Me and my little sis in Houston, around 1980. You can bet if we were looking like friends in this, we were probably beating crap out of each other by the time we got around the corner.

Check the dude in the blue suit!

I’m proud of my little sis. She’s been working as an intern at Tatler, and before returning there as a Fashion Assistant in May, she’s been interning at Womens’ Wear Daily for London Fashion Week.

She had her first article with a byline published online this week, you can read it here. Way to go sis!

Well I’m back at home now after a relaxing Christmas break, and back to work today as well. I went to visit my family in London this year for Christmas, and we all went off to a very nice hotel (in the pic above) for four days over Christmas. It was great to chill out a bit, and also get to see a bit more of my new niece, who’s only two and half months old. She does just eat, sleep, and be sick but it was nice to see her anyway.

I got a couple of really neat things for Christmas – a knives set to sharpen up my cooking skills (ha ha ha!), Dexter Season 2 on DVD which I am watching at a rate of like three episodes a night, and some cooking stuff and a book from my sis which I’m hoping will enable me to become a bit more adventurous in the bread making department.

The hotel we were staying at was really amazing. It had a great pool and a ‘men’s relaxation room’ and this weird shower thing which let you select either Rainforest Something-or-other (warm water scented like flowers) or Artic Mist (cool mint-scented water). I could have stayed in that all day but unfortunately I pressed both buttons at the same time and couldn’t work out how to stop one so I could enjoy the other.

We also went clay-pigeon shooting, and at one section of that I managed to hit four out of six clays. Get me! I did have bruises on my arm the next day though.

All in all a very relaxing Christmas with little alcohol involved actually! Which was good as I did feel like I’d been over-doing it in the run up!

Aww! It is not often I have pictures of babies on my blog, so enjoy it while you can! This is my new niece, Cecilia. She has made me for an uncle for the first time, which is just a very strange feeling. It also makes me feel a bit old.  :(

Cecilia was born to my sister Jill, and her husband Tobey on the 12th of October. Two day’s after Ailse’s birthday, much to her relief! (She didn’t want a baby taking attention away from her special day). She’s named after my Mum, and has unfortunately been suffering a bit from jaundice, but apart from that, she is feeding, sleeping and pooing. 

Welcome to the world Cecilia!

I had a bit of a crazy week last week. I was in London for the last part of my BBC Leadership course (all about disciplining and harrassment, not very pleasant), but on Thursday, me, my Mum, my Dad and one of my sisters, Ailse, went off to Buckingham Palace!

My Dad was getting an MBE. It was completely surreal to be honest. We got to drive right in the gates of the palace, and then we all got shown into a big room where everyone was to get their awards. Ailse and I thought the palace would be posh, but we had no idea. It was like as grand as you can imagine multiplied by a million. Huge chandeliers and mirrors and very, very ornate.

There was an orchestra playing as well, and then the Queen came out and gave everyone their medals and so on. I felt really proud of my Dad. He said the Queen was really nice as well, and she had quiet a long chat with him about why he was getting the award.

After the palace in the morning, we all went to the Gherkin building (or the Swiss Re building, or 30 St Mary Axe, whatever it’s called!) We went right up to the top floor and had lunch in the 40/30 restaurant. It’s a bit of a weird place to be honest as it’s a private restaurant – it’s not like you can just walk in off the street. There were only about seven or eight tables in it too.

The views were totally amazing of London though – even though it started to rain half way through the meal. I don’t get afraid of heights, but if you went right up to the window and looked down, it did make you feel a bit sick.

Anyway, that was a pretty surreal way to spend a Thursday morning for me. Congratulations on your MBE Dad!

So on Friday there, Jill and I headed to London for G’s wedding! I had quite a packed day on Friday, meeting my Dad, going out to Television Centre and popping into see some mates, and also having lunch with my friend Christine.

After that it was back to the hotel to catch up on some sleep and then off to Soho for dinner with my two sisters – Ailse and Jill, her husband Tobey, and my mate Christine. That’s everyone in the pic above. We went to Zilli Bar, which was quite nice, although Jill had to complain about her food. But as a result, we got hers taken off the bill, a free bottle of wine, and free desserts! So that was good.

My family left after dinner so me Jill and Christine headed out on the town. We grabbed a rickshaw to The Sanderson, a very swanky and funky hotel. That’s the bar in the pic above. I really liked it (although it’s expensive – £50 for three glasses of champagne!) and could have happily spent the rest of the night there. It was full of people that thought they were good looking but were actually not, and were badly dressed to boot though. Apart from one totally gorgeous blonde girl sitting at the bar.

Next we went off to The Kingley Club in Soho – a private members’ bar which we blagged our way into. Many many cocktails later, we grabbed a cab back to the hotel which was hilarious. Jill managed to call the taxi driver every rude name under the sun but he did think it was amusing, so we didn’t get thrown out.

Off to bed completely pissed, and an early start the next day to get to G’s wedding in Watford!

My Dad has been scanning in and e-mailing me all these old photos, which I love ‘cos they’re the only photos I have of me when I was wee. 

Ok, first off I haven’t blogged in ages, sorry about that, I have been pretty manic since I got back, but more on that later! Still in Dallas, I had a pretty quiet but good New Year’s Eve. Last year kinda sucked as I just ended up staying in, but this year, Ailse, her friends Catherine and Justin and I all headed to a funky new hotel that’s opened in Dallas called the W Hotel. It was absolutely heaving, and while we weren’t in the Ghost Bar which is where all the celebs apparently were, we had a brilliant view of the firework ceremony which was taking place across the road at Victory Park when the clock struck 12.

Unfortunately unlike here, there doesn’t seem to be a tradition of going round snogging any woman you can lay your hands on as soon as the New Year has started. It was a snog free night! Belated Happy New Year blog readers!

Merry Christmas everybody! I have come to Texas for Christmas to spend it with the family. For the last couple of days, including Christmas itself, we have been staying at a nice hotel in San Antonio which is about five hours drive from Dallas. It is a celebrity haunt as we have seen Thierry Henri here! We had a coffee in the same place in the hotel with him yesterday. My sister’s boyfriend spoke to him, but I didn’t really know who it was, so I didn’t.

Anyways, did you have a good Christmas? Was Santa good to you? I was really pleased with the presents I got everyone in my family this year. And because they have now got them, I can tell you what they were (if you give two hoots). They were:

• Mum – a necklace which was made in Ireland and is made of glass
• Dad – an iPod nano (a join present from me and my sisters)
• Jill – a Tastebook which I typed fifty recipes into that she likes (it took me FOREVER)
• Ailse – a glandular fever microbe soft toy (she had it earlier this year – the fever, not the toy) and Guitar Hero 3!!!!
• Tobey (Jill’s husband) – Chris Moyle’s second book

I also got the family calendars again from iPhoto as they went down so well last year.

I got mostly clothes and money this year from Santa – a salt and pepper set which shake themselves from Ailse and a gorillapod for my SLR camera from Jill. Thanks everyone! And to think, my birthday is less than three weeks away. Yay!

My wee sister turned 21 last month! That was a bit sad really as it means I’m getting old – I can vaguely remember the day we went to hospital to pick her up. Anyway, to celebrate, I flew over to Scotland to surprise her, and my other sister flew over from Dallas (I think that’s more impressive).

For the first time, I flew direct from Belfast City to Dundee, which was WEIRD. I still think it’s strange there’s a direct flight seeing as Dundee Airport is about the size of my living room, but there you go. It’s also weird because for some reason the flight is operated by a Polish airline. Anyway, after that, it was straight over to St. Andrews to surprise Ailse, and then we all went out for dinner. I have a video of that but to save Ailse’s embarassment (seeing as she was in bed) I won’t post it here.

On Friday, me and my two sisters did something I have always wanted to do – paint pottery! A weird wish, I know. I chose a mug, and my creation is below – a super singing dancing dog mug. This brought tears of laughter not only from Jill and Ailse, but also from one of the ladies working in the shop. Thanks a bunch! I’m proud of it anyway. To the people in the shop, seeing as you are in Broughty Ferry, I think you should have named the shop Potty Ferry rather than Ferry Potty.

Saturday was spent chilling out and then on Saturday the whole famille went out for a meal to celebrate Ailse’s birthday. We went to the Old Course Hotel in St. Andrews which is really posh. It was quite expensive I think although I didn’t see the final bill. The restaurant there is very formal, but it was a good meal. I didn’t get too drunk either, as I didn’t think that was really very appropriate.

It was a really nice weekend away – I think it’s because we all got on and there was no arguing. It was the time of the Open in St. Andrews so we kept our eyes peeled for Bill Murray, Hugh Grant and Ronan Keating who were all in town, but we never saw them. We did have a bit of a night out with Ailse and her mates – Eleanor, Katherine and Hanna (that’s them above) which was really good. Ailse and I wanted to carry on partying, but Jill didn’t as she was jet-lagged. Boo!

I really like St. Andrews – I know it’s very small, but it’s Scottish, and very relaxing. I think I may consider having to organise a weekend there for me and my mates, and we can all go a bit crazy! We could also visit the Bop which Ailse talks about a lot.