Adventures in a Cake Shirt

I love my cake shirt. It was £14 in the ASOS sale (available here) and I would wear it every day if I could. Last weekend I surprised my boyfriend Ross with a birthday trip in Manchester, allowing two days of cake-filled fun.

Enjoying cake at Teacup on Thomas Street

Waiting for our food at the Nexus Art Cafe

Although this blog is meant to be about money-saving, I can't write about our visit to Manchester without mentioning Room Restaurant and the Manchester MacDonald Hotel. Both of these were far from budget, but were amazing places that make the trip special.

Room takes classic British dishes and deconstructs them to form tasty, interesting and completely new ones:

Onion Tart

Posh Fish and Chips

Surf and Turf

We also had a personalised assiette desert, complete with popping candy! Each course was really well presented and we couldn't wait to see what creation came next. On a slight money-saving note, they are currently having a Summer Champagne Sale, meaning £7 bellinis and a £19.95 bottle of champagne until 29th September.

We stayed in the Manchester MacDonald Hotel and Spa, which is close to Piccadilly Station. It's a really modern and classy 4 star hotel, complete with a relaxing spa.

In Picadilly Gardens, we ate yet more food at the Manchester Picnic.

 Hopefully more cakey adventures will follow!

Katie
xxxxx

Eastending

Last Saturday I went with my Mum to London. We had a great day mooching around the East End and generally soaking up the Olympic atmosphere. Firstly, we visited the Mile End Floating Market, which has loads of beautifully decorated canal boats selling a range of things from hats to books to cakes.

As the sign suggests, the market is open until the 16th August and is a really nice area to stroll through. We also visited the BT London Live Festival in Victoria Park to watch some gymnastics on the big screens.

My favourite part of the day was the Alternative London Tour of the street art around Spitalfields, Shoreditch and Brick Lane. Our tour guide, Doug, showed us some amazing pieces of art, told us about the artists and some of the history of the area. The tour is free and you pay what you like at the end - it's well worth paying good money for.

We finished the day with a curry from one of the many restaurants on Brick lane and buying lots of Masala Tea (which I'm obsessed with)!

£11.48 Haul!

Today I went shopping but only spent a mere £11.48.

The DVDs were bought with a £15 HMV voucher I'd forgotten I had left over from Christmas. I used to love 'Hook' when I was little so can't wait to watch it again! This lovely scarf which I've taken to wearing on my head was £1.49 from a charity shop.

No7 are doing their '£5 off' vouchers at the moment at Boots, so I picked up the Stay Perfect Nail Colour in Poolside Blue for £2 instead of £7.

These photos were taken with two coats but it's a bit darker in colour in real life. I also got a new moisturiser from Bodycare for 99p. I was a bit sceptical but decided to go for it anyway.

As of one use it's made my face feel soft and moisturised and has a  fairly strong soapy smell, quite similar to Dove products. I really like the smell but I think if you had sensitive skin it might not be for you. Apparently the Q10 and Carnitine ingredients are present in more expensive creams too. And finally, for £7 these Topshop shoes will hopefully smarten me up for the new job I'm starting on Monday.

That's all for now, I'm off for a long night of film watching!

Katie x x