A tale of two weekends

Thanks to my own laziness (or busyness doing other things, however you want to look at it), I'm a weekend behind on my blog posts so we're rolling the last two into one! And it's been a busy couple of weekends so get ready for a lot of content!

First up was last Friday when me and Ollie took our first post-lockdown trip to the cinema. I was really impressed with all the safety measures at Showcase but not nearly as impressed as I was with the film! I hadn't actually heard much about Tenet and the trailer I saw didn't do a massively good job of explaining it but essentially The Protagonist (never actually named??) is chosen by a secret organisation to be part of a task force to fight against people in the future who have found a way to invert the way that objects move through time. So instead of wood going to fire and then to ash, it's the idea that you could turn ash into fire and then into wood. But they'd done it with more dangerous things like bullets, weapons and people. So with the help of Robert Pattinson, he begins to follow the trail to work out who's inverting things (and why) and more importantly, how to stop them. The whole thing was so brilliantly mind-frying! I pride myself on being pretty intelligent but I got completely lost on what was going on multiple times, because of the way in which the film explores time and our understanding of it. Something that films like Back to the future have explored on a much more basic level. The twists and turns were so well written and the whole film had me hooked from start to finish. While it was hard to follow, it was definitely worth attempting and I literally walked out of the cinema with a massive grin on my face (under my mask) because of how much I enjoyed it. 10/10 would recommend!

Saturday night is date night which means good food and lots of cocktails! I fancied a jeans-and-a-nice-top outfit so I paired these 90s acid wash pair (lovely relaxed fit) with this black fitted bodice. Originally it was a bodysuit but it was too short for me so I gave it a little trim to turn it into a bodice instead. I LOVE the neckline and think it's so flattering, especially adorned with lots of necklaces like this 4 tier gold one. Obviously my outfit was a little plain for me so I jazzed it up with some printed heels. These dogtooth beauties have filled a hole in my life and they were only £10 in the ASOS sale! I love the square toe and slanted heel and they're actually really comfy too. Naturally I couldn't have a completely colourless look so I went all out on the makeup! I used one of my Juvia's place palettes to create this pink, blue and gold eyeshadow look and then added Kat Von D liquid lipstick in the shade miss argentina.

I was right about the good food part of date night! We went to Las Iguanas and shared a load of tapas dishes plus some fajitas and everything was incredible - one of my fave cuisines. Unfortunately the 'lots of cocktails' aspect was much harder to come by because the service was so slloooowwwww. I get that COVID times means that things in restaurants take longer but we were literally sat without any drinks for 45 minutes after we'd finished our food! Naturally we stocked up after that so we got 2 cocktails each plus a beer and a wine to make up for lost time.

And now onto this weekend! And this weekend wasn't just any weekend but Katie's birthday weekend, with plans on both Friday and Saturday to celebrate. I initially told Katie I couldn't get the time off work to go to Friday so that I could surprise her by turning up afterall and her reaction when she got in the car told me the surprise was a good idea! We started our road trip the way all good road trips start - with McDonald's breakfast and tinned cocktails. And Staci had decorated her car with balloons and bunting and brought lots of cute snacks - we were all as excited as Katie was! For our mystery day out (well, mystery for Katie, obviously we knew what we were doing), I wore wrap animal print skirt, beige top (the most gorgeous fabric) and white trainers.

The secret destination that we were surprising Kate with was West Midlands Safari park! And not only had Staci supplied us with decorations, drinks and snacks but she'd even brought cute animal masks (the girl had thought of everything). We honestly had such an amazing time and got to see and feed so many animals! We even fed the camels and the zebras which we got told off for (we later saw that the food packaging said not to feed them so oops). We couldn't believe how close to everything we got and when we were going round all the big cat bit, we thought we'd made a rookie mistake by taking the 'off-road' track when it looked like all the lions were across the other side of the normal path but then we ended up right up close to about 10 of them! We also got to see the rare white lions, as well as countless other beautiful animals. I was meant to have gone on an African safari this year but having had to move that to 2021, this was definitely the next best thing!

As was the theme of the day, we then stopped off for some drinks at the end of the safari! Even though Katie's birthday is at the end of September, she always has nice weather for her birthday (like you can genuinely plan to it). I mean, when I say nice, I mean sunny because it was very windy and kind of chilly! Luckily we had some prosecco to keep us warm (when Katie finally managed to get the bottle open).

When deciding where to go for food afterwards, we knew that Katie had mentioned going for afternoon tea plenty of times but we'd never actually planned one together so we decided to go for that. At the great sacrifice of Staci and Katie, I might add, because afternoon tea is not a bit of them (neither are keen on cakes or sweet things and they're both fussy on sandwich fillings). But we found an amazing looking one at Sky by the Water at the top of resorts world, so the view and the venue looked like it'd make up for the food for Staci and Katie! And we were so right! We timed it perfectly (after a quick outfit change in which I swapped for a brown cardigan top and brown mule heels), arriving at 4ish so when the sun was just starting to get lower. So we enjoyed incredible cakes, prosecco and tea while basking in golden hour and cheersing to an amazing day of surprises!

Then it was onto the day that Katie actually knew about and had planned herself! We had a day of bottomless brunching and day drinking planned, which worked out well for us when the 10pm curfew came into play two days before. Obviously you have to dress sophisticated for a day drinking plan (to make up for the fact that you're, you know, drinking in the day). I went with white puff sleeve top, blue tailored shorts, zebra heels and cute new orange Aldo bag with tortoiseshell buckle. I also did orange makeup to match and added lots of gold jewellery.

Having sampled plenty of the bottomless brunches that Nottingham has to offer, I still stand by the fact that the Hockley Revs one goes unbeaten. It's £25 (cheaper than most), lasts for 2 hours (longer than most), has lots of nice food options (I went with fried chicken and bacon waffles), lots of drinks options that you can mix and match (prosecco, cocktails, beer, aperol spritz) and the service is always fast so you can make the most of it!

And then the drinking continued until the late hour of 10pm! It was my first day/night out since lockdown so I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of atmosphere but it was actually really good and we had such a fun time! So many laughs, waaaaay too many drinks and apparently too many photos to the point where we got told off (a theme for the weekend it seems). I can't speak for Katie of course, but I'd say this weekend was a pretty good start to her being 25!

And then my weekend ended the way that all great weekends do; by taking my hungover self for a big fat roast with bae!