My Top Ten

I do like a good challenge and I've been chosen by Just Johnny...  to share 10 things I love. To meet the challenge, you have to use pictures to as well.

I also have to choose 10 other bloggers to do the same. The ones that are chosen, are asked to choose some other bloggers to do it as well... so its a challenge that keeps on sharing.

I thought this would be easy, that I'd just be able to knock up a list quickly and post but no! It's taken me a while to really think about what would be in my top ten and there has been a few revisions before I fine-tuned my list.  For some reason it took me AGES to sort my links and images, but finally I got it sorted.

So let me share with you, my personal top ten.

10. Cocktails
There is nothing like a well-made cocktail and its not just for the ladies of Sex and the City.  Finding a cool cocktail bar in a new city should be on anyone's Things to Do list.  We found a great bar in Krakow that claimed to do the best cocktails in the city and  Paparazzi definitely lived up to the claim. After starting with a mint mojito, then a apple martini we handed the bar menu back to the bartender and let him choose our cocktails for the rest of the night and they were amazing. It was a great way to spend our first wedding anniversary and a great way to try new cocktails.

9. Cupcakes
It's not just about something sweet, cupcakes are aesthetically pleasing too.  Just to receive one, would put a smile on anyone's face, receiving or baking a cupcake definitely cheers me up.  I just like them . . . a lot.

8.Shoes
The name of my blog - I have too many shoes - really sums it up. I love shoes, they'd be the first thing in my shopping basket.  I don't buy shoes to complement an outfit . . . I buy the outfit to complement shoes. I could easily buy a pair a week and I would love a shoe budget to allow this. I hope that lottery win comes soon, then I can have a really, really big shoe closet.

7. My  Dogs
We've had dogs in our family since I was little and our favourites have always been Jack Russells (or Parson Terriers I think they're known as outside the UK).  Jack Russells sometimes get a bad 'rep' as yappy, scrappy little dogs, but honestly they are not.  They have this trait in their breed, its called the love leap where they can literally jump over four foot in the air to greet you. If you've had a bad day, then its the nicest way to be greeted on arriving home. 

I have two dogs - Jasper and Harvey - Jasper is the handsome one who likes to run like the wind, also likes to be chased around the house at about 20 miles an hour sometimes, not good on hard wood flooring! Harvey is the cute, scruffy one who likes socks, stashes biscuits in hiding places all over the house and to quote Top Gun is 'Goose' to Jasper's 'Maverick'.  I honestly don't know where we'd be without them.



Jasper

 

Harvey

 
6.Eighties movies
As a teenager growing up in the eighties, it wasn't just about the music, rollerboots and the fashion. It was about movies, especially John Hughes movies. Who didn't want to spend a Saturday detention with the Breakfast Club or cheer on Andie at prom - "What about prom Blaine? What about prom?". - . It was about rites of passage, achieving your dreams and beating the rich kids at their own game.

I'm a bit of a film geek and spent a lot of my teenage years visiting our local video shop and renting out the latest VHS releases (not betamax) to place in my top-loading video recorder. I think compared to the teen movies now, in the eighties teen movies life seemed so much simpler and with a better soundtrack.






5.Envy Restaurant Las Vegas
I got married in Las Vegas in 2008, we went there to get married and celebrate my husband's 40th birthday (the day we got married, so I definitely will never forget his birthday and he will never forget our wedding anniversary!). We've got a great holiday partnership, I wash, iron and get all the essentials for a trip while Chris is the finder of 'things' whether its a cheap flight, cool hotel or bar and a restaurant that we need to try. Obviously we wanted to go somewhere really nice for our double celebration after we got married and Chris 'came up trumps' with the Envy Restaurant at the Renaissance Hotel. From the ridiculously high Seafood Tower to fillet steaks with truffle-reggiano fries, it was an amazing dinner and so unforgettable. Over two years later, I still remember everything so clearly. Maybe for our tenth anniversary, we'll get to got back there and celebrate.

Envy Steakhouse, Vegas Baby



The Lush Envy cocktail

 

The Seafood Tower, big enough to share

4. hydrangeas
Probably considered an old-fashioned flower, I love hydrangeas.  I'd call them the John McClane of the flower world - no matter what weather is thrown at them, they just won't die. . I'm not in the least bit green-fingered, I even managed to kill off my yucca plant! So hydrangeas are really the only plant safe from my destructive, ahem, gardening.

3.vintage
When I was at college, I used to buy vintage brooches but stopped once I started early money to spend on the high street.  Fast forward over 20 years later and charity shops and car boot sales are the first places I visit as cheap way to get a retail therapy fix.  As a friend of mine says 'One person's trash is another person's treasure'.

my vintage wedding bouquet

2. Ginger
What can I say, other than you can always bet on red! I've always had a thing for gingernuts, not the biscuits but men with red hair.  From Eric Stoltz, Ewan McGregor to Damien Lewis, I've always had a little crush when I spot that glimpse of red, I just can't explain it.  My favourite spice girl was Ginger Spice too and I even had my hair done the same way as Geri, thank god I don't have an image to share!

1.Blackpool
It's my home town, its where my family is and I live just under ten minutes walk from the beach. You just can't argue with that.

It does get a bad reputation in the newspapers but things are starting to improve in Blackpool with regeneration in key tourist areas of the town including the Golden Mile, seven miles of sandy beaches. While we're never guaranteed sunny weather, its hard to explain how beautiful the beach can be even in the harshest of winters.



So that was my top ten, I hope you enjoyed it. Now its time to nominate 10 bloggers to spill the beans about their top ten and they are:

Creating pictures in my mind
Please may I?
World of Joy
Fashion Pearls of Wisdom
A Thrifty Mrs
Vintage Vixen
Grace's Nail Designs
Skinny Bitches - In the Making
Pop Champagne
The Diary of the Haribohats
Let me know if you post your top ten x