Saturday 5 December 2015

Black Friday goodies

UK Black Friday sales are nothing compared to the US.  But a tonne better than Australia.

After MUCH deliberation I ended up with the purple Ted Baker coat instead of the camel.  As much as I loved the camel I felt like it was too similar to my skin colour and I have irrational neurosis about that.

Ted Baker Lorili long wrap coat

Hopefully this 70% wool & 10% cashmere long coat will get me through London winter.  It cost me a bomb but it was my self-gift for finally landing a job after 6 months of no income.

One of the first lessons I learnt when I moved to London was: always carry an umbrella in your handbag.  The weather over here has bipolar and will change in an instant.  After my cheap Prague markets umbrella didn't survive the freak hailstorm that came and went in 10 minutes flat I decided to invest in a Fulton umbrella.

Fulton Minilite umbrella

I'm embarrassed to admit I've been sleeping with just a doona insert on my bed.  I deemed a doona cover one of those non-necessities that I could wait til I was earning pounds to buy.  I'd wanted a plain navy one (was eyeing Ralph Lauren Home but hella exxy) but ended up with this from Sheridan:

Sheridan Newmark Sterling Duvet cover
Side note - in the UK they call doona 'duvet'.  I thought a duvet was something else entirely.  I stand corrected,

I finally jumped on the NARS Audacious bandwagon - I "need" a berry lippie for winter.

NARS Audacious in 'Fanny'
The staying power is pretty good and I love the creamy texture with matte finish.  Very happy with this purchase.

BOOTS.  Cannot survive London winter without knee-high boots.  Comfy knee-high boots.

Faith black wedge boots
Also picked up a cashmere beanie and some ear muffs - London winter come at me!!

Tuesday 1 December 2015

Settling in

It's taken three long months but I think I am finally settling into London life.

A HUGE part of that is finally securing a job - unemployment is an enormous factor in happiness when you're in a foreign country without your network of friends and family.  And job hunting in London is so much tougher than it ever was in Sydney.  For a contract role at a Telco I had 3 rounds of interviews, a psych assessment, a case study and a presentation.  Only to be rejected for an internal candidate.  So it's tough, but I have finally secured a contract with a retail bank in the UK and I start next week so I'm totally stoked.  I can honestly say that since securing a job I finally had my first decent night's sleep since March.

I've been slowly making friends and getting out a bit more.  Reformer Pilates has been my saviour whenever I've been frustrated with the work situation.  I've been pretty diligent with my home life - doing laundry, cooking, dishes, cleaning.  I have to admit I did let the eating habits slide a bit.  I was eating out of boredom which resulted in eating 5 meals a day and eating chocolate, pastries, cookies - foods that I never used to eat back at home.  It all came to a head a few weekends ago when I ate so much lunch I almost felt like throwing up.  I decided immediately that I would get back to 3 reasonably healthy/normal sized meals a day and it was surprisingly easier than I expected.

I'm slowly learning the names of the different tube lines and roughly where the main tube stops are.  I've started getting annoyed if I have to wait more than 5 minutes for a bus.  BUT I haven't started complaining about the weather (give it a few more weeks) and I certainly am not used to queueing for everything.  Brits love to queue.  Everywhere.  For anything.  I don't know whether the queueing culture has created a culture of slow service workers or vice versa but it's bloody frustrating.

I had been keeping a shopping list on my phone and I said to myself I would reward myself when I finally got a job (and also because when you're unemployed for 6 months, how do you justify buying all the fancy things?).  Of course my new job confirmation came at the same time as Black Friday and I may have gone a little crazy.  That's another post....

I have a few things planned for my final week of unemployment and if I stop being lazy I will actually blog about it.