Summer in the city

Summer in the city - it has been sunny and lovely in London for the past week. It is really exceptional to have such a long lasting heatwave on this side of the world. We are talking about +28'C to +31'C outside every single day. And what is the strangest thing is that the temperature doesn't drop in the evening, it pretty much stays around +27'C to +29'C throughout the whole night - which has meant a serious contemplating of a midnight shower a few times :)

Aside of the warm temperatures, it has been wonderful to see how the whole London comes out to restaurants and bars after work. We have been spending time in Richmond river front, Southbank and Shoreditch. People are happy, feel free and have a smile on their faces -even though everyone is pretty much sweating all the time.

Summer in the city - wearing a light blue summer dress and beige leather flats with golden details

This summer's best summer drinks have definitely been ice cold cappucinos and wonderfully refreshing strawberry & white wine summer punch. We discovered this beautiful and light drink this week whilst being in Hoxton square for dinner and a few post-drinks. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a summer in a glass!
 

Summer drink; lemons, strawberries, white wine, soda

Sunday morning

Good morning lovelies.

It is an early Sunday morning and I'm sitting in the lounge, watching the water in the Thames flow by, stomach full of breakfast. I feel relaxed, content and peaceful. It is one of those beautifully perfect mornings.

Pretty pink Foxglove

Violet lupin

"Beauty is the greatest seduser of a man"

-Paolo Coelho

New ballerinas

I have been meant to write this post about my new ballerinas for some time now. I visited Stockholm a while ago and got myself two beautiful pairs of leather ballerina flats from Rizzo's 2013 summer sales.

Rizzo is a Swedish retailer selling beautiful footwear and accessories. They are under a bigger retail group, Venue Retail group,  who also own similar footwear, accessory and bag brands as Accent and Morris. They sell shop brand products under the name Rizzo as well as other brands such as Billi Bi and Menbur They have shops only in the Nordic countries, which is why I often make sure I nip in their Helsinki store in Aleksanterinkatu, every time I visit home.It is a shame they haven't expanded to the UK yet, even though, who knows, there might be a some UK stores may well have taken Rizzo's products in.

The shoes Rizzo sells are classic and beautiful. Some of them have more interesting details than others, but as a rule, everything tends to look pretty good. Also, the majority of their products are made of leather which I will always give extra points. Shoes and bags are not too pricy - of course a lot more expensive than cheap and cheerful one month wonders - so I think with most of Rizzo's shoes you get good value for money.

Billi Bi beige leather ballerinas

Billi Bi's beige nubuck leather ballerinas have a beautiful golden buckle detailing. The end toe part of the shoe is made of black leather, which makes the otherwise natural coloured shoe look interesting and easy to mix with almost everything you are wearing. The shoes were -50% discount, which was a fantastic addition to these beauties.

These Rizzo ballerinas match perfectly with one of my bags; the colour is exactly the same. Also love the golden plates and little buckle detailing. I have been wearing these shoes a lot lately and they are amazing to walk in. These bad boys were also picked up from the -50% sale table.

Cardholders and cluthes

I have been trying to find the perfect kind of a card holder for ages now. I don't know why it really has taken me this long to make up my mind with this particular item as usually I don't waste time when I actually need something. So here it is now, a reptile leather skin card holder. Finally!

Also have a look at my impulsive clutch purchase below. Beige leather -50% sale. Whoopey doo and matches well with my new Modalu handbag :D

Leather reptile skin card holder

Beige leather clutch

Modalu - Pippa Brogue Grab bag

May I introduce to you my new handbag purchase Pippa Brogue Grab by Modalu London. Modalu's Pippa bag in nude is something I have wanted to buy for quite a some time now.

Modalu Spring 2012 colour pallete fresh lavender and soft sand

I bought the medium size Pippa Brogue Grap, the one with two front zip pockets, three main zip sections and double grab handles. The bag has a beautiful Modalu lining and comes with a dust bag. There are also little feet on base of the handbag that keep the handbag standing nicely. 

Modalu Pippa bag in nude Pippa grab handbag

Modalu lining Pippa bag

Pippa bags come in various colours and sizes and are all made of fine leather. Since I have always liked the nude colour Pippa bags (past season - hence they have been usually sold out everywhere I have looked) tracking down one has been quite a difficult thing to do. A few week's ago I, however, came across with one in a handbag and shoe shop Rizzo in Stockholm.  

Midsummer in Helsinki

This year I spent Midsummer fest in Helsinki. It has been a special weekend in many sense; nightless nights, summer sun, good food, drinks and most importantly the pleasure of good company. The icing on the cake was my friend's Midsummer wedding, which I will write a post a bit latter. 

The traditional Finnish Midsummer is usually spent in summer cottage, mökki. The place can be a basic summer cottage without a running water or electricity or a modern holiday home with three bedrooms and the latest gadgets. Regardless which option you choose, there is also two additional requirements most Finns have for their summer mökki. These are sauna and some type of water element for swimming (read skinny dipping). 

Since I wasn't able to escape the city this Midsummer, which is the ideal option to most of the Finns around this time of the year, I was lucky to stay in Scandic Paasi hotel in Helsinki. 

Scandic Paasi Superior Plus room (c)

Scandic Paasi hotel Superior Plus room (c)

Scandic Paasi hotel Face Stockholm bath vitalisizing soap and moisturizer (c)

Scandic Hotel Paasi Superior Plus room (c)

As you can see yourself, the room was fantastic. We stayed here for two nights and we were upgraded to a 6th floor superior plus room straight away (nice). Our room was spacious and bright with an interesting yet clam decor, polished with a mixture of blue, turquoise, black and white colours. 

Hotel itself located in a great place, very close to the city centre in Hakaniemi. Breakfast was phenomenal; there was a lot to choose from and everything was nicely placed and freshly made. The staff was super friendly and they were offering fun extras such as city bikes, roller blades, Nordic walking sticks and umbrellas for anyone wanting to experience the Finnish way of going out and about - I thought that was brilliant :D

summer sales 2013

Hello hello hello, summer sales 2013.

Summer sales have been very good this year. Maybe it is due to the fact that spring has been rather cold and wet, and that has encouraged people to leave the summariest pieces of clothes at the shop shelves and rails. This is clearly good news for all the summer sales shoppers who, like myself, have been able to find a lot of nice items with -50% discount tag attached.

Massimo Dutti logo

This year I have dedicated almost my entire summer sale shopping to one particular fashion retailer; Massimo Dutti. Massimo Dutti was founded in 1985 and became acquired by Inditex, the fashion distributor group known for owning brands such as Zara, Bershka and Pull & Bear in 1991. Interestingly enough, originally Massimo Dutti started off as a men's wear brand, until in 1992, the fashion brand launched it's first ladies collection and again in 2003 children's collection under the trade name Massimo Dutti boys & girls.

Massimo Dutti grey jumper

Massimo Dutti beige trousers

Massimo Dutti black trousers

Massimo Dutti striped top

Massimo Dutti Basic white t-shirt

Massimo Dutti light pink top

I absolutely love Massimo Dutti's clothes. They are so well designed, very classical and just beautiful. A better quality than Zara in my opinion, but at the same time, I do find the zippers in some MD clothes sewn too close to the fabric, which does make me to avoid buying certain items from MD. But all in all, Massimo Dutti is great. I would say that it is slightly more sophisticated and grown up version of Zara.

So as you can see my summer sale buys are, as always, quite classic and easy to mix.

Great Gatsby: Florence + The Machine - Over The Love

The Great Gatsby - glamorous and exciting.

I have read the F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel and seen the Baz Luhrmann's film. Loved the film a lot more than the book itself, which was quite surprising and quite a controversial thing to say about one of America's most beloved and read piece of work.

In general I love books and I often prefer reading over watching films. There is just something about books that I cannot resists. It might be the fact that you are allowed to use your own imagination and if a novel is written exceptionally well, you can't put the book down. It sucks you in right away and holds you tight up until the end.

The Great Gatsby film 2013

The Great Gatsby cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton

 As many of you know I love Florence + The Machine. Hence, I was very pleasantly surprised when I heard they were contributing to the Great Gatsby music. Bliss.

Rebecca Ferguson -Too Good to Lose

X-Factor Rebecca Ferguson <3 A definite good mood song!

man and dog watching a sailing boat
(c)

In the end, it's not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away

- shing xiong

Relaxing with your family at home has to be one of the best things in the whole world. My mum asked me yesterday if I was planning to make any new year's resolutions for 2013. I said that I probably won't make any this year, but now I feel I should definitely make one.

Chinese candle holder in the bathroom
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A collection of candles in the bathroom
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After Christmas sales, hello my friend

The time of the year when people are encouraged to crazy has arrived; after Christmas sales!
The sales arrive earlier and earlier year by year giving businesses a better opportunity to increase sales and reach their monthly and yearly budget targets. Retailers especially can recover from the damage quieter months do to them in terms of business, if they concentrate on online sales at Christmas time.

From the consumers' point of view, the sales can be amazing time too. If you are lucky you can find brilliant bargains and save a decent sum of money. I love a good bargain myself, but I have to be quite careful when the Christmas sales are on since I easily go on a shopping spree just for the sake of it. And that surely is not the purpose of sales, is it?

I haven't done any online Christmas sales shopping this year yet. I will see what's out there tomorrow though. This is mainly because I managed to find myself two pairs of boots whilst I was shopping Christmas presents with my mum last week. The first pair was beige suede leather ankle high boots with two golden zips on both sides of the boots and  golden details where the heel and back sole of each boot connects.

Beige ankle boots
(c)

Beige ankle boots
(c)

The other pair of boots I got were a black leather pair with approximately 8cm heel. They were pretty much perfect too, because they are very clean, sophisticated smooth leather pair of boots. Just the way I wanted them to be. You know how much I like my Ecco's normally, but this season I couldn't find a pairI I would have liked enough from the collection. Hence, I ventured off elsewhere. This pair is made by an old Finnish shoemaker brand Ara. I've never had their shoes before so I'm hoping that they surprise me. At least the fit is perfect and the heels seems to be in its right place, since they are really easy to walk in -even though the heel is relatively high and medium thin. I will include pictures later.

Christmas holiday!!! Oh the happiness indeed!

Christmas decorations in Liberty London

(c)

I visited one of London's best antiques market a weeks back. It was such a funny experience. Almost all the vendors were slightly loony  so you ended up having the strangest conversations with them -whether you wanted it yourself or not. Krystal, my partner in crime, and I came into a conclusion that antiques markets can be quite dangerous places to go on your own. Hence, make sure you will always go in pairs ;)

Silver cutlery at the antiques markets

I was not looking for anything particular until I saw these silver napkin rings. As soon as I saw these silver beauties is a big silver bowl, I remembered my French hand made linen napkins I bought from Nice a few years back. It was love at first sight.

Silver napkin rings from the antiques market

(c)

I walked past the boutique once, I walked past it second time, third time was 'accident'. Fourth time was because I had taken a wrong turn, and on the fifth time was destiny. These napkin rings were calling me! 

So when I finally made my mind about committing to buy these rings, I practically run to the silver bowl full of these must-haves.

Silver napkin rings from the antiques market

(c)

Krystal and I kept on turning the rings around and comparing them to others and then after a good solid CSI London type of detective inspection work, I had found myself four alike napkin rings from A to D. I was proudly over the moon!

Happy Saturday!

Two glasses of gin and tonic

(c)

Ellie Goulding - Jolene

One of my favourite female singers, Ellie Goulding, performing an old classic Jolene. What a great cover!

Pizza East, Shoreditch

I'm not a big fan of pizza. Never been really. Heh, in fact, I have two particular types of pizza I really like, one from supermarket frozen section that you can only buy from Finland and one made by my friend Kati. So you can really say I'm not generally that fussed about pizzas. I will eat it occasionally, maybe twice a year, but will hardly ever order it in a restaurant, if there is something else on the menu to choose from.

Waiting our food to arrive at Pizza East Shoreditch

 (c)

So there I am, quite happily mind my own business, not bothered if I could ever eat a single slice of pizza in my life again. This is the setting. Then I hear all these praises about this pizza place in Shoreditch called Pizza East.

(c)

Saturday comes in and I decided, Pizza East you will feed me tonight. Don't fancy pizza, but hey ho, let's give it a go anyway. I book a table online, which proved to be a good thing to do -surprise, surprise.

We got to the restaurant in time. Table was there nicely set for us. Service was friendly and helpful. Restaurant had a lovely cosy, slightly dim lightning and a great overall feeling to it. By this point,  I was already sold. Food arrived super quickly and it was just gobsmacking tasty! The antipasti board was exceptionally good and there was a lot to go through on there. We actually didn't finish everything in purpose, because we wanted to save some room for the mains too. To be completely honest, I would have been completely happy just hitting the bar and concentrating on the tapas meats and cheese bites, which I probably will do very soon.  Mains, the two pizzas, were also yummy! Salami chili pizza was perfectly spicy and my veal meatball  pizza had lemon olive oil drizzled on it, which made it taste absolutely fantastic.

What did we eat?

*A board of 3 

(wild board speck, burrata and parmigiano reggiano)

*focciata bread

*carafe of red

*veal meatball pizza

*salami chili pizza

Cheese and meat board at Pizza East Shoreditch London

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I have been pretty much pizza-converted.

Food *****
Atmosphere *****
Service *****
Final bill £70

This morning has been so lovely so far. I took my time in bed and didn't hurry my mind to travel from sleep to conciousness. I let my eyes stay closed as long as they wished and let them to decided when they were ready to wake up. I basically, gave my body a chance to have a good weekend lie in too.

After feeling like having had enough sleep, I slowly opened my eyes and was even more delighted to see the sun shining through the curtain into my bedroom. Ah, this is just perfectness, I thought to myself. I have probably mentioned my love affair with weekends and sunny mornings many times before, and I'm sorry if I seem to be repeating it over and over again, but I just get so much enjoyment from sunny (weekend) mornings. I suppose appreciating them so much is my way of living my life here and now. Not longing for something from the past or waiting for something else to happen in the future either.

I also went for a run straight after I had got up from bed. I just pulled tracksuit bottoms up, layered a top and a hoodie on and slipped my running shoes on and powered off. It was quite cold outside which made me really speed up my pace at the beginning, but after 15 minutes I was so hot I had to lose the hoodie and slow down a little. Then I just kept on jogging for the rest of my route. The route I usually do goes around a big pond. It normally takes me 25minutes to run around, but then I usually do an extra lap walking. It is a great way to cool down and stay outdoors a little bit longer. So all together my morning run+walk is often an hour's long me-time enjoyment. I also hardly ever have any music on (even thought that might help me to run longer sometimes) as I prefer letting my mind go empty. Then at some point during my walking lap, I usually realise that thoughts have entered my mind again. That's alright. I don't mind them popping in and out. If the thoughts relate to something that has worried me during that week, I usually think about them for a while and if I, for some reason, I don't seem to be able to draw a conclusion or find a solution, I usually have a few deep breaths and stop thinking about them for the time being. I rather concentrate on being outside, breathing the fresh air and watching the ducks and swans swimming by. Yup, those simple little things. 

A stone hear on a wooden plank on a beach.
(c)

Whilst walking back, I got quite cold so I had a warm bath once I got back home. Other much appreciated life loving me-time moments are naturally baths and showers. Very girly and not very surprising, I know. I quite blatantly even call them my 'spa' moments as I never tend to rush out as quickly as possible. Hells no. Also, as I normally don't have that much time to pamper myself during the week, I'll often try to make an effort and do a hair mask, face mask, proper moisturising, scrub or exfoliation session over the weekend. I know they say the more effort you put in to your skin care routines the more you get out of them. It is true, your skin does look better and healthier the more you look after it, but I don't want to make looking after myself a calendar appointment type of weekly chore either. I think it is, in fact, quite silly to get stressed over not having had a full pedi- and manicure sorted out every single week. I occasionally hear and read  about people who actually get angry or upset if something comes in the way of their weekly treatments and it never fails to make me laugh out loud and wonder if they are serious about it. I mean, if they are then please, get a grip, that is not normal :D

I need a new pair of boots. Preferably black ones as my old black pair has started to look really tired.

Bless them, they have been repaired, reheeled and zipper fixed so many times and after six years they are still wearable -but I don't know for how long. And I don't want the old ladies to give up on me at a wrong moment.

I took my other pair of black riding boots to a shoe repair shop a few weeks back because the zip was broken in the other one. Unfortunately, the cobbler told me repairing was not worth it this time as the sole of the shoes were in a bad condition too. He said that it is a shame as the leather of the boots was in a superb condition and on the outside he would have never guessed that the shoes needed repairing. So one new zipper, new sole (in the outside bottom of the shoe) and  new heels would have ended up costing me at least as much as a new pair boots. Annoying. So I just asked him to bin the pair.

A pair of black leather boots

(c)

Burger and Lobster, Mayfair.

Waiting for food at Burger and Lobster in Mayfair London

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I had heard so many good reviews about this restaurant that I decided I would go there as soon as the opportunity to do it would come around. Last Friday, it finally did.

Only a short walking distance away from Green Park tube station, made it easier for me who has massive difficulties with directions and finding my way to places for the first time. We got to the restaurant 6.30pm and by the time we reached the receptionists the queue was three hours long. Great. Thankfully, the head receptionist suggested us to have a drink at the bar and wait until someone else leaves and then quickly grab ourselves empty chairs. We were slightly sceptic about ever succeeding in that, but we thought to at least go in a had a drink at the bar.

Ordering drinks was easy and we in fact got ourselves pretty good place right behind people eating at the bar. The atmosphere inside the restaurant was great. You felt relaxed, invited and for some strange way wanted even thought you had to stand in the middle of waiters' way all the time. Everyone has happy and people were laughing and enjoying their meals. After seeing the food, I decided there was nothing that could stop me from eating here tonight. I mean I was on a mission. I tell you, I was like a hawk watching those seats. I even got into a mini verbal bitch-slap flight with a woman who tried to steal our seats. The woman had it coming.

So after the misunderstanding, we were sitting on our arses at the bar! Wheheeyy! Our waiter was the loveliest girl on planet. She was so funny and easy-going. I loved her! So, basically, they didn't have menus, but you could have a burger (with or without bacon) or lobster (a whole one or one in a brioche). Apart from the whole lobster, the food was £20. One of us had a burger (with chips and salad) and the other one the brioche lobster (also with chips and salad).

Now then. How could I explain this? The food was absolutely beyond everything I've ever eaten in the UK. It was better than great. It made both of us smile throughout the whole meal. It was tasty, it looked fantastic and it was just absolutely superb. Yup.

Go there! You will like it - I promise.


Duck and Waffle, the City.

A night view over the city of London from the Duck and waffle restaurant

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The location itself was amazing. The restaurant was on the 40th floor of Heron Tower. They seated us away from the windows originally, but thankfully with a bit of luck, the waiter managed to relocate us next to the windows. This would be the best place on earth to drop the question :)

We had two waiters. One mixing us drinks and one taking our orders and looking after us throughout the whole meal. The drink mixer fixed us drinks according to our taste preferences, you just had to basically say what you liked. I ask a G&T -as long as it didn't have cucumber in it. After I while, the waiter came back with a Duck & Waffle speciality G&T which had blood orange, jasmine foam and something else in, and I do have to admit that it was the best G&T I've ever had. Good start I thought.

Food-wise, we decided to share their small dishes. Basically, they had five or six categories (such as raw, cold, snacks, sides, mains etc.) to choose from. Dishes were between £7 to £32, depending on what you ordered. We had bacon wrapped dates, house bread, jerusalem artichoke ravioli, beetroot and goat cheese (with real chucks of honey!), oysters and of course their signature duck and waffle.

The food was beautiful. It was in fact phenomenal. I didn't expect it to be that good, but it was just lovely. I would highly recommend this place, and will definitely go back there again myself at some point.

Also, what I found great was the fact that they are open 24-7! Oh yes I should probably mention this too; we had made our table reservation two months ago. Yeah, it is quite popular, so to be on a safe side. Make sure you book a table in advanced. I don't know if our reservation was a little over the top, but that got us a 7pm Friday night dinner sorted.

MEATliquor, Mayfair.

Waiting for food at Meatliquor 

(c)

Bring a balloon and get -50% from your food bill. Five balloons and five of us squeezed ourselves in at lunch time today. After a slight hoo-haa the staff managed to seat us at the same long table.

Food-wise, we were divided into two teams. The cheese burger eaters and the burger-chili chips-onion rings-cheese chips-chocolate peanut ice-cream eaters. Elli and I belonged to the first group and even thought we had the lest food, I became so full I still haven't eaten anything.. You will not have to leave hungry.

The beef was good. It was slightly raw in the middle (I like it like that) and the whole burger was really juice. The burger had enough tabasco hotness to it and it had gherkins too! Yummy! Yes I do love gherkins and no I am not pregnant. Very good burgers and good thin chips. If you like good tasty burgers, MEATliquor is your place.

Also, the food is really cheap. Burgers £6-7, chips starting from £3 and soft drinks £2,5 per can. The place was quite manly, so no fancy pants at all. I was in fact quite surprised that so many families with young children were showing up too. Thumps up! I love it when people bring their children with them to restaurants, cafés, art galleries, etc. I think that is the right way, indeed.