Valentine's Eve

*subtly reaches for phone in order to remember the events of last night* 

Valentine's eve? Valentine's day eve? wasn't sure what to call this post, last night, Yarm, BeerSoc, Locomotion formal dinner. Anyway. 

Last night saw the last Locomotion dinner (a formal dinner held at Stephenson College, Durham Uni) of the academic year (sobs quietly) followed by a big night out in Yarm (organised by the very organised BeerSoc) 

Ah the locomotion, on Valentine's day, there were a lot of couples, however the singles definitely dominated the field. Standard antics followed the meal, including a poem about roses are red and taking your date to the waterside, cheap skate? was that how that went? Very poetic. Followed by typical photo taking, boys handing out the flowers from the tables to their respective others etc etc

The night moved to Central, for speed dating and ball room dancing (to Spanish music and the Killers, but who's judging?!), the speed dating consisted of people who knew each other having a chin wag (does anyone know what that means?) and the ball room dancing, people attempting to look very classy, the majority of the time it did look really cute, but by this time I was half a bottle of wine down (which I was sharing!) 

I then received a flower(s) from a rather intoxicated, line-out-themed nek-nomination rugby boy (I'll let those of you who know him guess who that is), a change of shoes, a few "we like to drink with so and so" and downing of drinks, running to the taxi, forgetting my blazer, sitting in the front with the taxi man and taking "taxi man selfies", miscalculating how many people were on the bus and somehow ending up in Yarm, with a few opera singing moments on the way. 

Yarm has the be the cutest place ever, after Durham and a few others (York etc etc), however the cobbles are not made for platform-ed stilettos, nevertheless, we made it to the George and Dragon to be greeted by the BeerSoc exec, who after being complimented were very pleased with their organisational skills, which they should be! A raspberry flavoured sambuca later (Blogger always edits sambuca to "samba" why?!) and we were well away to having a good night. The place was crawling with second years, which was really nice as we haven't all been out at the same time in ages. 

Osbourne's for cocktails and dancing to 70's and 80's classics, getting in the way of couple's lovely night out, mingling with Yarm-ers, we ended up in the Keys, with our wristbands like we were some kind of celeb pushing through the queue, or just like on Miss Congeniality when she walks into Starbucks to order her office's coffees and uses here FBI badge to push everyone out the way - it was like that, but better, ish, almost. 

For half an hour, we owned the dance floor. It was R&B night and there were some serious shapes being pulled. Stephenson college had made their mark on the dance floor, only to be made sweaty and frizzy-haired (just me then) by Yarm-ers cramping our style, nevertheless, we stuck to the lit-up trippy dance floor and danced to some incredible, black, bass thumping tunes. Maybe I was in a world of my own but I was having a great time. 

Now, I am not a big fan of Beyoncé's new album (don't judge!) but when Drunk in Love came on, oh my gosh, if you had a significant other you were grinding away like Jay-Zed's and Beyoncé's grammy performance was U-rated, if you were single, there were some serious hip shaking, Beyoncé on the beach style dancing, the bass was to die for. 

It is very fair to say, I wasn't near tipsy at all, but I learnt last night to just enjoy yourself and it was so worth it! - I was dancing to Beyoncé's new album, there was clearly some letting-go. 

What we didn't realise till we were inundated with Yarm-ers was that we were in a traffic-light party! I know, there were people running round (including bouncers) with green "single" stickers on them. I only managed to grab this "taken" sticker for blog-worthy evidence. 

By 1am, due to the heat in that club, my feet had just about given up on me, so we hobbled (ok, I), to a taxi and ate food back at our flat. yum yum. 

All in all, a great night (which you know is true when you wake up at 9am still buzzing off the night before). Newcastle on Thursday could be another one of last night all over again, that would be incredible. 

Whatever you did last night I hope you had a great time and have a great weekend. 

RHS x 

Happy Valentine's Day!

I thought I'd be the last person to wish anyone a Happy Valentine's Day, but I can only imagine it is actually a really lovely day (like any other) in which to show someone how much you care aww. 

So, as my nod towards the big V day, I thought I'd share some of my favourite love songs. Now that might sound a bit wet, however my childhood and into my teenage and now into my adult (gulp) life my parents always play Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs, in every room of the house, the bedroom, the living room, the kitchen everywhere. Some were really soppy like a bit o' Whitney, but I'm talking the ones that you could get up and shake a few pounds off to! (and some others which are just pure classics)

I hope you enjoy and have a great day, whatever you do. 

"Isn't She Lovely" - Stevie Wonder

"You To Me Are Everything" - The Real Thing 

"At Last" - Etta James

"Lets Get It On" - Marvin Gaye 

"I'll Make Love To You" - Boyz II Men

"Rather Be" - Clean Bandit featuring Jess Glynne 

"National Anthem" - Lana Del Rey 

"Valentine" - Jessie Ware & Sampha 

"All Of Me" - John Legend

"Love On Top" - Beyoncé 

My list could literally go on and on, ok, I know I promised get up and dance, but some were just too irresistible. I'm quite impressed I managed to compile that without looking at iTunes. 

Enjoy your day!

RHS x

The Week Edit #5

THIS WEEK IN PHOTOS:

A banana, blueberry, raspberry and apple and raspberry juice smoothie, the morning after the halfway dinner I was in need of some electrolytes and just a large amount of hydration, this was perfect!// I spent Tuesday morning in bed writing an assignment, which was so easy, you just wake up and start typing, I'd written 1000 words by 10am!// Ok, not my greatest picture but this was so fun, at Kit Kat Chit Chat on Thursday there was a police officer talking about excessive drinking and I got to try on his uniform (which he wasn't wearing at the time, obvs) and use his handcuffs on people, very exciting// Ahh the halfway dinner, here with Natalie at our table, myself in Stevo red!//


THIS WEEK'S POSTS:

NFL SUPER BOWL XLVIII//THE WOLF ON WALL STREET//NEKNOMINATION//THE LIBRARY//HALFWAY

THIS WEEK I'M LOVING: I really didn't feel like I could write another post about Clinique, It is literally my weakness, its Bonus Time in Debenhams, that is all I shall say on that matter. What else am I loving, the halfway dinner was really cute, follow by a trip to Durham with Natalie. I have finally grasped one of my assignments which I started on 20th December! it all makes sense! yayyy me. I haven't been for a run since monday, or the gym or anything, I know its crazy. I started to get to that point, you know on The Biggest Loser where they start putting on weight in muscle, thats me, I'm no longer fitting into my jeans because my quads are tree trunks, so I'm ditching the gym of a bit in favour of some toning but not bulking exercises, more about that on thursday! Strangely I'm enjoying not going to the gym, I've been walking to uni everyday as our chauffeur has been living it up in Rome! so that has been keeping me on track, until I go home and devour six chocolates a night, I'm not doing this right am I? anyway, I haven't turned into a whale just yet, so I guess I don't need to worry.

BLOG POST OF THE WEEK: I liked a while back 14 RESOURCES FOR FOODIES from OH THE LOVELY THINGS quite a while back, but managed to stumble across it again this week and I forgot its magic, there a lots of info graphs and pinterest worthy pictures. Everything from what goodness is in vegetables to which wine you should be drinking when, measures, oven temperatures, you name it, it is there, a  very handy resource. 

THIS WEEK: Ah seminar week, or should I say seminar day. Every other Monday is the bane of my life. Ok, we don't start till 11am but we don't finish till 6pm, and our lectures are only an hour long so you can imagine how many we have to go through in that time, as well as a presentation and a telephone interview, tomorrow could be a rather stressful day! Friday sees a Locomotion dinner and oh Valentine's day! I stopped being sceptical about this day last year when I actually thought if you are in a relationship it is just another day however its a day to celebrate your relationship, which I can't believe I'm saying this but Its quite cute! Anyway! I'll be going to a Great Gatsby themed dinner followed by a Bar Crawl organised by BeerSoc - yes that is right, Durham University has a BeerSoc. 

Have an incredible week!

RHS x