Watching: Department Q. If you love a gritty Scandi crime drama, Department Q is running on BBC4 iPlayer. There are three in the series: each is 2 hours long so it’s good Saturday-night-in stuff. It’s an adaptation of Danish writer,  Jussi Adler-Olsen’s series of books about a cold case police department headed up by Carl Morck (troubled – of course!!).  It’s as you might imagine – moody, gripping and gory – but nobody does a crime drama like the Danish so if you love that stuff, you will definitely like this.

Eating At: Yalla Yalla. If you don’t know Yalla Yalla, it’s based on Beirut street food, so think grilled halloumi, baba ganoush, humus and salads. There are various locations around London and they’re always busy, but service is quick and it’s a good spot for when you’re in a rush. I don’t think that’s the correct spelling of baklava, but it’s the only image I could pull off their website! Their site is HERE so you can find locations. I’ve never had bad food here.

Fashion Strong

Spotted: Fashion Strong T Shirt at M&S. I’ve had to do a quick search for ‘Fashion Strong’ because I hadn’t heard of it but turns out to be a fund raising (for Breast Cancer) range fronted by Twiggy. I spotted this star design T shirt for £15 in my local M&S – I bought a very similar one from Hush and it was £45! Stars are in so this is a win! It’s HERE.

Going To: The London Marathon. This start line for this annual event is a 5 minute walk from our house, so invariably we always go and see the beginning of it. Over the years, we’ve been up early for the professional races, the celebrity races and the wheelchair races, but the best thing to see is the general race where competitors are held in Greenwich park and then released (at a walking pace) onto the marathon circuit at about 10am. There’s always such an amazing atmosphere, but what the TV doesn’t show you is all the late-comers frantically trying to get their kit onto a lorry (which meets them at the finish line), the lines of people using the local vicarage wall as a loo (true story), the helicopters circling and the incredible clean-up operation that starts as soon as the starting klaxon goes off. By the time we walked home a very little while after the start (for egg on toast and to watch the rest of it from the sofa!) all the metal gatings that stop traffic and keep thousands of people on track to get to to the right place were already being dismantled and loaded.

Buying: Vitamin C Sweatshirt. After doing a post about beauty bargains at TKMaxx, I actually had to go to my local one for a browse and I picked up this sweatshirt for £15! The sizing is weird.. my sweatshirt is size L which is perfect for a roomy size 12/14, but the sizing is listed in numerical size with 8, 16 and 18 left HERE.  It is roomy, but that’s perfect for a sweatshirt because I think they always look a bit odd if they’re too snug. I also spotted Zoe Karssen sweatshirts for £11 – yes you read that right! You can find some Zoe Karssen HERE (think slogan T shirts reduced from £70 (I know though.. £70 for  T Shirt!) to about the £15 mark.) Zoe Karssen falls into the TK Maxx anomoly where the products won’t come up in a generic search (i.e. sweatshirts) but if you know to look for them by name, they will.

Laughing At: My sister has a big birthday coming up.. I am still giggling at this card I found for her.

Best Thing I’ve Done This Week: Switched My Business Profile on Instagram Off. You can’t have missed the general dissatisfaction with Instagram vibe all over social in the past couple of weeks. Bought followers, bought likes, all of the internet turned detective by trying to discover who is and who isn’t cheating using Social Blade. I’m in complete agreement that cheaters shouldn’t win, but we all know in life that sometimes they do. Anyway, if you have your Insta on a Business Account, it gives you stats drill downs (age, most popular times etc) and shows you your new follower/unfollower count – it’s easy to get obsessed. It’s impossible to enjoy Instagram if your head is only on stats/number of likes or comments/quality of pictures/comments. So, I’ve turned off the stats – I can’t see my painfully slow growth in as much detail and I really can’t remember the ‘best time to post’ already, so it’s enabled me to use it how I used to use it – for fun without the pressure. I wouldn’t like to lose followers but if I never got another one, it’s okay. I’ve realised that it’s more important to please the viewers I already have than it is to try and get more.

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