Birthday Trip to Manchester

Today, January 8th, is my actual birthday (happy birthday to me). But who celebrates on a Tuesday, right? So I had part 1 of my birthday shenanigans last weekend when my Mum and I took a fancy trip to Manchester.

| Haenuli Lovely Memories JSK | Infanta blouse | Cutie Creator headbow | Innocent World OTKs and hair clip | Sosic Shop
heels | Promised Land Creations brooch | Primark necklace and bracelets | GlassesLit glasses |

These glasses make every outfit a LEWK!

Have a better pic of my makeup. It was definitely a good
eyeliner day!

This was finally my chance to break out Haenuli’s Lovely Memories JSK. It is such a stunning piece, neither the stock photos nor my pics really do it justice. I just had to do something really classy and elegant with it and mix as many shades of sax as I could (they’re never going to match anyway, let’s just accept that and move on). This dress, like all Haenuli dresses from what I can tell, is a total poof-eater and so it devoured my Malco Modes A-line, however, since it is January and I wanted to stay warm (as well as somewhat practical), it was no time for the hoop skirt. But I bet it would eat that one right up too!

We kicked the day off with the first major thing we wanted to do in Manchester: a trip to the (still) new Irregular Choice shop. I am beyond ecstatic that Irregular Choice finally have an actual branch up North. It was preposterous that all their shops are down South (two in London, one in Brighton and one in Norwich – what about the rest of the country, huh?!) and while there are more resellers than I was previously aware of, nothing beats the range and experience of the real deal. So while the Manchester branch is on the smaller side, it was everything I could’ve hoped for and I hope that it grows in popularity, so that maybe one day they’ll move somewhere a little bigger.

I went in prepared and knew exactly what I was after. Just like lolita fashion, these shoes are so eyecatching that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by them and I wanted to get something I would definitely wear – shop with my brain, not my heart. Actually, shopping at Irregular Choice was almost exactly like shopping in a lolita brand shop: you get the cute aesthetic, lovely and enthusiastic shop staff, the high end boutique treatment and all the cuteness the store can contain. And the feeling of being super rich when you drop money on dat brand yo! I ended up leaving with a pair of Total Freedom, gold/silver sequin mid-heels, which were actually on sale. My pictures are horrible, so have a stock photo to go with it. These will actually be the replacement for my gold heels and I am so happy with my first ever pair of Irregular Choice shoes that I did a happy dance as soon as I had these on. Mum also bought herself a pair and already knows that for her next birthday she wants an Irregular Choice gift card to treat herself to more.

Waiting at Irregular Choice to try my shoes on. The shop
assistant carried them for me to the seating area and then
unwrapped and unbuckled them both for me. Such posh
treatment!

Look at this tote bag! It's pretty sturdy too, it'd make
any grocery trip instantly fabulous.

Eeek!

Crappy photo is crappy, but the sparkle is #nofilter
Also enjoy a tiny cat butt in the background.

Official stock photo, do not own. The sequins can be flipped
over to make the shoes silver, but with my pedantic quirks
I will be tweezing individual sequins to that the shoes are
uniformly gold. 

Our next main goal was afternoon tea at The Midland hotel, but we had a whole hour to kill between, so ended up in Primark for a little bit. It’s odd seeing Manchester’s massive Primark be empty (by their standards). Generally, the last time I saw Manchester city centre this quiet was when I was there at some stupid o’clock in the morning midweek for a passport appointment. It was a Sunday, yesterday both kids and the last I-took-extra-days-off lazy people finished their Christmas break and I guess people must’ve been spent from the holiday festivities and all the Boxing Day/New Year sales, so opted to rest instead. Good for us though – the smaller the crowd, the nicer it is to be out.

And then we finally got to The Midland. I hadn’t been back there since Love from the North, but it was still just as amazing as I remembered, if not better! At a 60+ private tea party it can feel like your service is a little bit less personal than when there’s just two of you. Once again I was impressed by the high standard of everything, from service to quality of the spread. If you ever fancy feeling like absolute royalty, treat yourself to an afternoon tea at The Midland, it’s absolutely impeccable! And now that I think of it, it probably was my favourite afternoon tea overall so far.

Mum and I really savoured our time there, despite arriving feeling so bloody hungry (saving room for the deliciousness there). The spread was different to what I had at Love from the North – whether because that was a private event or because they change their menu, I can’t tell. My favourite ended up being the beetroot hummus sandwich (I did not expect it to be that delicious, I would happily have that in a full size version if I knew how to make it!) and a tie in the dessert department between the butternut meringue pie (sweet without being overpowering and so light) and the dark chocolate delice (duh!). We also took advantage of being able to try a different tea every time and while we had the Midland Jubilee I raved about last time, we also tried Due North (very smokey, it was a surprising taste, though we probably should’ve had that first, when it’d compliment the sandwiches, or after the whole thing) and Green Flamingo (very nice, light and sweet, would be delicious iced in summer!). I was so full after all this, despite everything being tiny in size (and only having one scone out of two that I could have) that I thought I’d burst at the seam.

It was as divine as it sounds!

We took two before remembering that the camera eats first, though it
still looks good.

Dem desserts! They were to die for, every single one.

Then, after a glamorous train ride back, we returned home. Let me tell you, although those Sosic Shop heels are comfortable, we did do a lot of walking, chunks of it over cobblestones, so my feet were grateful to swap those for some slippers. I treated them to a foot pack too.

And so that I don’t unnecessarily clog this blog up, let me finish by including a picture of my actual first lolita outfit of 2019. I returned to work on January 2^nd, but there was literally no-one besides security and the receptionist in the whole building, so I thought I’d cheer my dull day up by dressing up. I have worn lolita pieces to work before, sometimes even with a petticoat, but I hadn’t done a full coord that wouldn’t “pass” to work before, so I was still a little nervous. In the end I’m glad that I’ve done it and while it probably won’t be regular programming, I’d love to wear proper lolita coords to work a bit more often. My reason for not doing so in the past was that I didn’t think work as worthy of the effort that goes into wearing lolita. Now my mindset is that while work might still not be worty, I am and since dressing up nicely gives me joy (and I am stuck there for good eight hours a day, five days a week), then dammit I will take advantage of the lack of strict dress code at my workplace. Just gotta find a better photo spot than this dark lift.

| King Eleven A Mad Tea Party JSK and neck bow | Cutie Creatro headbow | Primark blouse and tights (not in the pic) |
Fluffy Tori pin | offbrand shoes (not in the pic) |