It was our birthday party last night, so I went for a makeover at MAC beforehand.

Last time I let the artist take full control and she went a bit crazy but this time I knew what I wanted, so I loved the end result so much more. Ellie, the makeup artist asked if I was a beauty journalist, because I came in prepared with a notebook of looks I wanted to try out. She also gave me a huge list of websites to check for CO+K and places to go in Bristol next weekend.

She even let me take photos as we went along, so I could put it on CO+K and thought that was a really good idea everyone should do.

I left with a big bag of makeup and then went shopping for a new outfit too.

We headed home and it was party time! I think we’d picked the worst day of the summer to have our party, as everyone was away but we can’t do any other weekends. It was lots of fun anyway!

We made Hurricane Cocktails like we had in New Orleans and brought out the Mardis Gras beads.

I baked a chocolate absinthe cake…

which we set on fire and was much cooler than birthday candles. We served it with Lego-shaped vodka jelly and even King Charles enjoyed his slice! Other party food included enough candy to kill someone, delicious homemade pizza from Raz & Anna and questionable chocolates from Dave.

Mel sent a video message from Toronto!

Lynz gave me an awesome pair of scissors earrings (very CO+K) and Tony gave me a download of the Dr Horrible Sing-A-Long-Blog (I don’t know what it is yet – we’ll watch it at bedtime).

Dave played us a little gig when everyone left and warned us about the impending mid-twenties crisis which may, or may not be waiting around the corner for us… 4 more days until I’m 25, eep!

I love my new cake stand. Tom brought home some macaroons and they look so pretty on it. I tried baking my own again and I almost have it perfected, I just need to buy more eggs. There was a heatwave last week which meant it was way too hot to work in the mews, so I went to work with Tom at Leap in Soho. He’s hired Tony as his second-in-command tech guy, so it was nice to see another friendly face (and play on his new iPhone).

I got Tom this awesome Vivienne Westwood sailor top. I spotted it a while back when it was £160, so I waited for it to go cheap in the sale. It looks so good and he wore it…

… on Saturday with his Sailor hat. King Charles said he should dress like a sailor everyday!

Saturday was Louise’s Mad Hatter’s tea party in Queen’s Park. The first of many events stretching over a week for her birthday.

Can you spot the person who forgot to wear a hat / animal ears?

I wore a fascinator that I made in hat making class.

There was no actual tea but lots and lots of food. I baked whoopie pies, which everyone liked, yay!

They were super easy to make and I’ve posted my recipe for peanut butter whoopie pies on CO+K:

On Sunday we all watched the World Cup and supported Spain because Paul the Octopus said they’d win. Yesterday, Tom and I went to see Rhod Gilbert’s new radio show. We had to hand in comments about things we don’t like about shopping and Rhod read mine out and tried to find me in the crowd but I hid.

I’m back in London now. Tom met us at the airport which was such a nice surprise. I’m going to miss the sunshine.

I forgot to post photos of the hotel before. It was really nice and right next to the pool, which was the best bit. We would sit out on the balcony at night and watch movies on my laptop.

Someone on CO+K has already made a version of my Kitty Hood Scarf. It took me over a year to finish and they did it in just 1 week! It looks fantastic too.

Today we brunched with Lynz, Claire & Emma at Plan 9, had the cheapest round ever at the Warrington and then went for cupcakes at Hummingbird.

On the way home I spotted this shop covered in bows. I want to do the same to the Mews!

I woke up to a call from my bank’s fraud squad this morning because someone had stolen my card details and was trying to buy phone top-ups – super scary! I think I must have used a dodgy ATM somewhere.

This weekend was Andrew’s birthday, so we got him a membership to the Prince Charles Cinema, so that he can go to £1.50 movies in his free periods. Afterwards we met up with Emma, a massive dog licked my leg on the tube, Em dropped 5p and it ended up in the bottom of my shoe, and we went for mussels and beer at Belgo.

After dinner, we met up with Andrew and friends at The Cuban in Camden – a bar filled with couples dancing everywhere. Ben and Dave came too and Ben had an awesome skeleton t-shirt, which lights up when you take a photo. We were sat outside under an umbrella and heat fan in the garden and got very cold.

Afterwards we went for a cherry flavoured shisha pipe to warm us up, it was delicious!

Emma, Alex, Ben and Dave came back to the Mews to watch Limmy on YouTube, drink absinthe and have a band slam. Amazingly Em and Alex fell asleep with all the noise and stayed until the morning.

Tom and I went for an amazing last breakfast at Plan 9. I had French Toast.

Followed up with peacan pie, which made us miss Raven.

We went shopping for a little while in town. Carnaby Street has pretty xmas decorations with pink inflatable reindeer.

We had a coffee in the new look Starbucks. They had little individual cubby rooms with sofas downstairs, I quite like it.

I surprised Tom with little wooden London transport blocks, which I had found in Muji (my new favorite shop). He loved the little tube and routemaster.

Afterwards, we crossed horizontally (twice) at the new and improved Oxford Circus. It felt a bit like a game, because everyone bumped in to each other in the middle and got scared when the green man went red.

In the evening, we went through to see Lynz, Claire, Alex, Emma and Andrew in Ealing and had yummy Nepalese food for dinner.

Last night was bonfire night, so we met up with Lynz, Emma, Andrew and Alex and headed on the hunt for fireworks. We started off up in Wilesden, where our path to the park was blocked off by the police, who said there had been a stabbing. Feeling freaked out, we escaped to the safety of Notting Hill and found a bonfire near Ladbroke Grove.

There was a really good firework display which lastest for ages and every time we cheered, thinking it was over, there was another massive encore.

It was nice and hot next to the fire. Afterwards we met up with Ben and Dave in the slowest and cheapest cocktail bar in town (£2.50 for a drink with a half hour wait).

We headed to Goldhawk Road to meet Claire in a much nicer pub, where there was a ska band. Ben brought sparklers, so we had our own little fireworks display outside, which led to burning my lip (there’s always one and it’s usually me!).

Ben and Dave invited us back to their amazing flat in Chiswick. They live above one of Marco Pierre White’s restaurants, which has real grapes growing from the terraces – they tasted quite weird.

Dave let us try his special recipe falafels and Ben made us amazing cocktails all night, including French Martinis, Bob Marley shots and Chocolate Martinis. They were the best hosts ever!

This weekend was Halloween, my favourite time of the year, so we planned a party at the Mews.

Tom did an amazing job with decorations, hanging orange and black streamers across the ceiling with dangly bats, pumpkins and spiders. We also had a spooky doorway, Halloween balloons, fairy lights and candles everywhere. We made super strong jelly eyeball vodka shots and a cauldron of punch, which changed flavour and colour throughout the night. Everyone brought spooky nibbles and lots of booze, so there was sugar overload.

We carved pumpkins. I carved a cat pumpkin, complete with carved ears, which we later sat around in a circle and told scary stories.

I also carved a robot and a spewing pumpkin.

Tom carved a very cute robot pumpkin and Lynsey carved a spewing cat pumpkin.

Oranges also make very good makeshift jack-o-lanterns.

After dressing the Mews, it was time to turn our attention to costumes. I dressed up as Poison Ivy – my hair became more and more green throughout the evening and it was a nightmare to get clean the next day.

Tom dressed up as a drowned sailor, complete with Sailor Jerry transfer tattoos and barnacles glued to his face. Emma and Alex made him an award for the best costume later in the night.

He wouldn’t have won without the help of resident makeup artist, Lynsey.

Emma dressed up as Swine Flu (with piggy tail, ears, flu bag and bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tamiflu), Lynsey was Liza Minnelli in Cabaret, Claire was Judy Garland as Dortohy from the Wizard Of Oz (with tic tac pills to pop), Alex was Sweeny Tod, girl Alex was a sexy pirate, Ben was Wolverine and Andrew was the Invisible Man. I annoyingly didn’t get many photos of costumes during the night.

The evening was filled with bobbing for apples, a spooky Spotify playlist, karaoke, Buzz!, creepy TV shows and spooky stories. I love Halloween.

Today felt like Boxing Day. Emma stayed over, so in the morning we slomped on the sofas under duvets, watched terrible shows and movies on TV and munched on left over candy. In the evening, Alex invited us over to her amazing apartment in Notting Hill for a delicious Sunday roast and we toasted marshmallows over her open fire.