The Name's Bond.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm actually in Switzerland this week! My family and I are creatures of habit and we come back to the same place (resort, hotel, room, table in the restaurant etc) every year.. we've actually spent nearly six months in this place in total.

This year as the weather is so beautiful, we ventured over to a neighbouring valley where the James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service was filmed in 1968. To get into the spirit of things, we decided on something slightly more extreme than usual and skiied off the mountain side with a parachute at 7,500 feet or there abouts and it was INCREDIBLE. It's something I've always wanted to do and we made a bit of a snap decision to go and do it yesterday.

No one ever believes that I am the action adventure type when I tell them!

Wearing my new favourite T from M by MJ in the sunshine...

My sister stood on the edge just before the jump:

Mid flight!

Ahh it is SO BEAUTIFUL. There is no where in the world I would rather be!

Lots of love from Switzerland!

QK

One day, I promise I'm going to do a post that doesn't involve me apologising for my lack of blogging. Why I bothered spending nearly a thousand pounds on a new computer is beyond me because I never get time to bloody use it. Not to mention that I literally haven't stopped eating (not even whilst sleeping by the looks of it) since before Christmas and my face should NOT be published on the internet in this state. Thankfully I'm going skiing next week which should reverse the ballooning. Not to mention the fact that work is hectic at the moment I end up staying late every single evening, am on the verge of a nervous breakdown and am getting paid about four pence a day. Well not quite.

Anyway! I got an e mail a couple of weeks ago from Quality Knitwear (QK), a new online vintage knitwear boutique. Now I do enjoy an oversized jumper and have a couple of good ones myself but the ones featured in the lookbook are just gorgeous and I fell in love straight away. Here are my three favourites:

Yummmm.

Founder, 24 year old PR exec Lucy Grimble said "I've always had a passion for knitwear, but found that I was often disappointed by the quality of some of the pieces on the market. With Quality Knitwear I hope that I've been able to not only create a collection filled with personality, charm and individuality, but one which is also affordable and of the highest possible quality."

www.qualityknitwear.co.uk

The wind is ridiculous outside at the moment and I would actually quite like to be wearing all three of these at once.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend - I think I'm going to take my laptop to Switzerland so I'll probably do a bit of posting out there whilst i actually have time!

OH! And I've finally jumped on the twitter bandwagon - follow me @charlotteapes (my middle name is April and charlotteapril was taken so I went for apes which is what my lovely friend Caitlin usually calls me... I don't have a passion for primates or anything... promise).

If she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will.

So this is clearly my best attempt at being a real life Cruella - leopard print shirt and fur coat? Probably should have thought a bit more about that one.. but I quite enjoyed it all the same.

Did a spot of shopping today and bought a couple of things that are actually suitable for me to wear to work and vaguely interesting so I'll probably showcase them in the next week or so. I also got this cute little phone pouch from H&M that makes me feel rather tourist like.

I bought these AA Disco Pants AGES ago but don't wear them so much because they do make my legs look like tree trunks wrapped in tin foil, and even worse on photos, but never mind. The fur coat belonged to my Great Grandma - I've posted it on here before and recently I have been living in it because it's so bloody cold. I do love a bit of fur - I know it's bound to cause some controversy but there is nothing warmer and this coat has been around for about 70 years so they are completely made to last!

Happy New Yearrrr!!! Hope it is a wonderful one for everyone!

This New Years was spent at my lovely friend Nicola's who has one of my favourite Christmas trees of all time with loads of fun family decorations like the one below. We had a make your own pizza party followed by copious amounts of booze (obviously) coupled with ring of fire and a near impossible tongue twister drinking game... some of the phrases were difficult to say when sober, never mind after a couple of bottles of wine!

I went back to work last Wednesday too which is completely unfair because I work in an office and ALL OTHER offices were shut meaning little to no work was done anyway so I may as well have gone into hibernation for a couple of days. I keep getting so jealous of the dog who just gets to look like a mole and sleep all day.

Snazzy Gold Party Frock - Whistles, Shoes - Miss Selfridge, Bag - UO

I realise I am a little late in posting this but what's new? Perhaps it should have been a New Years resolution to post more frequently? Although is it counted as a resolution if there is no punishment involved? I'm not sure.

Tomorrow I am DEFINITELY going to the gym because it's only Tuesday and I have already eaten out twice (three courses each time) this week.. oops!

Hope you all had fabulous New Year weekends - Best Wishes for 2011!

'Tis The Season to be Jolly

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

I know I promised that this post would be a proper one and not just phone pictures - I had proper camera photos all lined up and then went out to Liverpool for a works do... Lawyers drink A LOT and like to drag you down with them so I ended up leaving my camera in a bar. I have been assured that one of my colleagues has it but he isn't returning any of my messages so god knows where it is.

Anyway hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas!

I know I was complaining about the snow before and have had to abandon my car twice this week, but it does make an ordinary ice bucket look very festive.

Unless it's mild and overcast, we can't cope. Normal service will resume in the spring.

As a country we are completely hopeless. It drives me insane. In the summer, we had highs of about 12 degrees - there was a hose pipe ban. Now it is winter and we've had just over a foot of snow and we've basically been told to stay indoors, curl up and hibernate. A ridiculous amount of roads are closed and even all of the trains are off now!

A colleague of mine went to the Trafford Centre on Friday night and whilst he was shopping the snow began to fall. When he left at 10.30pm he dug his car out, waited for 45 minutes in a queue in the car park and then drove home - a journey that ordinarily would take about half an hour lasted until 6am.

My car is completely buried and thanks to the lack of grit in my town it is likely to stay there meaning that I've missed the birthday celebrations of two of my best friends this weekend.

Anyway on a less miserable note despite it's inconvenience I do love the snow... and I also love this delightfully tacky Brussel Sprouts wrapping paper that cost around a quarter of a million pounds per sheet from UO and also defies my Mother's all gold theme.

I promise to use my actual camera next time and stop being massively lazy by just using phone pictures!

Distraction.

Aside from leaving my MacBook at my friend's house in Manchester (the same house that my last computer got stolen from.. oopsie) I've also been running round after this little pooch. My new BFF Henry.

FINALLY after twenty one years of begging my Dad to get a dog, he gave in! And now he actually pays more attention to the dog than anyone else in the household.

The man who once saw a dog poo by the side of the road, and because he was so disgusted couldn't concentrate and crashed his car into a lamp post is actually a changed man. My mum and I are convinced he's some sort of imposter. Today a package arrived addressed to Henry which contained a name tag from my dad... firstly we all live in the same house together so why posting it was necessary I'm not entirely sure and secondly it's quite depressing when the dog gets more mail than you do.