Graduation Day

So after a full year of major stress, none stop work and a little bit of fun for good measure today was my MA graduation. I am now officially a Master of Arts in Fashion and Lifestyle Promotion, which is essentially creative marketing. What did I wear? A swooshy skirted midi dress from ASOS, a gorgeous necklace from Summer and Silver in the Jewellery Quarter,  star tights from New Look and block heeled shoes from Kurt Geiger.

My gorgeous friend Sarah went for quirky rather than formal a stripy shirt and leather shorts. (You probably can't see any of this in the pictures as I was rather flustered and didn't spend enough time on the pictures. Plus, my dads camera decided to make most of them blurry. Always good.)

Misty Miller Makes Me Smile

I'm currently a bit poorly and feeling a little sorry for myself. My graduation is looming and I am trying to find my first step on the career ladder at a time when there are lots more people than there are jobs. Post-Masters I am a bit at a loss and as winter is creeping up on us I spent most of today curled up under a blanket with my MacBook on my lap trying to find something to perk me up a bit. Misty Miller's music was the thing to put a smile on my face.

I first fell in love with her when I heard her acoustic version of Remember, which she filmed as part of Burberry Acoustic. She isn't new, I haven't tapped into some unknown talent or anything unfortunately, but she is spectacularly talented. Lots of her songs are on her MySpace in very good quality so you should definitely check her out. Hopefully she'll help you relax and smile a little bit too.

Graduation Cake and a Trip to Portugal

Finally the boy has graduated.  I am very proud.  He is almost a fully fledged dentist, soon to be earning a lot of money whilst I plod on with finishing my MA and hope to God that I can get a job this autumn.  Cross your fingers for me.

This comes after a wonderful holiday in the Algarve where we did absolutely nothing but lounge by the pool, hide from the sun so I wouldn't burn, get covered by sand on the beach (and break my sisters Kindle there too as I dropped it on a rock - eek!) plus eat a lot.  Eating become the main activity...we would discuss where we would go all day and then savour three courses with a bottle of wine/sangria and topped off with some deadly cocktails.

We walked for miles on the one cloudy day we had, following a map that was not to scale.  At all.  Tourist maps, you would think, show key things that you should see so we trekked to see a statue.  The following is the statue in question...not really a statue more an island with religious connotations.

Our first holiday and our first graduation (we weren't speaking when it was mine) so to celebrate I baked cake, various cupcakes in fact: vanilla with raspberries and chocolate fudge.  Thankfully the deserts in Portugal weren't that great so my cake didn't have much to live up to.  If I'd been cooking ribs/steak/any kind of fresh fish it would have been a different matter, they were amazing in Portugal.  The old faithful Cupcakes and Muffins book came out, as did my mothers wonderful silicon cupcake cases.  They went down an absolute treat, which I'm glad of because I was too poor to buy anything better.  The raspberry is particularly amazing so I'll make sure to put the recipes up for you to try another time.