I’ve promised myself many times I won’t become one of those fashion bloggers who updates more often with pictures of food than pictures of clothes, but as most of my birthday seemed to centre around various culinary treats, I couldn’t resist one tiny little foray into foodie photos (along with a few outfit pics, of course). I turned 28 on August 4th, and managed to book off the Thursday and Friday to be able to celebrate properly. There’s nothing worse than working on your birthday (even if you do have lovely colleagues) so I’m glad I got these dates in the diary way back. I wasn’t really looking forward to getting one year older (for some reason, 28 seems so much older than 27) but now I’m there, I have a very good feeling about the next 12 months. Just don’t mention 30, ok?

I was hoping to have some great pictures from London Zoo to show off, but as the heavens decided to open on Thursday, plans had to change. Instead of visiting the penguins and prairie dogs, we went up to Islington for lunch at The Diner. I ate my body weight in fries and onion rings, and I also highly recommend the California burger with added cheese and guacamole. Yum.

A quick trip to the cinema for the final Harry Potter (I cried and I’m not ashamed to admit it!) and a hilarious detour round half the city trying to get to Barbican (they say women can’t read maps but it’d appear men can’t remember directions either) and we ended up at our final location, The Fox & Anchor where we were spending the night.

More on that at Domestic Sluttery soon, but suffice to say I wasted little time in testing out the claw-footed bath. I also ate a lovely dinner that looked something like this (more difficult than you’d think after all that diner food for lunch).

On Friday the sun came out and we returned to lovely South London to sort out our flat, buy kitchen equipment (no, really) and cook paella (again). I wore this, because quite frankly it was too hot for anything at all fitted…

TFNC dress via ASOS, Promod sandals (another shoeper challenge save) and a Disney Couture necklace. I have this TFNC dress in two colours now. I don’t usually go for things so loose and sack-like because they hide my favourite bit – my waist – but this is so useful on days when I’ve over-indulged and need something that’ll skim, not cling. I put a black slip underneath to make it slightly less sheer as it is a bit on the short side.

On Saturday, I had birthday drinks in a pub near my flat. There was plenty of wine, plenty of amazing company, and just a few of these babies…

There are definite perks to having a friend who works at The Make Lounge! These were leftovers from the cupcake decorating class.

Of course birthday celebrations called for a new frock. I found this a couple of weeks ago in the sale at Anthropologie for the ridiculous sum of £29. It wasn’t until I was looking it up yesterday to check the designer that I discovered it was worn by Quinn in Glee is a bit of a blogger fave in the US. It’s the Maeve De Chelly dress, which originally retailed at £138. Bargain!

I teamed it with another shoe save, some navy ribbon threaded shoes with stacked heels bought from Dorothy Perkins about 5 years ago. They’re some of my comfiest heels and as I have a lot of navy and red clothing, they come out quite frequently. They are a bit odd though, because the cutout on the vamp is so low down you get a bit of toe cleavage which I’ve never been sure of! I think they work with this outfit though.