The 'big five'; AKA the busiest month of my life.

For some reason this year it appeared that all the big events that I was a part of took place in a matter of weeks. Now they're all done it's time to take a breather and relax with a cuppa whilst looking at the photographic damage! For the most part, I'll let the photos do the talking.

First was my sister's hen do - for this we did a 'Strictly Come Dancing' party with The Cheerleading Company (who I would thoroughly recommend) and then a scavenger hunt and a meal followed by some fun, games and alcohol.

Secondly, we had my Dad's summer ball. Drunken revelry commenced and a good time was had by all! We go to this most years and it's always a good laugh. The booze flows as the drinks prices are generally about a quarter of that you'd pay for in a regular bar (can of diet coke = 35p!) and there's always bottles of wine and cider or beer on the tables that you can have.

The only photo of the night that I'm willing to show you (because it's already on facebook and I can't hide my shame)...

...

God damn it I am sexy. The sad thing is this was taken at 7pm, just after we'd got there, so I can't even blame my hideous facial antics on alcohol.

Thirdly, we had the rather large occasion of my sister's wedding! I don't know about her but it feels like this has been in the planning stages for years so to actually get to the day was really exciting. I'm still doing residual wedding 'stuff' (some secret stuffs and some not so secret stuffs) but it was all so much fun I don't really mind reliving it.

Finally, a photo of me looking like I can drink wine like a normal person!

Fourthly, two days after we celebrated Simon and Charli tying the knot, we drove up to Wales so that I could attend my graduation ceremony.

Finally, we drove to Manchester (again, two days after driving to North Wales, and four days after driving home from Cambridge) for a wonderful event called 'The Color Run'. A Color Run is basically a 5k run with a twist; at every kilometre there is a 'color station'. This is where volunteers throw powdered paint at you to make you all bright and colourful... For comparison, side by side of before the race and after:

So much fun, I can't wait to do it again next year! I finished in 33 minutes 21 seconds so that is my time to beat. It was a fantastic day and it was lovely to run it in Manchester, my boyfriend's home town. My parents met his family afterwards, so it really was a great weekend.

All of this took place between the 14th of June and the 21st of July - phew! Now I have nothing left to look forward to... so I guess I should find another run or something ;) Or I could attend to my poorly neglected blogs... haha!

Thursday Feasts #1 - M+M cookies

Welcome to one of my new features! Every Thursday I will be showing you guys something I've cooked or baked in the last week. And to start, we have these wonderful cookies that I made these for my boyfriend to take into work with him and I have to say, they are the best cookies I've ever made! They're really chewy and as you can see, kept their shape fantastically.

Om nom nom. I made a batch of 16 and there are only 5 left... The recipe is very simple. And here it is...

Adapted from All Recipes

Best M+M cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 cups plain flour
• A pinch of salt
• A pinch of baking powder
• 3/4 cups of melted butter or margarine
• 3/4 cups of golden caster sugar  (I took out the brown sugar from the original recipe as I don't like the strong taste of it. If you don't mind, then sub it back in.)
• 1/2 cup of white caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract (Alternatively, if you have it, you can use vanilla flavoured caster sugar and skip this)
• 1 whole egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 3/4s of a sharing bag of M+Ms = reduce if you want more cookie to M+M ratio!*

Method:

Oven temp: 160 degrees C 

1. Combine the dry ingredients into one bowl and set aside. Melt the butter. Combine sugars in a big bowl.
2. Pour the melted butter over the sugars and mix until it seems to be fully combined/not very grainy.
3. Add in the whole egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract if you're using it and combine again until light and creamy.
4. Sift in the dry ingredients and stir/fold until just combined. Add in your M+Ms and mix again.
5. Grab a baking tray and portion out cookie dough onto the sheet (no need to grease) roughly 3 inches apart. Put the tray in the freezer for five minutes.
6. Take the tray out of the freezer and bake for 6 minutes to 10 minutes. They're done when they start to go golden brown around the outside. When you take them out, leave them on the oven tray for fifteen minutes before removing them to cool.

*I used a whole bag of M+Ms and there really were too many. I also recommend roughly bashing half the M+Ms so that you get a nice difference in texture and more colour 'oomph'.

Now, number 5 is an odd instruction but it makes a lot of sense; cookies rely on the butter and binding ingredients in them being cold to keep their shape. If you've ever made cookies before you'll know that warm cookies spread incredibly quickly and lose their shape rapidly - they go thin and greasy. This stops this totally! You don't want to freeze them completely, just make sure that they're cold to the touch. When they go into the oven cold they cook through fast and don't have the temperature needed to 'dissolve' onto the tray.

You really can't beat one of these with a cup of steaming hot fresh tea. If you leave them on the saucer they warm up and go all gooey again!

Tea and a biscuit, that Great British institution!

NOTD - Leopard print nail art

What's this? Another nail of the day in less than a week? Amazing!

Hahah, well the devil makes work for idle hands... but only when they're nicely polished :)

I've been dying to try this style out but I didn't really have the time for it. I'm waiting for a job to start so I've got a good month of doing very little - which will mean a lot of NOTD posts, especially as I'm not allowed to wear polish at work!

Base coat - Accessorize 'Aquamarine', Spots - (freehand with nail art brush) Barry M 'Gold' with Claires Accessories 'Black' nail art pen accents.

This style looks great and is so easy to do; just paint your base coat on, then when dry do random blobs of your spot colour (as irregular as you can manage - if you have them it's easier to do this with a small nail art brush) and then when that's dry take a pin or a very skinny nail art brush to create a 'shadow' on each splodge. Sorted!