Sunday 18 December 2011

Bristol mini-Philofaxy meet-up!!

Hello everyone! Uni term has finished and I am now home for Christmas!! I promise I will write lots of blog posts over the next few weeks!

Yesterday was the mini-Philofaxy meet-up in Bristol, organised by the lovely Imy! Coming along were me, Nicola, Emma, and Tali and her husband.
Imy was coming from Cornwall on a train which went through Plymouth, so I went on the same train and she saved a seat for me! We sat there on the whole journey chatting and having fun! Imy was sooooo excited!! She's like a little puppy!!!
Then we arrived in Bristol and waited by the exit for Tali and her husband, then made our way outside to meet Nicola who was picking us up in her car! She drove us over to the shopping centre in the centre of Bristol, Cabot Circus. We decided not to go to the mall on the outskirts of Bristol, Cribbs Causeway, because it would have been packed full of Christmas shoppers and we might not have been able to get back to the train station on time. But Cabot Circus was great! A very impressive shopping centre, with amazing architectural features, sweeping platforms and cool Christmas decorations! Nicola drove us up to quite a high level in the multi-story car park, we went round and round and round and round the corkscrew to get up to that level and we got quite dizzy! But it was really fun!!
Then we met Emma who came in her car, and she gave everyone a Christmas card with a little envelope full of cute stickers in! So kind! And those weren't the last stickers of the day!!
Now we were all together, suddenly we all got very very excited!! We went over to Nandos to try to book a table (Imy wanted to book it under the name 'Filofax'!) but they said we don't have to book, just come back later and stand in the queue. Tali's husband went off to do his own shopping and would meet up with us again at lunch.
Then we started shopping! We went over to House of Fraser because Imy wanted to visit the handbag section which had a Mulberry concession in it- she's a Mulberry addict! But I must admit some of them were quite nice!!
Then we went over to the Paperchase concession! We all love Paperchase!! The concession in House of Fraser is huge, bigger than the shops in both Liverpool and Plymouth!! We were there for about half an hour, and I think we helped to pay quite a chunk of their rent bills for the day!! We all bought a LOT of stickers!! Well, they are so cute and pretty, and only £1 or £2 for a pack!! And we are all children in our heads!!
This is my haul from Paperchase! (+1 lipgloss I got later in the day!) As you can see, I bought LOTS of stickers!! Plus I bought a pretty tin for them to live in, or else I'll lose them around my room. It's supposed to be for pens/pencils, but it's the perfect fit for the slimmer packets of stickers, although the £2 packs that are wider won't fit in. I also bought some really pretty sticky notes, some tab markers for my new MA filofax, and some bookmarks, which I am going to turn into Filofax personal today markers! Possibly the best thing I got from Paperchase, which is saying something because I really love it all, is my pink Lamy Safari fountain pen!! I love Lamy pens, and have wanted a pink one but it's hard to find because they were last year's special edition one, so they're quite rare, although Paperchase do stock them. I'll do a post on this soon :)

Then, after we had managed to pull ourselves away from all the pretty things, we walked out of the shopping centre to the other shops in the city centre. At 1pm we met outside Nandos and queued for a table, finding a table for 6 on a busy Saturday was difficult! Emma took me to a cashpoint, and by the time we got back the others were seated inside :) We ordered our meals, I had a chicken breast burger, medium heat, which was very nice! After that I ordered the chocolate cake, but it wasn't very nice because it was like chocolate mousse made into a cake, and I don't like chocolate mousse :(
While we were eating, we got our shopping out and played with our stickers and things!! Again, we're like little kids!! And we got our filofaxes out and made a mini stack!! Nicola brought lots, including the WHSmith one masquerding as a filofax at the front! We compared filos, and they were sent around the table for people to write messages in! Like a proper Philofaxy meet-up!!
Then we went back to Paperchase! Yes, I know, we were addicts!! But Imy had seen some cute highlighters Nicola had bought and wanted some for herself, and my sticker tin was a bit dented so I wanted to exchange it. But when I got there, there were none left! Oh well! Then we went to a few more shops like WHSmith (more filofaxes!), and I went in Boots while the others went in Build-a-Bear workshop.
Then we made our way out of the shopping centre again, and went into Harvey Nichols. We found our way over to the Chanel hand bags, and there was the Chanel man there. Rude rude man, insulting our non-Chanel hand bags, and saying living in Cornwall must be like living in the fashion middle-ages!!! Imy was upset and we were all very angry at him!! We walked straight out, and were fuming about it for a good few minutes! We wanted to slap him with our 'cheap' handbags!
Then after a bit more walking around, we went to Starbucks. Everyone ordered their drinks, but as I don't drink hot drinks like that, I had a quick look around the Christmas market for presents, and finally got my mum the present I couldn't find in Plymouth! Yayyy!!!
We got back into the cars and went to Staples!! We are stationary geeks!! We all had a good look around, although I didn't buy anything, Nicola found a good pen that was made by Franklin Covey and is a multi-pen, with black, blue and red ink and a pencil all in one! I have been looking for a pen like this for ages! But Nicola got the last one, and the shop assistant phoned the Plymouth store for me, asking if there is one in stock, and there might be, so I'll have a look soon!
We had a while to wait until our trains, but we went to the station anyway because we were all shopped out! There wasn't a McDonald's/KFC/BurgerKing in Temple Meads station, and knowing I wouldn't be able to eat until 10, I bought a sausage roll- which was huge!! Well, it kept me filled up, so I could only eat 1 slice of the pizza my mum cooked for me!
On the train Imy found out we had free wifi! So we spent most of the journey on the internet on our phones, and chatting! :) It was a really fun journey!

It was a very very fun day, I really want to do it again soon!! Thanks everyone!! Have a great Christmas!

4 comments:

  1. I'm glad you had a fun time & I really enjoyed your post! All that stationery shopping, sounds like heaven. Have a lovely Christmas too :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. It sounds like you all had a great time! It sounds like a lot of fun.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There are so few shops like that here, and no filofax stores. There is one pen store that carries them but not many. Plus a few inserts. If I had a meet up -- thered be no place to shop or filos! LOL

    Tracy

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ooh . must go to Bristol for Paperchase... I'm sure I can find some excuse for being in Bristol :-)

    ReplyDelete