Mmmm, Poppity

I like crisps. Crisps are goooooood.

Am I a crisp connoisseur though? Not really. Food allergies rule that out as a career option for me.

On a related note, I'd still love for someone within the food industry to explain why they feel it necessary to put milk in so many varieties of salt & vinegar crisps. Whyyyyyyyyyyy????  But I digress. I'm talking about Popchips today. These are not your standard crisp.

They do put milk in some of their flavours btw but were most excellent when it came to sending me some samples to try. I got all the varieties that I could eat and none of the ones that would make me ill, hurrah!

That meant I could carry out a serious scientific experiment (aka shovelling Popchips into my gob at a hasty rate) and I'm pleased to report that these are definitely my favourite chip of the popped variety. Much nicer than the Walkers ones, more substantial than the Sainsburys own version and they even beat out my previous favourite, the nice crunchy M&S ones. Yum!

I do like it when I discover a new favourite. The pepper ones are especially delicious. Gorgeous spicy aftertaste!

It was v. sweet of them to include this useful little clip but seriously guys, who leaves half a bag of crisps lying around? Not me! I'm guessing not any of you either.  I'll have to press it into service on something boring like cereal.

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Lovely Lingerie from Mio Destino

I love parcels. What I'm not so keen on is having to go to the sorting office to collect them as the troll who works there finds me highly amusing and without fail, goes "Oh you AGAIN! You might as well move in."  Every. Single. Time.

Mio Destino sent me this intriguing and rather beautifully packaged box recently.  Definitely worth the temporary pain of having to go through the sorting office ritual of slapping on a smile and going "HAHAHA, I know, right?! Anyone would think I have a shopping problem." (I really don't. I am Miss Frugal at the mo.)

What was inside?

This very beautiful Lepel bra and shorts set! This range comes in a whole host of colours but they clearly know me: green all the way!

The easiest way for any underwear company to get in my good books is to offer a proper range of styles. I can't abide stupid restrictiveness where the bra is perfect and the pants are awful or vice versa. I might be a C cup but that doesn't mean I don't want padding! My boobs need all the help they can get. This bra has padding and is a plunge style. Double goodness.  

And it comes with shorts! *does a happy underwear dance*  Being the rubbish girly girl that I am, I tend to fail miserably on the pretty/matching underwear front.  They always come with non-Alex approved pants and my derriere must be comfy! If you're of a thongy persuasion then there is that option with this range if you want it but boy, am I pleased that thongs aren't standard. Mix and match is the way forward.

So it wins on the style front but how about the other two main factors: fit and price?  They both fit perfectly and are mega comfy. Hurrah!

The bra is priced at £22 and the shorts are £12. Pretty reasonable for such nicely made scanties, in my opinion! I'm generally a bras from M&S and pants from the supermarket kinda person (don't scorn me too much, matchy matchy people) so it's slightly more than I'd usually spend but I think we can all agree that I need to stop being such a cheapskate on the underwear front, yes?  These are definitely worth the price and I think I may head back to Mio Destino shortly and purchase the black version.

Plus, did I mention that they're really beautiful?  I love the matching detail on the bra and pants.

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An Ace(r) Christmas Present

Recent attempts to blog from the netbook have taken hours. I wish that was an exaggeration. My last post took 1 hour and 40 mins to edit five photos. I spend inordinate amounts of time wailing "Don't 'unresponsive script' me, you stupid machine. Arghhhh, just work!"

It does my head in but when I'm off work it's my only option. I always blog before or after work or on my lunchbreaks but now I'm home I'm limited to the crappy netbook or the iPad. Shouldn't moan really, should I? I'm a big Apple fan but even their most diehard supporter will admit to the flaws. You're locked into their systems, it's hard to import files from elsewhere and unless you have the most up to date devices, this causes a big old problem when it comes to photos. My iPhone is a 3GS which is almost four years old now and the camera is RUBBISH. My iPad is amazing and I love it for games and social media and general browsing but the camera is also pants. That makes life really difficult when it comes to blogging. I don't think it's worth upgrading the netbook to a laptop (they feel massive now!) but I've been looking at tablet reviews for a while.

The timing couldn't have been more perfect for an early Christmas present to arrive.





Acer sent me an Iconia tablet to review and here it is!



As an Apple girl I've never actually tried an Android device before and I'm rather impressed. Still need to sit down with the manual and work out all the little bits and bobs that aren't in quite the same place as on my iPad but it's all incredibly simple to set up and start using. Nothing has baffled me so far!


Spot the blog...



One huge plus for me is that you can plug stuff into it. On this tablet there's space for a HDMI cable and a micro SD card slot. I have 4 normal SD cards for my camera but no micro ones (d'oh!) so haven't been able to test that out quite yet but one of these clever gadgets is currently winging its way across the Atlantic to me. It's rather hard to track down but I'm pleased I found it, especially as it's cheap and has free postage. Once it's here the Iconia will be the perfect blogging device.

Negatives? Well, it kinda depends on how happy you are with Google interference in your life - it wants to auto default to a lot of things that I'd rather not sign up to. You just don't hit the OK button for them. I find it a bit less intuitive to use than my iPad but that may just be conditioning. The touch screen is definitely a bit less sensitive (especially the space bar for some reason) but it's still decent.

Overall, I think it's great. It feels nice to use, it looks well made and it's very reasonably priced for what it is. It's not an iPad and you're not paying that premium for the Apple design but you're getting a very nifty little tablet for your money. Definitely worth adding to your Christmas list.


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Acer sent me the tablet for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Take One White Tshirt...

Wear it for two hours at the stables and it ends up like this:


Yes, that is the same tshirt. Um, my eye for photo editing colour levels may not be the best...

Basically it gets covered in mud, horse slobber, dust, grease, grass stains, hair, hay seeds and a massive drink spillage. Thanks for that, Monty, I totally needed you to use my arm as a rubbing post at the exact moment I was trying to drink coffee.

I should probably point out that I don't often wear white around horses. Never really. As evidenced by the above photos, it doesn't stay that colour for very long. Immaculate people might just about manage it but I can't keep white clothes clean in normal life so I have no chance when I have to do various jobs around the stable that involve wading through mud and lugging around wheelbarrows of dirty straw.

This was a little experiment to see quite how much I could wreck that poor tshirt (as it turns out, quite wrecked!) and how much Vanish could do to make it look like new again.



The only pink I will tolerate in my house.

So, a quick squirt of stain removal spray and a big scoop of the powder:




Then a normal wash at 40 degrees and we have one tshirt magically restored to shiny whiteness. Huzzah.

Before: coffee stains
After: no coffee!


Before: mud


After: no mud!

If it can get rid of strong black coffee and evil farmyard mud on a white tshirt I'm pretty sure it'll destroy normal stains on normal clothes! Good old Vanish. Saving me from my spilltastic self for about as long as I can remember.

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Sexy Big Pants

Fashion bloggers don't talk much about what goes underneath the clothes. Well, things are about to change! If you've ever been shopping with me then you'll probably know that I don't really do matchy matchy underwear. Why not? Well, you know my thoughts on socks. Is it likely that my bra and pants would match either? Not really!

In the spirit of openness I will hereby reveal another secret reason for this sartorial choice to you: I am fussy about pants. They must be nice fabric and I like them big. That's why sets very rarely take my fancy. Many a bra has been purchased, leaving the matching pants firmly behind on the rail. They're so often either nylon and nasty or some bum-flossing thong contraption and neither of those are going anywhere near my derriere! Plus I have a rather grim stomach which I prefer to keep covered up (the nasty side of having lost a lot of weight - it's not all positive!) so my current pant of choice are those black shorts which comes in a pack of five from the supermarket. They might not be particularly glamorous but they're plain and comfy and that'll do me.

My eyes were opened to more glamorous possibilities when I discovered Sexy Big Pants recently though. Check out the top photo! Aren't they gorgeous? Living proof that big knickers can be beautiful.

I chose the Rachel design - couldn't resist the cheeky cutout! - and blimey, they're beautiful in real life. Even better than they look on the website and they're pretty damn good on there. Don't you just love that Italian lace panel? The attention to detail is stunning and they're ethically produced too - bonus!

Why yes, thank you, I am.


Black is so tricky to photograph, grrr. Here's the bow though!

See, big pants don't have to be granny pants and they don't have to be boring! I might not be modelling them for you in an outfit photo (I'll leave that to the gorgeous blonde model as her bum is way better than mine) but I'm wearing them right now and I can report back that they're utterly fab and are making me feel rather glam and sassy, despite the fact I have the plague.

All hail the big pants.

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Town Mouse...Country Mouse

I'm a split personality, but quite happily so. I adore the countryside. Fresh air, horses, peace and quiet, being surrounded by the beauty of nature... I could quite happily live in a little country cottage in the middle of nowhere with a pony in the back garden. But I love city life just as much. Every time I get too carried away with dreams of the rural idyll a part of me remembers that I actually really love being 10 mins away from a bustling, vibrant city centre and that if I lived in the sticks I would massively miss the amazing culture that Liverpool has to offer. There'd be no nipping to the cinema on a whim, no popping round the corner to Lark Lane for brunch or coffee, no decent shops nearby. There would also be a big old commute and that would drive me demented.

Much as I adore my city, it has one big downside. The suburbs stretch on for sodding miles. My friend lives 3 miles outside Derby city centre and it's so rural there that you'd barely know urban life existed. The same with my friend in Newcastle. Me? I live 7 miles outside Liverpool city centre and you still have to get in the car and drive for about half an hour before you hit proper countryside. We have more parks than you can shake a stick at (seriously, south Liverpool has about 25 of them) but actual fields and animals and stuff? Nah.

I probably have the best of both worlds in the meantime because I'm lucky enough to work in a little oasis of green amongst all that urban chaos. I might be doomed to live in suburbia but my hobbies take me out and about to some of the most beautiful rural places. My wardrobe kinda reflects this. Half of it is sensible with lashings of tweed, horsey clothing and muddy wellies, half of it is deeply frivolous and impractical with mandatory high heels. I like it when the two can crossover a little bit though.




I so wish they had the option to pick your own colourways for Flick Flack. I love the shoe but this is the only variation of it I've ever liked enough to buy.


Jacket - c/o Joules UK
Skirt - H&M
Jumper - Dorothy Perkins
Shoes - Irregular Choice Flick Flack

I was asked if I'd like to review one of the new range of Joules quilted jackets for women and I was all over this Moredale beauty. Not only is it green (yay!) but it's also fully lined with my favourite print from their range at the mo, has cord elbow patches, pocket & cuff trim and is really nicely fitted. Look, there are even poppers on the hip/derriere area in case you need a bit more flexibility!

I had to roll the cuffs back a bit as I have tiny t-rex arms but that's fine. In fact that's almost better because I get to show off another splash of that beautiful lining fabric!

So I wore it with the distinctly town outfit in the first set of photos and loved it. Then I ditched the heels and sequins, donned a more country-friendly outfit of jeans and Converse and took it for a walk in the woods another day. Guess what? I love it just as much this way too.

Jacket - c/o Joules UK
Jeans & jumper - Gap
Scarf - god knows. I have millions of them.
Converse - I think they were from Amazon. Hard colour to track down at the time!

Ahoy There

Oh this weather is deeply frustrating. A couple of days ago the sun was cracking the flags and I wore this deliciously summery outfit. Today it's freezing, chucking it down with rain and I'm in jeans and a big jumper. I mean, I like the chance to vary my wardrobe but it'd be nice if I could actually pack away my winter clothing for a few months instead of still requiring it at the end of June.

Still, let's focus on the positives. We had at least one day this week where I could don a pretty frock, sandals and have almost-bare legs.



Pockets! Yay!

I love Joules dresses. There's always a high chance of finding something among the range that fits in nicely with the #wardrobezoo but this time I wasn't swayed by animals. Oh no. I found myself drawn to the lovely, cheerful boat print frock instead. Isn't it cute?


It reminds me of Rosie. It's the jaunty nautical theme methinks.





Yes, I've had my hair chopped. Yes, it's too short. I specifically said it needed to be long enough to tie back in a ponytail. Guess what? Those shorter layers are not long enough to tie back in a ponytail. Grrrr. Plus it makes me feel matronly. Hurry up and grow.



Dress - Joules 'Sennen' c/o Surfdome
Cardi - Matalan
Shoes - Irregular Choice via ebay
Bracelet - charity shop
Necklace - Sunday Girl
Ring - can't remember

I must admit I hadn't heard of Surfdome before they got in touch with me about doing a product review but their website is well worth a browse - they stock over 800 brands and have a fab range of products. Obviously the Joules frock stuck out for me but I could have chosen about 347987 other items. So much choice! I'll definitely be shopping with them again. Lovely clothes, free delivery and free returns are the way to my heart.


I'll leave you on an amusing note. I have no idea what I was doing here. Recoiling in ladylike horror from the camera? Playing invisible basketball?