It’s a new soundtrack I could dance to this beat, beat
Forevermore
The lights are so bright
But they never blind me, me
Welcome to New York
It’s been waiting for you
Welcome to New York
Welcome to New York

When I told my best friend I was seriously thinking about moving to Edinburgh she told me it would be my 'Welcome to New York'. And I kind of have to agree. After all, I do pretty much think every situation in my life can be summed up by a Taylor Swift song. 

Moving to Edinburgh is not something I thought I would be thinking right now, never mind actually saying out loud to people. But the more I think about it, the more I really want to do it. 

I never intended to be nearly 28 and still living in Polmont. I moved back here a few years ago because I was living in Glasgow and had just been offered a job in Edinburgh. Back then, the thought of moving to Edinburgh terrified me. If I'm honest about things, then it still does. The reason I didn't move all those years ago was because Polmont had much more appeal back then. My brother was just about to get an operation, and I really wanted to be close to home for his recovery. I'd also just had my heart broken and I just needed my family and best friend around. But a lot can change in three years. My brother is healthy and at uni now. My heart, while pretty bruised, has certainly healed from that situation. And that friend who I had known since primary school is no longer in my life. 

It just seems like the perfect time to start a new chapter. I'm going to be 28 in January and I think it's finally time to grow some balls and do something that scares me. Something that will make 2015 the best year yet. 

What A Wicked Week It's Been!

It's finally happened. Wicked has arrived in Edinburgh. I figured with that in mind, I should try do a post about what actually goes on the average week of a Press Officer. I say average, but I've never actually had a week like this before. And if I'm honest, I don't know when I'll have a week quite like this again. 

Wednesday night was opening night, and we decided to turn the area around the venue into our own little Emerald City. 

So with opening night out of the way, it was time to focus on Thursday's press night. The day started really well when we discovered the photocall from the day before had made lots of the papers, including some nationals and the front of the Edinburgh Evening News. 

The press night itself was the usual type of thing, just on a much bigger scale than I'm used to. We ended up with around 80 press and celeb guests, so we had a lot of tickets to give out and lots of journalists to meet. It was also a good chance to catch up with some people I haven't seen in a while too. 

I only managed to see the last 15 minutes of the show while we were waiting with the photographer to do the curtain call photos. I missed 'Defying Gravity' earlier in the night, but i got to see 'For Good' and I think that might actually be my favourite song of the show. After the show, it was straight backstage to do some photos with Susan Boyle for the Friday's edition of the Edinburgh Evening News. 

Once the photos were done, it was straight up to the Assembly Rooms on George Street for the after show party. 

Most of the night was spent making sure all the cast photos were taken when they arrived. We did manage to get good photo of the old/new press and marketing department and then stop just before midnight to celebrate Pam's birthday. I ended up leaving the party at 1am, which is pretty early by my usual standards, to catch up on sleep ahead of Friday's Wicked meeting and STV coming to film for the News at Six.

(Me, Pam, Alan, Audrey, Sam and Catherine)

Undercut Sessions!

I finally did it. 

I went to the hairdresser for the first time in 5 years, and took some baby undercut steps. 

Why is it that we only believe the bad things people think or say about us? 

It's like we're programmed to ignore all the nice things people say in favour of replaying all the bad things over and over again.

A few weeks ago I was at a wedding when someone leaned over the bar and told me I looked stunning. He wasn't some creepy old man or someone who was trying to hit on me. He was simply a really nice person who felt the need to give me a compliment. It wasn't that I thought I looked terrible, I just didn't look anywhere near stunning. I would say I looked ok at best, and that was mainly down to what I was wearing. It's hard not to look ok when you have a long red dress on. 

Surely I can't be the only one who finds it hard to accept a compliment. Even yesterday, I couldn't believe what my best friend was telling me. She sent me a text describing me as one of the prettiest people she knows. Instead of just accepting what she said, I decided to replay the horrible thoughts implied by other peoples actions.  

I've been bullied before and I had a horrible trolling experience earlier this year when people posted things like "What happened to your face or are you just naturally that ugly?" to me on Twitter. That was when the whole Moyesy thing happened, and it was not a nice experience at all. But I think sometimes all this is why I find it hard to accept it when people do want to say something nice to me.

The logical thing is to accept the 10 lovely things before say against the one horrible thing someone else thinks. That makes sense, even to the most unlogical mind. That should even make sense in my mind. So why is it that I still continue to think everyone is just being nice to make me feel better, rather than having any truth behind their comments? Yet I can't shake off what someone else thinks of me.

Harley's Coffee House

Falkirk isn't exactly the home of vegan food. So when you do find somewhere as good as Harley's Coffee House in Camelon, you need to make sure you buy more than one cake. 

I went into today with that in mind and came away with these three Frozen themed cupcakes. If you didn't know they were vegan, then you would never be able to guess as they're light and fluffy with the most delicious icing on top. I also bought a vegan scone but may eaten that before I had a chance to take a picture. 

It's not just cakes that Harley's sells. They have vegan burgers like the Kelpie Burger topped with lettuce, tomato and spirited spicy sauce. And there's a vegan Sloppy Joe burger and hot dog too.  They also do toasties, baked potatoes and a range of breakfast items. And if like me some of your non-vegan friends prefer to go somewhere with meat on the menu, then Harley's also caters for meat eaters too.

If you want more information then please visit the website  or you just come to mine since I will probably be stocking up on their cakes on a weekly basis. 

That Time Lena Dunham Came To London

Excuse the blurry picture, but this was the only one I had a chance to take before the usher came over and told me to put my phone away. Apparently no one was allowed to take photos, although everyone did as soon as he turned his back to walk back to the door where he was positioned.

It's an understatement to say I'm a Lena Dunham fan. I feel like the biggest Lena Dunham fan, although that's probably a point that could be argued by everyone in the room. The event at the Southbank Centre in London, which is now one of my favourite places thanks to the bars and food market outside,  was filled with other famous people I'm a fan of. The cast of Call The Midwife including Miranda Hart had their own box a few rows in front of me. And Dawn O'Porter, Daisy Lowe, Gemma Cairney, Sarah Millican and Richard E Grant were also in the audience.

Caitlin Moran introduced Lena who came on and read a chapter from the book. I was hoping she would read 'A Guide To Running Away For Twenty-Seven-Year-Old Women' but instead she read 'Sex Scenes, Nude Scenes, and Publicly Sharing Your Body' which is still one of my favourite chapters in the book. Once the reading was done, she sat down to chat to Caitlin about the book, Girls, being a girl, and pretty much everything in between. She also answered some questions from the audience including a woman who told her that she'd inspired her to be brave enough to leave her marriage. 

I came away from it feeling pretty empowered by the whole thing. It was really amazing to be in a room filled with so many women who share similar views to you. Women who happy to celebrate another woman's success rather than being jealous and bitching about it. To see Lena, who is not much older than me, doing so much really gives me some ambition to chase other aspects of my professional life in the new year. My job is great and I don't want to change that at all, but I do want to write a lot more, and try and get back into broadcasting in some way too.