Afternoon Tea in Bradford - Part III

When we'd finished in the museum I thought we'd have lunch there, but Sam and Jacqui told me that they'd booked afternoon tea at the hotel as a treat for me passing my MA! It was such a surprise and so lovely of them, so we headed back there for lunch.

The table was set really nicely and we could choose between tea, coffee, and hot chocolate to drink, and also choose any of their cold sandwiches to eat. I went with smoked salmon and avocado which was really yummy! Sam and Jacqui both had ham and tomato which they liked. 

The patisserie was delicious. There was a mille feuille which even I liked, a sharp raspberry tart, and a very nice chocolate eclair. We were all beginning to feel full then, but we powered on to the scones, which were warm, and the clotted cream which was delicious. I had blackcurrant jam which was also nice. 

I'd recommend the Midland for afternoon tea if you're in or close to Bradford, definitely. The staff were lovely and it's very nice surroundings, and the food was all gorgeous!

Jacqui and Sam

Look at my lovely tea tray!

Weekend in Bradford - Part II

On Saturday morning in Bradford we went to the National Media Museum. I haven't been in years, but when I was a child it was a very exciting place to go. We parked behind the museum and then started at the top of it and worked our way down. There were some things I remembered from being little, but lots of new stuff too. We had a lot of fun and I took a billion photos! Some of these are Sam's, too.

View from the top of the museum out into Bradford City Park

I liked this pattern, I want paper with it on!

I really like paper silhouettes like this

Wombles! They're so cute

Can you believe that this is the only Wallace and Gromit set that survives? This was due to a fire in the archives, and this one only survived because it lived at the museum!

Morph

Andy Pandy

I loved this photo of Patsy and Edie, I loved Ab Fab

In the games part, all the seats looked like Tetris pieces which I thought was cool

I mostly took this photo for Lee who is really into retro gaming

Jac and I were playing Sonic 2 on the Megadrive - she beat me, boo!

Sam was using her body to control music here. The guy in the black shirt is a DJ and coded it himself - it was really cool to hear the music fade in and out when Sam waved her arm!

Funny mirror

And another one!

This was a shadow box, I think here we were pretending to be in Saturday Night Fever

And here we were posing as Charlie's Angels

Thunderbirds are go!

More Wombles

A life size Dalek!

Which I posed with

Retro TVs in the television section

The museum is free although you can of course donate, and it also has a cafe and gift shop. It's a really great museum and I'd especially recommend it if you have kids, there's loads of interactive stuff for them to test out and play with. 

Weekend in Bradford - Part I

My best friends Sam and Jacqui and I had a weekend trip in Bradford last month. Jacqui bought Sam and I tickets to the Rocky Horror Show for Christmas and we decided to make a weekend of it and play tourist in a city that none of us live in. We booked two nights in the Midland Hotel which turned out to be really lovely. We had a triple room, it had two double beds and a put up bed, and still had plenty of space, and the bathroom was huge and had a bath and a separate shower. It also had parking which was good as I drove there.

We went to the matinee of Rocky which started at five, so we got a taxi to the theatre and had a drink first. I know Rocky isn't perfect and a lot of people dislike it for extremely valid reasons, but I have loved it since I was fourteen and do still like to see it live every few years or so. I first saw it at Bradford Alhambra so it's always nice to see it there again. Charlie Condou (best known as Marcus on Coronation Street) was playing the Narrator and he was great.

They were having some sound problems and had to have a few minutes break to sort it out, but otherwise it was fun as always.

After the show we went round the corner from the theatre to Omar Khan's which is a really nice Indian restaurant. I had onion bhajis and a yummy paneer, tomato, and cream dish which was surprisingly spicy. Then we went back to the hotel and relaxed in our pyjamas, drinking wine and eating cupcakes!

Sam bought Jac and I a Pop! each. Jac's is Frank'n'Furter and mine is Columbia - I love her!

I forgot to bring make up with me so I borrowed from Sam and Jac, I was looking okay

The stage curtain

Jacqui and Sam and me at the show, this is Sam's photo

Jac fulfilled a lifelong dream of bouncing on a bed, haha. She's too cute!

And that was Friday!

Films of the Month - March

You may remember me saying that while Lee and I were away we watched lots of films, so many of these were watched on holiday. It was a busy month!



1) Raiders of the Lost Ark - can you believe I'd never seen this? And I profess to be a Harrison Ford fan! Unfortunately, I didn't like it much, sorry Harrison love
2) Die Hard With A Vengeance - I'd say this is my favourite Die Hard film, but I actually like the first three so much that I can't choose. But I do love this one a lot.
3) Scream - one of my favourite films. I don't like scary films because I'm easily scared, but I've seen this so often now that it's fine!



4) Return of the Jedi - we'd watched the other two recently, so we had to complete the trilogy obviously!
5) The Shining - again a scary film that I can stomach!
6) Jaws - another classic that I love



7) X Men First Class - I actually really prefer Days of Future Past, but this is okay too I guess
8) Shaun of the Dead - the last film we watched on holiday
9) Girl Interrupted - I have seen this before but not for YEARS. I enjoyed it, Angelina is terrifying in it!



10) Legally Blonde - it was on the TV when I was in Bradford with Sam and Jacqui, I have seen it before but a long time ago, so it was nice to see it
11) X Men Days of Future Past - ha I guess we thought we'd better watch this too. I love Evan Peters in it
12) Grease 2 - since I'd watched the Grease Live thing I wanted to see this again, I only saw it once when I was young I think. It's good! Michelle Pfeiffer is excellent.

Photos from Manchester

So finally here are the photos from my day trip to Manchester! As I said previously, travelling there and back was a little bit of a pain but I managed it and it was really worth it as I got to spend time with some gorgeous girls and I bought some really nice things! I got two stripy tops and two cold shoulder tops and the hoodie I posted just before, and some chocolate in the brand new Lindt shop. I'll show you the clothes as I wear them :)

Inside Manchester Victoria there are these old tiles as signage for the "first class refreshment room". I love the colours of them.

This is the National Football Museum. There's a sign on it that says "City. United. Liverpool. Barcelona" which I thought was pretty funny. The building is huge and a really odd shape that you can't really see here, but I quite like it.

I met up with Steph and Kelly and we headed to Infamous Diner at Kelly's suggestion. It turned out to be a great one as it was really fun and delicious! This is a bubblegum colada and yes it was only just noon but hey it's five o'clock somewhere.

I had a chilli dog with curly fries and the biggest most delicious onion rings ever (not pictured). The prices are very reasonable and I was full.

We headed into Selfridges to see if we could see the Beth Ditto collection. There wasn't much of it there, but there was range of sizes which is good. I am told this print is supposed to look like a make up palette and it really does! I didn't try anything on as there's no way I could afford it, but I liked looking at it!

Bless Beth!

My final photo of the day - bye Manchester until next time!

A new hoodie

I said in my last post that I'd been to Manchester in March shopping. I really like the Arndale Centre, there's loads of fun shops and quite a few plus size shops, and I like the plethora of food and drink possibilities nearby. (I live in Barnsley which is not known for very exciting food!) Anyway, I was hoping I'd be able to get a new hoodie as my green one was coming apart at the seams. I'd looked on Simply Be but they were all very expensive, so I thought I might pick one up in Yours.

I saw this in Evans, they had a rail of hoodies and the colour of this one popped at me. It was only £20 which I felt was a good price, so I snapped it up. It's really warm (the inside is sort of fleecy) and cosy. I binned the green one when I got home!

As usual the hood is ridiculously big, this is always the case in plus size clothes! It's not pulled totally over my head in this photo, as if it was it would cover my eyes! Oh well, at least it has a drawstring.

What I Wore 12th March

Steph organised a shopping trip to Manchester Arndale in March so I thought I'd pop along. It ended up being a lot more difficult than it should have as trains from my house to Huddersfield were cancelled due to problems at Sheffield, but I managed to get to Huddersfield and then across to Manchester Victoria. I know that the station is close to the Arndale so it was ideal for me. I met Steph and Kelly and we immediately decided lunch was in order!

I'll post more pictures from the day in my next couple of posts, but I thought I'd post what I wore. I was rifling through my wardrobe trying to find something which would be warm enough, long enough, and comfortable enough for travelling and shopping. I pulled this dress out, unsure which it was. I didn't recognise it AT ALL, and it still had the tags on! I must have bought it in the Yours sale as it had a sticker for £15 on, but I don't recall at ALL when I bought it! Weird!

(No that does not mean I have too many dresses!)

I love the colour, it's a gorgeous vibrant purple. I'd just redyed my hair black so the purple looked good with it! I like the raglan sleeves, too. I think it was supposed to have a belt (it has belt loops) but didn't have a belt so I added this ribbon and tied it in a bow. It is a really lovely dress so I'll definitely wear it again soon.

I took this photo in Evans, hence the bright lighting from the mirror

Lee took this at home for me, better? Possibly not, but you can see the dress!