New York #1

Hi all, sorry for the unintentional blogging break!!  My PC has been in to be 'fixed' but I'm still not entirely convinced it's sorted so I'll get as many posts done whilst it IS still working!!

So, it turns out that turning 40 is not so bad after all! ;)  I had loads of fab presents (shoes, jewellery, personalised gifts, a clutch bag, restaurant voucher, Jo Malone perfume & enough pennies to go & treat myself to my fabulous Tissot watch that I've been lusting after for months!!) & of course, the highlight of my birthday was our trip to New York.  I'm going to have to do a couple of posts as there are mannnnny photos.......!

Hubble & I flew down to Heathrow the day after my birthday as we were staying at the Ibis hotel the night before (absolutely brilliant hotel btw for anyone needing to stay at Heathrow airport!) our flight to JFK.  We flew with Delta, an airline we've never used before but they were great & we wouldn't hesitate to fly long haul with them again.  We landed in grey, drizzly weather but we were quickly through customs & in a cab on our way to Manhattan & our base for our holiday, the Sheraton Times Square.  We were an hour early for official check-in but we asked at reception & our room was ready straight away.  Unbeknownst to me, Hubble had emailed beforehand to let them know we were celebrating my birthday so they kindly had upgraded us to a larger room on a higher floor & gave us a voucher for a full breakfast the following morning!  (We could just see Central Park from our room!!)  We dumped the cases & then headed straight out into the now-sunshine.  Times Square was only a 6 or 7 minute walk from the hotel so we headed there, where I promptly entered my first Sephora!  We spent a couple of hours wandering round & then ate before walking back up to Central Park to enjoy the sunset.  Jetlag was seriously setting in at this point but we forced ourselves to stay awake until 10pm (3am our time!)

Day 2, after we'd enjoyed a fabulous breakfast, we knew it was going to be a sunny, hot day so we wandered down to the Empire State Building.  I was surprised that I remembered so easily where all the landmarks were & was off leading the way like it was only yesterday since I'd been there - rather than the 22 years it actually was!!  

We did some more exploring - and shopping - then Hubble had to buy shorts & trainers as he was sweltering in the 28 degree heat!  That evening, we headed to Top of the Rock as I really wanted to see the sun set from up there & it was absolutely stunning watching the low sun reflecting off the skyscrapers & then the sky turning dark.  I didn't want to leave......

I'll leave this post at this point & let you enjoy (hopefully!) some of our photos from the first 2 days.

*hmmmm, the fact that it's taken 3.5 hours to upload these photos leads me to believe that my pc is still poorly, grrrr!!!*

New York shopping list

I can't believe that a week today, we'll be in New York & I'm ridiculously excited - I'll just skip over the part about turning 40 though & pretend like it's not happening!  It's been sooooo long in the planning, it seems very strange that we'll soon be there & it's safe to say, my shopping list is growing daily, as are my daughters' !

It might sound odd to other people, but the majority of what's on my list is cosmetic based with some house-y bits thrown in too.  My main thing to shop for will be a new watch & I seem to be veering back towards a Michael Kors one again.  I went off them for a while as it seemed like everyone & their dog had one but I just can't find another one I like as much as this one, simple & classic;

There are specific stores I really want to visit, mainly being CVS & Duane Reade pharmacies & Sephora for makeup, Pottery Barn, Bath & Body Works, Nordstrom, Tiffany & Co, Bloomingdales, Kate Spade & somewhere to buy Converse too!

I have a wee notebook that is rapidly being filled with more things as & when I think of them & now that it's just the two of us going (my sister, brother-in-law, dad & stepmum had to pull out due to the health issues of my sis & stepmum *sobs*) poor Hubble is going to be dragged round store after store!  He has been forewarned however & is prepared - he'll be fine as long as he gets plenty of coffee/beer breaks!!

So as well as the shopping, we've planned to do the usual tourist things as it's hubble's first time in NYC & I haven't been since I was 18.  We'll be doing The Empire State Building one morning & Top of the Rock at sunset, the Statue of Liberty, maybe a helicopter tour, Central Park & whatever else we can fit in.  I've also managed to get a long list of eateries we'd like to try too - I think we should've gone for 2 weeks rather than 4 days!  We booked to stay at the Sheraton Times Square as it seems perfectly situated midway between Times Square & Central Park & is close to a subway.  So this is a warning that there will be a fair bit of Instagramming going on next week (sorry, not sorry!)  I just really need to crack on & get all my laundry sorted now.......

Btw, my pc is having to go in for repairs as it's still very poorly & I know now what a faff it is trying to do a blog on an iPad as I can't insert any photos.  I'm having to draft it out on here (iPad mini), then email the images to myself to download onto my daughter's laptop to insert on here - I think I need a Chromebook too or something similar as this is soooooo time consuming :(. So apologies if anything looks odd with the final blog post!

Wanderlust

Hi all, I'm back!  I've got a few 'catch-up' blog posts planned but first, I want to share my very exciting news!  As you may know, my 'big' birthday is fast approaching & I've said since I turned 30 that on my 40th, I would love to go back to New York so in June, we finally booked it!

This is an adult only trip & my dad, step-mum, sister & brother-in-law are coming along too. We'd short listed 3 hotels, all in a midtown location so we could be pretty central to everything & when we came to book, we got the best deal in the Sheraton Times Square.  I'm ridiculously excited to be seeing the city I fell in love with when I worked there as an 18 year old again & I've been making lists like a mad woman!! Yes, even more so than normal (Paperchase is getting a lot of business from me at the minute!!)  The Sheraton looks beautiful too & is ideally placed between Times Square & Central Park.

But, but, but......it doesn't end there! As I've mentioned before on a post, myself & a couple of great friends had decided we were going to have a trip to Marrakech.  For one reason or another, we didn't get round to booking it before & consequently, the flight prices shot up so we said we'd wait & try & get a last minute deal as we just wanted a cheap weekend away. 

However, last week I popped on to Easyjet.com just out of interest & joy of all joys, they were advertising that they're now flying to Marrakech from Glasgow! This means we would only have an hour & a half drive to the airport as opposed to 5 & a half hours to Manchester so much, much better for us. And even better, after playing around with some dates, I found return flights for £80, bargain!!  So, click......it was booked & another friend is now joining us too.

My ipad should have steam coming out of it from overuse at the moment as any spare minutes are spent googling restaurants & tourist attractions in NYC or perusing Tripadvisor looking for riads in Marrakech!  However, everytime I found a beautiful riad & thought "we won't find better than this", I'd find another one!  And then I stumbled across this little beauty, Riad Houma & just knew that this was 'the one'!  I quickly emailed the girls to tell them to look it up online & they all loved it so yet again, click......it was booked, we didn't want to risk the rooms all selling out!!  It just looks so luxurious, I cannot wait to be lying on that roof terrace with a glass of vino in one hand & a trashy holiday read in the other, nattering with great friends!  Have a quick look at their website, the whole place looks divine.

I'm aware it seems that I'm being a bit spoilt with 2 city breaks within a month of each other but it's all very exciting as I very rarely get to go away anywhere & I've never had a 'girls' weekend abroad! It also takes the edge off turning 40 too *said with tongue firmly in cheek!!*  I'll try not to be a bore about it but I can't promise anything as I have lots of blog posts planned!!  I also need to dash to the shops to see if they have any summer season clothes left at all......

Have you ever been to Marrakech or New York?  Let me know your recommendations on things to do, places to eat etc!