A Welsh Walk

I had a rather lovely (if sort of frantic) three day weekend dashing around doing nice things - on Friday I went to the Globe with my friend Miriam to see The Last Days of Troy, which was an excellent take on the myth (and funnier than I expected!). We also had a delicious lunch at Theo's Cafe, which belongs to the Globe, including the best vegetable tart I have ever had and at a super reasonable price - perfect for a quick lunch before a performance. Then me and Michael spent the weekend looking after his parents' dog, visiting my parents' cat and having a BBQ with friends on Sunday before heading back to Guildford. Here are some photos I managed to grab of our lovely (and tiring!) Saturday afternoon walk through the woods.

This is Rufus the crazy friendly  Welsh springer spaniel - he's only 18 months old so still loves running/jumping/exploring/licking/play-biting. Lovely but exhausting!

Lovely countryside just outside the suburbs of Reading.

"Surprise carrying!" Rufus was way too interested in some old bonfire of random rubbish and wasn't listening to reason (read: us firmly shouting "no" a lot and looking stern), so drastic action had to be taken...

Over The Weekend

Look at me, I'm on a blogging roll! (*touches wood*) I'm hoping to make it more of a regular thing...I have said this before, but the lovely weather/longer days help with taking photographs worth posting, and I'm definitely feeling a lot more of those positive/creative vibes right now. Anyway, here are a few pictures of my weekend...

My impromptu tulip purchase enjoying the sunlight...they're certainly looking a bit more faded now but hopefully we'll get a few more days out of them!

Shopping! Having done some experimentation in the last year with a few different brands of face washes/scrubs/moisturisers to combat my spot-prone skin and dark circles, I think for now I'm going back to these beauties. Currently I'm using No 7 Beautiful Skin foaming cleanser and their day and night creams for normal/oily skin, as I think my skin was the most spot-free when I used these products before, combined with the St Ives Blemish Fighting Facial Scrub a few times a week for a really good exfoliate to combat blackheads. Also I've just taken the plunge and re-purchased the Benefit It's Potent! eye cream, as while it didn't really make much of a dent in my huge dark circles when I sued it before, it leaves my under-eye area feeling super hydrated and is a good base for their wonderful Erase Paste; if I can't get rid of the circles at least I can hide them well!!

Ahem....I promise I'm not actually turning into a beauty blogger... ;)

Finally, I spent a relaxing Sunday afternoon browsing the M&S home catalogue and their May/June magazine; I often forget they have such lovely trend-led pieces, as clothing-wise my local store seems to cater more for the discerning middle-aged lady rather than younger people.

Hope everyone out there reading is having a great week in the sun - or as much as possible when not at work!

Sweating In Style

In the last couple of months I've gotten really into going to exercise classes at my local gym (Virgin Active Guildford) - for ages I was too scared to take the plunge, but one day I just thought, "Well, I have to start some time!" I really wanted to get into exercising regularly and not taking a week or two (or more!) off because I don't feel like it. I do love a good session on the crosstrainer but doing that three times a week can get reeeeally boring. I've been to lots of classes now, including body combat, body attack, zumba toning and normal zumba (love them all, though body attack is a killer!). It's so much fun being led through different energising exercises to music and I already feel fitter AND happier.

Anyway, after that much-longer-than-anticipated endorsement for organisedly (don't think that's an actual word...) jumping around to music, down to the actual subject of the post: showing off my lovely new workout gear!

I've been meaning to get new things to exercise in for ages, but kept putting it off, asking myself whether I could really justify spending more than £100 on workout gear. Then during one class the instructor advised me to get new trainers so I had more support and voilà, I was provided with the perfect excuse - if a professional is telling me to go shopping, who am I to say no, right?

At the top of the pile of stylish workout brands I felt sure I could trust my feet to was Nike - I've admired their gear for a long time and it's obvious a lot of research and care is put into building the right shoes for the right activity. I went with the Nike Free 5.0 TR Fit 4 Breathe (yep, that's a mouthful) because it seemed to tick all my boxes: breathable, supportive and designed with gym training in mind. I also got these capris, this top and these socks.

I've been using them for a few weeks now and I'm really pleased with what great pieces of kit they are; the trainers are comfortable and cushion my feet when I'm doing all that jumping around, and the clothes feel like a second skin so I avoid the distracting t-shirt -riding-up moments I used to have while doing push-ups etc. I'm already eyeing up my next purchases!