I just sort of always feel sick without you, baby.

Marks and Spencer blouse: £29.50 (also in white). High waisted skinny jeans: c/o Matalan. Warehouse lace up flats: £29 (sold out, similar). Lancome Juicy Shaker in "Cherry Symphony".

The windy city, we meet again. I can't vouch for Chicago's status as breezy, but I honestly think Liverpool can give that city a run for its money when it comes to hair blowing in every direction. I have one umbrella left in a bin somewhere in Spinningfields which battled gallantly with the weather, but certainly came off worse. RIP. After a Serious Text Discussion regarding what the weather's like, I settled on my newest pair of jeans and trusty old trench coat (gloriously dumped on the floor for these photos, so glam) to revisit Liverpool on one of the sunniest days of the year so far. Still windy. Still so windy.

As soon as my train pulled into Liverpool Lime Street, I headed straight off to meet Tasha and Soph for coffee at Cow & Co Cafe, a small place sheltered from the river Mersey on Cleveland Square. When it was trusted to me to make a decision on where to go (why guys, why), I had a quick search of Independent Liverpool and settled on this little place after hearing it was a good'un on Sade's recommendation. I went for a bagel with beetroot, feta and raisins (can I have 5?) and latte while the other girls went for a brownie, custard cream chocolate concoction, all of which comes highly recommended from a table of discerning eaters - and the staff didn't even moan at us for taking an unprecedented number of photos. I've never been to Cow&Co before, despite knowing someone who lived a stone's throw away, but I'd definitely give it a visit if you're in town and fancy going somewhere a little off the beaten track.

Afterwards, we headed away from town and wandered around the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral as Soph had never been. I haven't got much more to add from my last post there, but it's a pretty special place. Let's not talk about how much I wanted to go to the Cream event last night and only found out it was happening after it'd sold out. Tiny little tear being shed, right now.

To round up the day, I pulled Sade out of the library and spent a good three hours with her in the Pen Factory, because I haven't gone day drinking for a good while. We didn't manage to cross paths last time I was in Liverpool, so we had a long ol' chat about life and less big topics of conversation; is there any better way to spend a Saturday than with friends a bit of gin?

As I mentioned to pretty much everyone I met up with, it's odd to go back to Liverpool now. When I lived there, I knew it like the back of my hand. Recently it's been going through a little bit of a renaissance and there are new cafes and bars popping up all over the shop, and it's like it's a whole new city every time I step on the train. At first it made me a little sad that "my" Liverpool wasn't the one I knew, but since I've got over it started to trial the new places, I can honestly say the city is going from strength to strength.

Places photographed:

Cow&Co Cafe	Wolstenholme Square	Anglican Cathedral	Suitcases installation
15 Cleveland Square, L1	Right next to Cream, L1	St James Mt, L1	Hope Street, L1

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Isn't it boring when I talk about my dreams.

Primark coat: £30 (old). Topshop french bulldog top: £18. Vintage suede skirt: £8. Vintage bag: 50p. Topshop frill socks: gift. Chelsea boots: c/o Ted and Muffy.

After a weekend spent on a lot of forms of transport, my head's been all over the place; until I've had my flat white from Pret on the way into work, at least. Call it Network Rail Jetlag (or something), but I've spent this week looking a little bit like the crazy tongue out emoji, but we've made it to the weekend - hurrah! So, while I recover and try to act more like I've got an ounce of sanity in there, I thought I'd take a tip out of the last shadow puppets' lyrics and talk about some of the dreams I've had, most of which have little logic to their name.

When I was little, I used to dream a lot about being in mazes. Not necessarily a nightmare scenario (although those happened too), but there were a lot of twists and turns, which I like to thank for my now second-to-none sense of direction.

When in sixth form, I used to be surrounded by people all shouting my name, vying for attention. Thinking back, that seemed to happen when I woke up too. Bloody whatsapp.

More recently I've found it more and more difficult to remember what's going on in that noggin pre-7am. If it were to be reflecting real life it'd probably be a series of colour-coordinated calendars and google docs, but from the strange snippets my brain's decided to cling on to there are locations a lot like Munich's Hofgarten and a lot of walking. Give us a shout, if you fancy decoding that.

And there was that one time I dreamt about being friends with Miles Kane and Alex Turner, but then I read a few more Shortlist interviews in real life and realised that probably wouldn't work out okay.

brb, sleeping for a full eight hours.

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My planet or yours?

Marks and Spencer blouse: £29.50 (also in white). Marks and Spencer skirt: £17.50 (similar). Adidas Spezial: £27. Rotary watch: gift.

No, you aren't hallucinating, those are blue skies over Manchester. The long-running "it always rains when I'm in Manchester" joke wasn't quite so funny when I had soggy feet for a solid two months, but the city got the Spring memo just in time for having my mum up to visit and show her the sights. Although I've been here for a while now, I still haven't managed to pick myself up and visit all the places on my list; I suppose that's what moving airbnbs then having to furnish a flat does to a girl's free time. But with a few days off, this was the perfect time to have a little wander round the streets I can now happily call "home". And I didn't need an umbrella. Little miracles.

Whilst waiting for my mum to finish navigating the M6 (rather you than me), I headed off to Manchester Art Gallery to stalk the pre-raphaelites see what was housed in the beautiful building in Chinatown. Living in Essex, there wasn't really that much to do other than go out for food or shopping, so it's nice to have renowned paintings at my beck and call, just a 20 minute walk from my front door - give us a shout if there are any galleries or museums that I need to see! The rest of the day was spent showing my mum round the city centre, before heading to the James Martin restaurant for some amazing grub to set us up for the night. I'd recommend the venison, although there was a six course taster menu for £30pp, which looked like a popular choice on the tables around us.

Because you're totally allowed to act like a tourist in your own city, right?

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Double denim and all the frills.

Asos petite denim top: £25. Oasis Isabella jeans: £27. Adidas Spezial: £27.

Hands up if you're an old time reader round these parts? If you can remember back to my old "shove a point and shoot camera somewhere and hope for the best" time, then massive clicks to you for sticking about so long. Looking back at these photos and Manchester's intricate canal network reminds me of about three years ago during my second year at uni, when I used to wander around Liverpool and discovered the start of the Liverpool to Leeds canal route. If you'd ever told me back then that I'd end up living a little further along the route I would've raised an (untamed, forgive me) eyebrow and told you to jog on - funny how life has its little quirks, eh?

Back onto less just-had-a-coffee-and-this-is-life-now existential chat (yep, still heading to Costa to write every single blog post), hope you're all post-Easter egg coma survivor and thus eying up another. I'm heading home next week for food a TLSP gig and hospital appointment, so keep an eye on insta to check all the cute country places I'm off to, a right contrast to this super Manchester outfit (if I do say so myself). I don't feel homesick at all as I've felt like an adopted northerner ever since I got accustomed to Liverpool, but it'll be nice to head back for plenty of catch ups and a temperature a couple degrees higher than the crap we've got up here. So, see you soon London, and, in the meantime, send scarves.

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Aviation in the evening.

Frock and Frill dress (c/o). Public Desire Julia heels.

Dark days are here chums: I don't have internet. It's bordering on Medieval ages, and I don't know whether to just get an Austen approved regency dress, take up cross stitching and be done with it all. In the meantime, I'm rinsing Starbucks' wifi in At Ann's Square and having my (raspberry) cake and eating it too. As they say, I didn't choose the thug life...

In other less dramatic news (perhaps), I headed off to Leeds yesterday to play poker for the first time in years with Ladbrokes and a load of bloggers who's links I'll leave below - sorry if I miss anyone out! I know, I know, it's normally all chintz armchairs and country escapes up in here, but anyone who knows me in real life knows that I'm slightly rougher around the edges (gotta big yourself up and all, most people I know would probably say I spend too much money on absinthe for my own good, but I get to pick the words here, so we're going with that). I haven't really played poker for a long ol' time, but I found myself getting back into the swing of things pretty quickly, and even ended up on the final table against all the odds (only betting joke in this entire post, I promise). I got almost no photos of the event cos a 50mm lens and red lighting do not a good blog post make, but I had a load of fun playing at pretend hangover in the bright Manchester sunshine this morning to take a few lifestyle-y shots. Yet to tidy up the playing cards that I legitimately did drop all over the floor, so you can tell these are proper authentic.

A massive shout out to Frock and Frill who hooked a sister up with this absolutely gorgeous dress that I couldn't stop bloody looking at before putting it on. I'll get some "proper" photos at a later date, but for now feast your eyes on the moonlit balcony shot above, and this lil insta. Also, food snaps are from Friends of Ham which is just across the road from Leeds train station - good luck getting a table cos this place is popular, but the meats are top quality, and it'd be an amazing place to while away an afternoon with a friend and a bottle of wine.

You can see Ladbokes' blog post here.

Anyway, I'm off to catch up on the last week of online delights, but please do click through and check out some of the other Leeds bloggers if you're on the lookout for some new reads!

Ellie | Caroline | Keil | Alex | Bryony | Carolanne | Karl | Matt | Lucinda | Lauren | Carrieanne | Carl | Jessica | Lucy | Georgina | Ellie | Katie | Tina | Sarah

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