My week in pictures

Maybe the title is false advertising, actually.

this post is really about what I've been up over the last few weeks.
Since I finished Uni last week I've been doing something pretty much every single day!
What I'm looking forward to is a day where I have absolutely nothing planned, so I can just sit in my jammies in front of the TV and just watch a bunch of movies on LoveFilm :D

Friday 18th
I have so many weddings to attend over the next few weeks it's ridiculous.
I spent the afternoon/evening with my lovely mates Sam (who i've referred to as 'Choti' in previous posts) and Annie.

Now Sam is getting married in July, and Annies brother is getting married in a few weeks.
In this older post, I briefly outline how loooonnnnggg Pakistani weddings last.  The celebrations usually last around a week, and really are exhausting! But they are so much fun :D

So if you've read the above post I referred to (there's a funny video at the end....so go look at it!) Then you'll have a rough idea of what the Mehndi night is.  It's basically a night before the wedding where the bride or groom to be invite close family and friends to basically sing, dance and generally be merry!

Annie had this brill idea to decorate some candles with mehndi (henna) designs! And since Sam is amaaaazing at doing mehndi (she does it professionally for brides or parties, and also does canvases and stuff), we took some candles to Sam's to see if she could decorate it, and here's the end result:

Ta daaaaa

Some Mehndi put on moi by Sam

So the plan is to have a few candles decorated with henna as decoration on the Mehndi night!

If you're creative you should try it yourself! All she used was some gold craft paint, put into a cone she made herself from cellofane, and then free hand design whatever you want on whatever you want!

but the crafts paint would not be suitable to apply on your skin! 
you need the other type of henna for that (easily gotten from stores, ebay or online)


Monday 21st


Was a day trip to Leicester with mum.  She had to go down for the day for work so I accompanied her as it's a long drive from Manchester (about two and a half hours).

While mum was going about her business for work, I was practicing for the presentations I had the tuesday and thursday after, and then we went to this AMAZING place called Tinseltown for lunch.  It's an American diner style restaurant, and it does the best milkshakes I've ever had!

I first tried Tinseltown a few years ago when I stayed in London with my cousin Tee for the weekend, and our cousin Ashi who was living there at the time introduced us (well me, Tee had been before) to Tinseltown.  There are about 5 branches in London alone, and 1 in Birmingham and Leicester, so If you're local to any of those and you've never tried it, I highly recommend it!

So I got a cajun burger with fries with a black forest Oreo milkshake, and mum got a beef steak with mushroom sauce and fries with a mixed fruit milkshake.

I would attempt to describe how amazing the food tasted....but the adjectives I would use would do no justice to it what so ever....so take a look for yourself!

Friday 25th


So I had a group presentation on tuesday, and a solo presentation about my dissertation on thursday.  I think they went pretty well.

When I was walking to Uni on thursday, it hit me, this would be the last time that I would walk to in my campus, ever.
Then I realised 'Oh no, I still have to come back to graduate!'
So technically not the last time ever, but the last time I'd be walking in as an undergraduate!

Quite a bittersweet feeling.  I love Leeds uni.  The campus is great, the student union is amazing, and my lecturers are pretty darn sweet.

My degree was a very small degree in comparison to most university courses.  There were only 20 of us in our course, so we all pretty much knew each other, and as there were so few of us, it meant we got to know the lecturers pretty well as well!

So friday we had a kind of 'leaving meal' where all the students and lecturers went out for a meal afterwards.  It was a really lovely time, but the downside, which is always the downside when you go out in large groups, was that you couldn't really have a chat with everyone that was there.  You where confined to make conversation with whoever was around you, which I didn't mind, as most of the people I were sitting with were lovely, but there's only so much dinner table conversation you can make with the same people for the whole night!

I don't drink, so I said my final farewells and gave my final hugs to everyone after the meal whilst the rest of the gang went of to a few bars to drink the night away! So the few of us that didn't drink walked back to our cars, reminiscing of our first day of Uni, and talking about our first impressions of each other!

I lied to them.  My real first impressions would probably make them cry....

The conversation probably would've gone something like this......

Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th


These were verryyyyy foody days.
My mum treated me to lunch on saturday as a little 'well done for finishing uni' kinda thing.  We went to this pretty posh place in the city centre, the kind of place you must make a booking with to be seated.

The food was yummmm.
The portions were quite small, but they were actually very filling!  We had an extremely posh fish butty, and some asparagus or artichoke tart, served on mash with some chips.  I was apprehensive to try this dish, as I'm not neither familiar with asparagus or artichoke or whatever it was, but it was scrummy!
The moral of that story for me was: no matter how grose you might think something sounds, try everything once! it may just surprise you with how edible it actually is!

Then on sunday I had a good catch up with my besty Fizz.  I've been so busy with uni and she's been so busy with work and re-decorating her room, so it was nice to chill out and have a good catch up with her.  Fizz, her hubby Frazzle and I went to Cafe Istanbul for dinner, a turkish restaurant.  I love Turkish/Mediterranean cuisine, so was very happy to be eating here!

Cheese board and fish butty from lunch with mum, and the main and starter from Cafe Istanbul

Then on Monday, we decided to BBQ in the park since the weather was so gorgeous!
We got one of the small, disposable BBQs from Asda, some chicken (tikka, and peri peri), burgers and Iron Bru, and headed to the park!

We were a bit apprehensive about starting a BBQ in the park, as we wern't sure if it was allowed, and if other people would kick up a fuss, but when we arrived three other BBQs where going! So we just smiled and carried on!

I've never had a BBQ before, so I was ridiculously excited!! After a few minor setbacks (not having skewers for the chicken, no tongues to flip/turn the food) we got everything sorted and went ahead with the cooking.

My first thought after eating the food was;
'why has no one every taken me to a BBQ before!?!'


The BBQ'd burger was the best burger I've ever tasted!  I am sooooo gunna BBQ more often!

Dessert! Cheesecake and fruit

And the fun doesn't stop there!

My good friends from Uni Amy and Anj are coming to manchester tomorrow for a day out, and Anj is staying the night so we can have a slumber party!

So that's what I've been up to as of late!
Hope you guys have had some lovely food also ;)

xo