the yummy goodies I got in my first Graze Box. 

My particular favourite was the 'very nori-sh' crackers, spicy japanese rice crackers with seaweed bits! 

Each box aims to provide you with a few healthy snacks to get you through the day when your feeling peckish at 'biscuits-o-clock', if your feeling tempted simply reach into your box and nibble away!

If you fancy signing up, you can do here 

They have been featured in Grazia, Tatler magazine and many more, they are the perfect stylish snack!

Happy Grazing!

Love for Mulberry

Last night me and my fellow fashiony friend, Kirby, attended the Mulberry event at Spinningfields, Manchester, after entering a competition through Grazia Magazine, to celebrate the launch of the new Spring/Summer collection, and I must say it was a celebration indeed! 

Pink champagne with floating raspberries was handed to us on entry, and already the scene was a bustling mixture of luscious bags, stunning waiters in candy aprons and many many safari balloons. There was a 'day at the seaside' theme to tie in with the collections inspiration, which included a grab machine with jewellery goodies and cute mulberry teddies, which Kirby managed to nab (one of a select few with the right grabbing technique!). A flipper book booth was also causing much excitement, which gave guests a chance to dance around with inflatable animals and the 'Oooh' mulberry glasses for 7 seconds, the frames then get printed off and made into a flip book! One of the many free goodies we walked away with as well as our very own balloon, (above, can't see my face but I'm happy!) canvas bag filled with mulberry postcards, a stick of mulberry rock, the latest issue of Grazia, £50 voucher, look book of the new collections and assorted make up gifts!

Unfortunately one of the free goodies we didn't walk away with was the mulberry tan satchel (£1,100) from the tom-bola prize draw, it was free to enter and one lucky girl got to take it away! A combination of this as well as Mini fish and chips, hotdogs, and ice cream tubs as the choice of food really topped the night off! I can safely say I will definitely be entering another Grazia comp for a guest list event, thank you Mulberry! x