I’m too lazy to update my phone settings, and my phone insists on uploading all my photos automagically to Google+ (you know, the network I never use) and Dropbox (you know, the cloud storage I only use for professional stuff) because it thinks it’s being helpful. Or something. Generally this is a feature I find counter-productive – especially as there’s nothing more annoying than audio and visual alerts that I have ‘a message’, and it ends up being a crappy, unnecessary photo upload notification…and one day I’ll get around to turning it off. But, I figured that I may as well use some of the photos for a post, so here it is – the past week and a half in photos.

To give you some fair warning, I wasn’t actually planning to do a ‘week in photos’ kind of project, which is why this post contains a collection of very random photos. They are really just haphazard life shots taken with a camera phone and subjected to some very lazy editing (filter + resizing). They’re (mostly) in reverse chronological order from yesterday, and go back to Thursday 14th.

I’d say that this is a fairly typical week and a half for me – obviously a large part of my time is spent at work, so it’s generally what I do around that – spending time with people and cats and eating lots of food (preferably all at the same time).

Yesterday we went for a walk around the lake. I was hoping to get some nature-style shots, but pretty much everything is dead and the daffodils haven’t flowered yet. Having said that, it still has a very peaceful air to it, and it was a lot quieter than it gets in the spring.

Not pictured – Nando’s and the pub. Yes, I ate out twice yesterday; ironically I didn’t want to go out either time, but I am a pushover. I ate my body weight in chicken, it wasn’t too much of a punishment ;)

On Saturday I went to see Me and My Girl with one of my friends from work as we had another friend singing/dancing/acting in it. It was a good laugh – sadly we weren’t allowed to take any photos, but I took one of our pitstop on the way there – thrilling, I know.

On Friday I came back to a fantastic present from my friend Hannah, which arrived via Parcel Genie – three odd socks! My friends always joke about how I never wear matching socks, so they’re perfect. I do kind of want to buy another set so I have three pairs of matching socks (even though I’ll never wear them in matching pairs), but I’m weird like that.

Cinema tickets – We went to see Wreck-It Ralph on Friday, and Warm Bodies the Saturday before. On the small screen I watched part of Utopia, The Undateables and Revenge. Quite a mix of different things, but all with something a bit geeky at their core. Perfect.

Friday night we ate at Tamatanga, which I love because it’s tasty and the portions are big. We had about half an hour total before we had to get to the cinema, but we just about managed it.

Office pizza at Friday lunchtime – I had a spicy veggie one. You’re probably thinking ‘Jesus, does she ever cook?!’ by this point. The answer is no, not really.

I get asked why I don’t post more photos of myself, so here are a few from messing around on Thursday night. They should probably have the hashtags #myspace and #poser there somewhere. I don’t really take many photos of myself, mostly because I’m never happy with them and because it feels just a little too narcissistic…

Wednesday’s dinner (yes, these pictures are going to get infinitely more thrilling as they go along, don’t worry). Wednesday was Second Wednesday, which is a local monthly event which aims to bring together a lot of web geeks professionals for talks and drinks. It’s held locally at a digital hub which, amongst other things, has a fantastic bar and restaurant. This is the old English classic, fish and chips, reinvented for a slightly more upmarket clientele (i.e. not me).

Not pictured – Steak (with homemade chips, mushrooms, tomatoes and peas). One of my friends came round to cook for me last Saturday, and it was amazing. Abel and Cole’s fillet steak is unbeatable. I had a lot of fried food at the weekend on account of how it was bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast for breakfast the next day, but it was the best breakfast I’ve ever had. I also made a nice veggie chilli this week.

I think Halo has dreams of becoming an Olympic diver or something, because I often find him sleeping in this position (though it’s usually not on my legs). He’s the clingiest of the cats and gets upset if he goes without cuddles for too long, so I always set aside time to spend with him.

Valentine’s Day flowers – a lovely surprise, and happily still going strong.

Last week’s Valentine’s Day themed cupcakes – the top one is cherry, the bottom chocolate. It was my first time doing two-tone buttercream, and it’s incredibly difficult with disposable icing bags. Sigh. The chocolate cupcakes had Milka and cocoa powder in them, but they didn’t have as much flavour as I would have liked; next time I’ll add real chocolate to the buttercream.

Not shown – lemon drizzle cake. I made it from scratch for the first time, and altered the recipe from the book slightly, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. I might add slightly more lemon to the base next time, and invest in a proper lemon zester, but other than that it’s going to become one of my favourite bakes I think.

If you want more of these kinds of pics, you can check out my Instagram. You’ll mostly have to guess what the pics are about, but it’s more entertaining that way. Like a really shit caption contest.