Yalla Yalla Lebanese restaurant, Soho, London

The other day, me and my work mate Lianne found ourselves looking for dinner around the Oxford St/ Regent Street area. In my head, all the main restaurants on these roads seem to be of the usual chains – pizza hut, Angus steak house, Garfunkel’s etc. Now don’t get me wrong, these are all fine but personally I like to try to eat out in local, independent or smaller restaurants. We had no idea where to eat but we came out trumps in the end.

After Lianne declared “I could really eat something like a Lebanese”, we took straight to google (what on earth did we do before google, seriously!) and found a place called “Yalla Yalla”, advertising itself as ‘Beirut Street Food’in Soho, just off Brewer Street.

tucking into our feast

every mouthful is delicious! 

Perfect, just a short walk and we were there.  Although, you will need to keep your eyes peeled as we nearly missed it – the shop front is tiny. Actually the whole place is tiny. But my god does it do good food!

Swan Lake - the Ballet

Last night me and the Boy did something a bit different to what we would normally get up to on a Saturday night. We went to the ballet! I know what you are thinking – how sophisticated!

We had said for quite some time now that this was something we wanted to do. He had never been to one and I have only been to the ballet twice – once when I was a little girl and more ‘recently’ when I was in Australia with my now housemate Charlie. But that was way back in 2009 and after consuming far too much cheese and wine beforehand, we got far too comfortable in the bar we were in, meaning that we had to run a mile or so to the theatre. We only just made it time (literally by seconds), nearly threw up the said cheese and wine (dam deep fried camembert) and then spent 20 minutes of the first act panting like an animal trying to recover our breath (dam being so unfit back then).

This ballet experience was much more successful!

Coconut oil - what are the health benefits?

Last summer, as I was preparing for the wedding, I was determined to be as healthy as I possibly could (I had heard horror stories from friends that the stress of planning a wedding caused them to be ill  in the weeks running up to the wedding). One of the things I started incorporating into my diet was good old  coconut oil.

However, post wedding, I foolishly gave up on all the good healthy habits I had acquired and now one of my new year’s resolutions is to be fit and healthy once more. The Boy has made this one of his too, so he has been reading up on his nutrition and fitness.

what the heck do I do with all this coconut oil?!

Last Saturday he came back with the much hyped about coconut oil. Not realising I still have half a massive tub left over from summer, he came back with two jars of it,  so now I have nearly three massive jars of the stuff!!!!

But it has got me thinking about coconut oil again (not in a weird way) and I have decided that I am going to start using it properly again. I am not really a fan of coconut but I actually like this stuff.

Top tips to sleep better – how to get a good night’s sleep

One of my (many) things on the to-do list for 2014 was sleep more. I have always fallen culprit to the “work hard, play hard” mantra meaning that when I go to catch up on sleep at the weekend, I often end up having less than during the week! Not only that, but my body has this irritating habit of ‘waking up’ at night so I end up not being able to get to sleep, ending up milling about at midnight. Same to for my housemate Kris who I often bump into in the corridor at night as if we’re a pair of lost souls!

So I stuck it on the to-do list to make a conscious effort to get more zzz’s in but also for a better quality of sleep all round (after all 7 hours of decent sleep is surely better than 9 hours of broken fidgety sleep, right?).

So far, so good. I did a bit of research about some top tips and I have managed to clock in 7-8 hours of shut eye each night. The recommended amount!

If anyone else is like me, then I want to share with you my top tips I have discovered – they’ve worked for me so I hope they work for you!

Top tip 1: read

This one works well for me. 15 minutes of laying in bed with an easy read or magazine, idly flicking through, really helps me switch off before I doze off. Obviously don’t read anything over stimulating. A few chapters of ‘War and Peace’ probably won’t help.

I have a few stylists on stand by in bed 

Are electronic facial cleansing brushes worth purchasing? (review)

Has anyone else read about electronic facial cleansing brushes?

I keep seeing them featured and advertised in magazines and they sound good but also sound bloody expensive. The ones I have seen in magazines are for make such as Phillips and Clarisonic which come in at £150 - £180!! That’s the cost of a nice weekend away!

I was keen on buying one though as electronic brushes clean skin 6x better than using your hands (according to clarisonic) and it helps the cream sink in further.  I do often feel that my fingers just aren’t the tool for working deep down into clogged pores so was intrigued about these brushes.

So I did a bit of googling to see if I can find cheaper. Turns out you can. A lot cheaper.

my new electronic facial cleansing brush

I got my bad boy from a website called DHgate for a mere £15. And I love it! I 100% recommend this product! Even after one use I felt my skin was thoroughly clean and getting the grime out of my pores. 

In order to see whether this little gadget actually worked, I tested this for three weeks using it on just one side of my face over Christmas and the New Year – a time when my skin usually suffers thanks to all the late nights, over eating of fatty foods and mid week drinking.

Silk 'anti aging' pillow cases

It's a new year so the perfect time to dedicate a bit of time to yourself! My focus for January is building a better me, and one of the ways to do this is to start looking after my well being more - inside and out. 

So over January, my blog entries will focus more on feeling fit and fine! 

Today's blog - my quest for youthful skin... 

Ages and ages ago, I read an article about silk “anti aging” pillow cases. Speaking with my pharmacist colleagues that I wanted one, they laughed at me and my attempts to prevent the aging process. But I stuck it on the wish list for Christmas and the lovely Boy got me one!

the creases go once on the pillow -
I wasn't sure if you could iron these

So why the hype about them and their ‘anti aging’?

Sharm el Sheik, Egypt - a bit of winter sun (part two)

As you know I said goodbye to 2013 in Sharm el Sheik with the Boy (read part one here). After an emotional year we needed a break. Just the two of us and some relaxation time. Although me being me, a ‘holiday of doing nothing’ did involve doing quite a lot! 

But I certainly did manage to switch off (I even read a WHOLE book in a week for the first time). However, I took switching off literally, which not only meant relaxing but a plethora of blonde moments. More than usual.

Which included classics such as:

• Walking into the bedroom wall thinking it was the entrance to the toilet
• Announcing “I didn’t know they drove on the same side of the road as us” when they in fact drive on the right
• Not realising I had cut my foot and freaking out at all the blood on the bathroom floor
• Cooing over the swan made from our towels and two seconds later gobbing off that the cleaner hadn’t left us any clean towels 

Anyway.I blogged about my general thoughts about the place and the people etc but now for the more exciting stuff…

getting ready for snorkelling

Sharm el Sheik, Egypt - a bit of winter sun (part one)

Whilst 2013 was a great year, it was also at times bloody difficult. 

To sum it up, 2013 had been emotional… My parents moved to the other side of the world, my lovely granddad was terminally ill, I had one wedding disaster after another, two of us at work were left doing 6 people’s work, I was homeless for three weeks whilst moving, and less than a week after the wedding, the Boy was deployed for four months to the middle east. As I said, emotional.

So the Boy decided what we needed to see off 2013 was a relaxing break to somewhere with a bit of sun (although I never did end up spending much time in the sun), that wasn’t too far way and a place to relax. Hello Sharm el Sheik, Egypt.

hello sun!