Wednesday 24 May 2017

A Chilled Out Day of Shopping and Food 🍲🍧

On Saturday 13th May, I met up with Sammi and her sister, Nicola, who'd I'd not seen in ages.

I was so in the mood for a weekend adventure, having had a pretty tough week at work. I started a new office job last month, and a mere few weeks in, the person mentoring me set off for a two week holiday to California, leaving me to blunder through despite not really knowing what I was doing. Somehow, I made it through this trying time, and things seem to be falling into place as time goes on!

On this day, we took the opportunity to do some shopping for this and that. Sammi and Nicola decided to do some fabric hunting, I collected my contact lenses from the optician's, and we also looked for the more mundane items like toiletries. After having sufficiently worked up an appetite, we headed to Bolan Thai, my favourite local restaurant.

I've never had a meal there that wasn't amazing, and the staff are incredibly friendly and accommodating. They are happy to leave you to chat for hours, and actually come back to offer you water if you're still there after ages! I wish more restaurants had such a relaxed atmosphere, but I do feel lucky to have this one so conveniently located for me.

The ingredients are always delightfully fresh and perfectly cooked. I particularly enjoy their sweet and sour dishes such as this one!

We stayed for a few hours, catching up on one another's lives. We talked work, relationships, friendships and much more. It was a lot of fun getting to chat to Nicola outside of a lolita meet, which was previously more or less the only environment I'd get to see her, and would always be a situation where we wouldn't get the chance to talk at length! She's an artist, so it was incredibly interesting hearing about her convention vending experiences, and thinking of potential conventions we could split table costs at!

After we had our fill of yummy Thai food, we decided to have a wander around the shops, and mainly found ourselves browsing homewares! We spent a particularly long time in TK Maxx, which is such a treasure trove of ornaments and decorative boxes and novelty furnishings that it's hard not to get carried away in there!

The lighting in there is surprisingly good so we couldn't help heading to a big mirror to get a group photo! As you can see, I got myself a really impressive toiletries haul that day!

Sammi and I ended up accidentally doing some Mickey Mouse twinning, so naturally, we needed to capture some evidence of it. 

Well, it's a good thing I was wearing bloomers, as unbeknownst to me, my bag hitched up the back of my skirt! This picture makes me smile because while having it taken, Sammi and I kept smiling for the camera... even though we weren't even looking at it.

After doing a bit more wandering around in candle shops and the like, we decided we were in the mood for dessert, and headed to the local ice cream parlour, situated most conveniently at the train station. I enjoyed my peach amaretto ice cream cone so much I forgot to take a picture of it! It was a lovely end to such a positive, relaxing day, and I'm very much looking forward to more days like this. 

An outfit shot. I think we've already established I have a huge love for monochrome! While I enjoy the dramatic contrast you get when you coordinate it with red, pink is my favourite colour, after all!
Hair accessory: gift 
Bunny bolero: Baby, The Stars Shine Bright
Necklace: Claire's
Dress: Lazy Oaf
Bag: Lazy Oaf
Shoes Bodyline

It's definitely easier to get through the working week when you have fun plans to look forward to at the weekend, and I've been doing my level best to keep my social calendar filled up! I was so grateful for this relaxed day out, and as we get further through May, I'm looking ahead to International Lolita Day coming up soon, for which I've got some plans for!

What are your favourite restaurants to go to? Do you enjoy looking at homewares? I'd love to hear all about your shopping preferences! As ever, thank you so much for looking and reading, and I'll see you next time! 

4 comments:

  1. I love homewares and in fact I'm thinking of getting a good quality mug to drink hot chocolate out of. There's a few lovely cafes in the middle of the city that I love. One even serves matcha icecream and iced mango tea.
    I'm also trying to keep busy lately on the weekend so lolita and friend outings are on the rise.

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    1. It's always nice to have special mugs for hot drinks! I have been super into hot chocolate myself this year ^_^

      You're lucky to have some nice cafés local to you, especially when they serve things like that. Mango iced tea sounds delicious *_*

      I'm glad to hear that. It's great to have fun days out to look forward to, so you can make the most of your free time and always have something positive to look forward to in the near future.

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  2. I dont know what is on the table, but a dish looks amazing! <3

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    1. It was sweet and sour prawns and vegetables! It was so delicious! ❤

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