It's been a loooooong day, but a great one - because this evening, I got to meet the gorgeous Julie from wtf have i done? during her London travels! I had hoped to stalk catch up with her while I was in New York, but I literally ran out of days and couldn't spare the trek up to Boston, so hooray for international travels!

We had dinner around Kensington in a cute little Italian place called Da Mario's - lots of history in it, apparently it was a favourite for Princess Diana to bring her boys when they were younger. Of course, still being a tourist myself, I'd never heard of it.

Can you say YUM!?! Awesome, awesome Italian food. It was such a cute tiny restaurant too, with really bizarre mismatching furniture and cute chairs. You could even sit on an elephant, if you're into that sort of thing ...


The food was fab; I had a mozarella starter with rocket, a pizza bread starter and gnocchi for my main. So full! Good meal, and good company - nice to meet some of Julie's London-based American friends. I might even have found myself a fellow Twilight fan to come and see the movie with me!


It was great to meet Julie, we've been bloggy friends for quite a while now and she's just like I imagined her to be. It's always good when you find yourself able to chat randomly without the awkwardness, and I really enjoyed tonight! Sounds like she's gotten loads done in London while she's been here, but I'll let her tell you the stories when she's back. Plus, she's totally cute.

So in true Aly style, we took two pictures together and both are slightly dodgy. Hopefully we got a better one on her camera, because in the first one it looks like my eyes are closed OR I'm glancing at her sideways in a sassy kind of way - and then in the second one, we're both very fuzzy. Still cool, just fuzzy.

So - the post you've no doubt been waiting with baited breath to see, it's arrived! And this time I'm not only going to talk about the bookshelf, I'm going to show you pictures of it as well. Amazing! And since Oscar has refused to get off the thing since then, he features in quite a few himself.

Meet the bookshelf, freshly brought from the garbage room to the flat. Oscar is counting the shelves for me. Clever boy. He was very puzzled with this new intrusion.

We have one chest of drawers for folded clothes between us, and well, despite coming over to two drawers, I've now apparently taken over the rest of them - so Jason's clothes have now been allocated these two new drawers, and the shelf as well. Kitters has found his favourite shelf, too. Oh wow. Crooked photography.

Jason thought it would be cute to tuck Oscar in for bedtime. Har Har Har!

The finished product - well, almost. The 'paperwork' shelf will have more on it, once we sort out our bits and pieces. Sadly, that's also Oscar's shelf. He won't be pleased.

And a close up, because to be fair, a lot of the stuff crammed into the first three shelves are all mine. Highlights are my board games, my NYC Liberty Bear from the Hershey's Store in Times Square, perfumes and books. (Squee, HP boxset!)

It's not a bad little collection of books, considering I came into the UK with three all-time favourites. But alas, I've gotten through most of these now - so anyone wanting to get rid of some second hand books (& can brave UK postage!) send 'em my way!

Ah, cupboard. I love you.

A few days ago, I happened to be taking the garbage down to the compactors in the car park, when I stumbled across something amazing. Let me update this by saying that the garbage run is most definitely not one of my top ten household chores. (I'm always paranoid that the bag is going to break and that a spectacular assault of used kitty litter is going to explode across the hallway of the apartment complex. Don't know where that fear came from. Hope it never happens though. Would be gross.)

You might recall a good few months ago, when I discovered a box of second hand books in the trash room, with a loving sign saying 'help yourself!' - and anyone who knows me at all, would know that books = heaven. Free books = a very happy Aly. Well, the freebie this time around was even better!

Standing all alone in the corner was a tall, skinny bookshelf. At first, I thought someone might have left it there temporarily while moving other things in, so I didn't think too much of it - but the next night, I went back down and checked and it was still innocently sitting there. Upon closer inspection, the bookshelf was in amazing condition. It looked like one I've seen in an Ikea catelogue, simple but sturdy - with four moveable shelves and two drawers at the base. Too good to be true!

At the time, Jase wasn't back yet and there was no way I was lifting that baby on my own, so the bookshelf and I said our goodbyes and decided to let the fates see if it was meant to be at a later date. One of the first things I did this morning, was to send Jase down for inspection - and guess what was still there? Not anymore. Jase carried, I directed, and we've now got ourselves a lovely new cupboard in the bedroom.

Gotta love second hand stuff, especially when it's in good nick. :-) Now all of my second hand books will have a second hand home. Pictures to come tomorrow.

... Oscar, that is. He's saved from another evening of listening to random babbling and mopey music. Why's that, you might be wondering? JASON IS BACK!

(He's been gone for seven weeks, if you didn't know. Back in Australia, sorting out his very own Visa. I didn't mention it for fear of axe murderers keen on stalkerage.)

I've been very independent, and it's been kind of nice actually. Well, alright, being honest, it stopped being nice about six weeks ago. But I managed on my own, I worked, I came home, I annoyed the cat and I kept myself busy. Glad to have the boy back in the picture though. I've missed annoying him. And he's cooking dinner. Tops!

Apparently during NaBloPoMo, I'm nothing if not a follower - so when I saw some of these cool little gadgets floating around the blogosphere, I couldn't resist.

Here's my most randomly random mix of songs I love, dredged up from the depths of my Ipod and streaming free straight to your speakers! Have a flick through, pretend not to notice that half of my music collection is from the nineties, and comment!

Update!! - I've had so much fun with this player, I decided I had to create another one. (If only ALL the songs I wanted were available on that site.. but still. Music!

I'm not a big shopper, particularly for clothes. I'm my own worst critic, I hate trying things on, and to be fair, most of the cute clothes I really like don't suit people my size - so I avoid it as much as possible. Needless to say, if I find something I love? I wear it until it quite literally starts to fall apart.

My 'wear all the time' black zip up jacket went yesterday, with the sleeve practically ripping off. One of my favourite pairs of shoes went in the bin just last week, because they had worn a hole away in the lining. And today? My 'all time favourite' dressy cardigan split down the arm. (I've had the latter for the part three years, and I'm devastated it's dead. What am I going to do without it?)

It really sucks at the moment, because the last thing that I feel like doing is clothes shopping. I'm trying to save money for my return trip back to Australia (doesn't come cheap, let me tell you!) and it's just plain annoying. I'm wondering if I can get away with what I have for at least the next couple of months, before topping up my supply back home where the dollar is cheaper...

What's your all-time favourite clothing item that you'd feel lost without?

Want to know my best little discovery of the day?

Toffee Nut Latte at Starbucks.

It's heaven in a cup, I tell you. It's even yummy on skinny milk!

NOM NOM NOM.

I think after NaBloPoMo is done, I'll go back to my sporadic posting. I think more people read my posts these days when I take my time and leave a bit of a gap between them - not that it matters, but the comments this time around have been pretty average!

It was a beautiful evening tonight, albeit wet and windy. I walked the 20-25 minute route to Bank station, as I'm trying to a) avoid the Central line at all costs and b) add some more regular exercise to my days, and as I was on my way I decided to step into the bank and withdraw some cash. The HSBC around the corner from work has its ATM's inside, so I decided to opt for that one.

As I opened the door, I wasn't alone - a homeless guy was curled up on the floor, escaping the wintery weather outside and enjoying the warmth. He asked for some change, which I literally didn't have to give him, and also asked for cigarettes. I had neither, and he thanked me regardless and asked me what my Christmas plans were in a lovely Scottish accent. He wasn't rude, he wasn't probing; he was just polite, and actually made me smile as he wished me a lovely evening as I headed for the door.

It's that sort of random niceness from strangers that makes you stop and think; and as I continued on my journey to the station, all of my random worries seemed so insignificant - because at least I was heading home to a comfortable bed and a cooked meal. If I see that man again, I'll definitely be passing him some change.

A few weeks ago, I came across a copy of P.S. I Love You. Yes, I know, I know, I'm the last person on the planet who hadn't read that book. But having stumbled upon it, I gave it a go and rather enjoyed it - even if certain parts of it annoyed me a tiny bit. The idea in itself is really quite sweet, and I liked all of the characters.

This evening, I remembered I had the film waiting around to be watched, so decided to give that a go. I wasn't convinced at the beginning, because it's quite drastically different from the book, but it definitely grew on me. It helped having random conversations about it on Facebook, too. Gotta love film reviews from friends. As for the actors! The dreamy men! With accents! Phwoar. Gerard Butler is too cute, James Marsters (Spike!) is always gorgeous, and I'm secretly going to elope with Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

I do feel sad now though after watching it, and can't wait for the boy to come home. And I suddenly want to visit Ireland, quite badly. It's only an hour or so away, too ... one day, soon I hope. It looks absolutely amazing!

I'm halfway across the country so far, so if you've stuck it out this long, keep reading!

10. Amarillo, Texas.

Home of lots of cattle and HUGE steak houses! Our first stop into the city was at the Cadillac Ranch, part of Route 66 that my parents had always talked about. I remember that they had signed and stickered a cadillac the last time they were there, so was trying to frantically text them to find out which one was 'their' cadillac. I had no idea the amount of visitors they get, though - and it's literally layer upon layer of spray paint. It was great fun - had a ball taking pictures of them, albeit that the smell of cow manure was a trifle overpowering. After this, we headed into the Big Texan Steak Ranch, home of an obscene challenge involving a hunk of meat and an hour. Four people were trying it while we were eating our regular meals, and all failed. Ew.

11. Dallas, Texas.

Not really sure what I was expecting of Dallas - was just a rather big city! I love the history involving JFK so seeing all of those historical memories and being on the actual site of the assassination was really, really sad. So many buildings in Dallas, and then nice little patches of green scattered around it too. It was so hot while we were there, wow. Remind me never to go trekking across the south in summer again, please? The first night there I was meant to go out to a rodeo, but I felt a bit ill so gave that a miss. The following night we went out to eat at Dick's - home of the famous mean waiters & rude paper bag messages. I guess I came off relatively easily, and decided to take my hat message as a compliment.