Playlist: Spring 2018
Even with the snow returning this weekend, I'm feeling ready for longer days and warmer weather. These songs should help bring some of those spring vibes.
Alternative Christmas Playlist
I love Christmas. I love Christmas music. And I especially love that Christmas is not just a festive holiday, it's a musical genre.
With all that said, it is very easy to overdose on the Christmas songs each year, resulting in an overly full feeling that is not dissimilar to the one felt after a very large Christmas dinner. This playlist is my attempt to stay festive, but also add a little variety.
This playlist is the one I listen to when baking my annual christmas cake, and forms part of my Christmas eve baking preparations. I'm very happy to let the well-worn, and well-loved, christmas classics that pop up in every possible place throughout December take pride of place on the Christmas Day playlist, but, it is nice to have something a little different sometimes: a blend of classic songs re-imagined and some left-field festive and winter themed songs.
If you have any alternative christmas songs that have become part of your festive tradition, I'd love to know about them.
Self Care Sunday: Brunch, Baking and Music
Sometimes, you have to take a day for yourself: turn off notifications, write a todo list for work that can wait until Monday, and just relax. For me, that means food — food and music.
Brunch
I've never made hollandaise before, and I'm terrible at poached eggs. So what better way to relax than to try both? But actually, taking time to make poached eggs and hollandaise without any rush meant that it was much easier to get it right.
I followed a Jamie Oliver recipe for the sauce, and free-styled the rest. I will confess that I substituted sourdough in place of the muffins: a much better carb option in my humble opinion.
The results were delicious: well worth a bit of effort to have such an enjoyable treat for an easy Sunday morning.
Lazy Baking: Salted Chocolate Blondies
Lazy Sunday baking requires the right soundtrack, that's why I put together a playlist of some of my favourite songs to lazily bake along to. Raveena is one of my favourite new artists right now. And Ashanti is a given. Honestly, I can't even preheat an oven without hearing the worlds "Awww Baby".
I've not made my favourite salted chocolate blondies in a long time, so there was frankly no other option for baking today. I use this recipe from The Whole Bite blog and it has been fool proof for me. I use cup measures for everything like the recipe gives, but I use weight for the butter (110g) because, even though this is lazy baking, I still don't have the patience to shove butter in to tablespoons.
Other Treats
Burning candles is a must for any kind of self care activity in my book. And this Zoella Lifestyle candle was a birthday present I'd been saving for just such an occasion. The smell is a little sweet for my usual taste, but not unpleasantly so.
It wouldn't be a self care day for me without a bath and some time to take care of my skin and hair. I use Elemis face care daily, and it just gets along with my skin so well. I use a Liz Earl cloth to wipe the products off for a gentle exfoliating effect. The Happy Naturals sea salt body scrub is a great body exfoliator, with a fresh, clean smell. And the Super Drug Argon Oil Hair Treatment is an absolute star find: affordable, yet so nourishing for my hair.
Spotify Playlist: Autumn 2016
Since giving up regular DJ sets and my radio show, I've missed sinking myself in to the art of great music selection. So playlists like this might make it as a regular feature here on this blog.
More so than anything else, I love the conversations that music creates: so feel free to use the comments or Twitter to send me your favourite tracks and playlists.