The weekend just gone was fairly jam-packed. I was off to Reading on Saturday morning to meet my university friends and one of those friends, Charlotte, from Brighton caught the train to stay over Friday night, so we could drive together.
It was nice to drive with someone else to minimise any navigational issues. I’ve driven to Reading many times (I had to work there for six weeks on a customer site for my current job in Basingstoke). But that was a few years ago and well, let’s be honest, it’s me. Anything could happen. This did mean of course we were late by about ten minutes, which my other friends knew was down to me and not Charlotte. I’m the queen of leaving no minute spare and believing everything will go smoothly.
Anyway, rewinding to Friday night. We had a delicious salmon and butternut squash meal. She’s a vegetarian and it was a meal that we used to share back at university the night before an exam (though with the less expensive tuna) . Not sure why, maybe because it was easy and we believed the nutritiousness of the meal and fish would add to our brain power (though tinned tuna doesn’t contain any omega 3…). Happy to report we both got a First in our Psychology degree 😉 Basically you halve a butternut squash, bake it, then add a tomato, fish and vegetable mix on top. Standard easy cheap student eats.
We then watched Fifty Shades of Grey. Both of us knew it would be rubbish and we’d read the books and found them fairly rubbish too, but it was such a girlie, easy film and we could talk our way through it anyway. It was terrible but in a very amusing way. And somewhat cringy with just how cheesy it was. Don’t think I’ll be seeing the next one!
The next morning I got up before 7am to get in a six mile run (my “long” run for the week). 
It went fairly well. Not “fist pump the sky” amazing, but relatively OK. After showering, having breakfast and grabbing a Starbucks for the road, we were on our way (*cough* about ten minutes late…).
Seeing my friends was, as always, lovely. One of them is at the early stages of pregnancy which is just crazy. I mean, I know pregnancy happens but it’s just so bizarre seeing one of your close friends with a mini bump growing an actual baby. Like an actual adult. I don’t feel like we are adults though yet. Well, I’m certainly not!
We had a lovely meal at Las Iguanas. Shockingly I went for something different. I’d been craving, fajitas and I do love an assembly job meal 😉
It was very tasty – and came with sour cream, guacamole and salsa on the side. The chicken and pepper mix was a bit over-oily, but it still tasted really good and, to be honest, dipping my tortilla in the oily sauce might have happened a few times. I fully enjoyed it. No puddings but I was fairly content with my meal. And I had a couple of apples in my bag soo…
Happily I also managed to pick up a couple of bargains in the sale. I got a beautiful soft leather jacket down from £75 to £35 (!) and an £8 cardigan from Oasis. I’m very pleased. I literally went out with the hope to find a casual jacket and it was the first one I saw.
I drove back from Reading on my own (Charlotte headed back on the train) and then quickly wolfed down some dinner before getting myself ready for my next social outing. My friend, Ant, has just turned 30 and was having a sci-fi themed party at his and his wife’s house. It sounds like a fairly easy fancy dress, right? For a guy maybe, but there isn’t a huge amount of choice when it comes to female outfits. The obvious is Princess Leia. But I didn’t think it in the best of taste and after Googling a bit I found a great outfit. It was about £27 but it came with lots of accessories and I could see myself wearing it to a movie-themed parkrun or race at some point… an investment!
It came with an arm gauntlet, necklaces, a feather necklace and the ‘loin cloth’ thing came attached to the blue suit. I added the flipflops, some extra bracelets, blue face paint (a bargain from Amazon) and plaited a few bits of my hair.
Not too shabby, eh! I love fancy dress so for me this was great. Though I did feel somewhat naked. Compared to my friend, Sarah, who was dressed up as a unicorn in a very fluffy and huge (self-made!) outfit. But mine was an ideal choice for any running in the future…
The party was good fun. We played lots of board games, ate lots and just generally had a laugh.
Our parties are far more low-key now we’re older but we still love a bit of fancy dress. There was an ewok, a storm trooper, terminator robot, Aragorn from LoTR (strictly speaking I’d say this is fantasy not sci-fi…) and Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (for my shame I was the only one who got the reference…). There was a random nun and Jesus Christ but only because they didn’t have a sci-fi outfit and wanted to dress up. In *some* circles JC might be seen as sci-fi I suppose…
It was a good evening and I was thankful for my friend lending me some baby oil to remove my face paint (the blue had stained my hands and didn’t seem to come off with just soap and water). It came off nice and easily with the oil. Though half way through the removal I did resemble a zombie – noted for another fancy dress option! 😉
I was quite thankful for this as I was meeting a friend the next morning for coffee and I really didn’t want a blue face!
Have you ever used face paint for fancy dress?
What would you go as for a sci-fi themed fancy dress?
Are you good with travelling to different places on your own?
We headed straight to the Cathedral where the actual Christmas market was located and wandered around slowly looking at all the different stalls. 
There were lots of craft-style stalls selling handmade jewellery, scarfs, ornaments etc. There were also food-related stalls selling cheese, dried meats and fudge and then hot food stalls selling bacon rolls and burgers.
I shared it with my mum and dad (who didn’t want one of their own as they’re trying to be healthy – who even are they??) and it was delicious.
Not sure why I felt the need to touch Mary’s shoulder. Perhaps I just thought it made her feel more involved in the photo 😉
Despite seeing the churros being dipped into boiling oil and then quickly sprinkled in sugar and chocolate and handed to me within a one minute period I still felt the need to try one immediately. And then, delightfully caught on camera by my loving father, managed to look oh so attractive in my first scorching bite. The burning was worth it though, they were damn good (but if I had one tiny criticism it would be more chocolate was needed…but that’s just coming from a very greedy person).
Overall, the markets were really good. There was a choir, it was very Christmassy and the food was good. But it was rather small and there were no gingerbread biscuits or more snacky items like that (again, this is from a greedy person). It doesn’t help that I’ve been to Berlin where their Christmas markets really do steal the show and I’m comparing them to that.
My main was a chicken salad. Honestly the food was AMAZING. I’m actually not a huge Thai food fan (or Chinese fan either) but it was so good. The flavours were so fresh and tasty. However there were some very cheeky sneaky chillies in my salad and halfway through the meal I felt like my tongue had had a layer taken off the top of it and my eyes were streaming. The ribs were to die for though, obviously.
I mean, Sod’s Law will be that my next run will be terrible and I’ll be back to square one, but hey let’s be positive. It’s Christmas after all 😉
It was very cold and despite having several layers on and a hat I was cold. I was grumpy as I was overthinking about my leg, running and marathon training…but I was eventually cheered up by the lovely parkrun crew. You can’t be too sad at parkrun!
We’d made our menu selections a while ago and I was disappointed with myself for choosing trout as my main rather than turkey (who does that!??!). I think my rationale was that I didn’t want to over-do turkey before the big day. I was very jealous when the mains came out though. However, my trout was delicious (and I got some leftover turkey from one of my friends so it was a win-win!)
And again I was annoyed that I’d selected a pear tart for pudding… but then realised I’d chosen it because the cheesecake was chocolate orange which I don’t really like. I’m not a Terry’s Chocolate Orange fan at all! And Christmas pudding is a bit too rich and alcoholly for me.
Anyway the evening was good. Nothing like good friends and good food to make you feel 100 times better.
And seeing an “Apple Market” just made my evening 😉
We eventually decided on 
It was very much Southern American food with lots of fried chicken, burgers and gumbo. I ordered half balsamic honey roasted chicken (after a brief discussion with the waiter who seemed to think that half would be too much for me, but I reassured him otherwise).
Laura ordered a burger and Charlotte ordered the vegetarian gumbo which came with cornbread. She let me try her cornbread and I’m not joking when I say it tasted of sticky toffee pudding. It was literally like a pudding. How bizarre! My chicken was delicious – probably insanely unhealthy with all the honey glazed-deliciousness (and serving size) but satisfaction was left high (as was my blood sugar I imagine).
I went for a regular sized original flavour(which was actually quite big – says the girl who at a previous time had ordered the large) with raspberries and brownie chunks. It was delicious.
I had a gin sour which contained sloe gin amongst other ingredients (including an egg white!!). It tasted delicious. After lots of giggles and cocktails, we headed back to Laura’s.
The train was ridiculously busy from London to Oxford but luckily the three of us got seats. It was nice to travel on a train with friends rather than on my own.
Lunch was next on the agenda and I quickly Googled Oxford restaurants and found a good one through Trip Advisor called 
The decor was fantastic; lots of low seated tables, big cushions and cool art everywhere (I won’t pretend to have any further knowledge of this sort of thing). Normally tapas isn’t really my thing. I enjoy the food, don’t get me wrong, but the idea of sharing dishes with people is my nightmare (for the Brits reading this, imagine Smithy from Gavin and Stacey). But as I was among good friends they know what I’m like and reassured me I wouldn’t have to share 😉
Tapas is great because you can really have a lot of variety and mix and match flavours. I had slow cooked lamb, a goat’s cheese salad, pork ribs and chicken chorizo. Very tasty (the ribs were my favourite, of course).
After lunch we wandered around the shops. Thankfully the weather was just cold and not wet. We then went into search of something sweet to just top the day off nicely. We found a nice little cafe and had a hot drink. My friend Kate and I had a cream tea. It came with two scones. I suppose normal people would share but Kate and I are quite good at eating (she’s my Florida buddy).
I mean it was a bit of a push but we persevered. I was fully ready for a nap after that! After more walking, we parted ways and I headed back to Southampton. A lovely jam-packed (literally with the scone…sorry, couldn’t resist!) weekend.
I have zero regrets as they’re perfect. They survived the squat test, the lunge test and the “how does my bum look in these?” test – all that were confirmed my mum 😉 It was a lovely shopping trip with my mum, though the weather was rather grim.
My mum had the Mediterranean salad with chicken and added avocado and halloumi.
She said it was very tasty – I was actually quite surprised at how nice it looked. Nando’s isn’t exactly Michelin Star. It’s more close to fast food!
I did make sure to eat them during the trailers though as I realise they are not very cinema-friendly snacks (a lot of crunching!).