Emily ash trust - Topshop trip!

 

Hello my friends, me again with another blog J

I was invited to go on the Topshop trip with one other person of my choice (I decided to pick my mum) and with 7 other patients from the Royal Marsden Hospital, I was extremely surprised to hear that I was nominated by one of the nurses from the Royal Marsden to go on this trip, which was really sweet of them!

This day was going to consist of us going to London Oxford Street to enjoy a lovely lunch then go to Topshop, where we could spend £500 pounds and have a personal shopper for two hours, this trip was courtesy of the Emily Ash Trust.

On the 19th of August 2014, myself and my mum went to the Marsden at 10.00am to get the coach which was taking us, the 7 other patients and the Emily ash trust volunteers off to London. I loved the journey there as I got to look out and view London as we passed haha!

We arrived at Oxford street around 12:00 and decided to go have our lunch first, the restaurant we went to was called Garfunkel’s (link: http://www.garfunkels.co.uk). We were told that we could have anything we wanted off the menu which was really sweet and lovely of the Emily ash trust!

So I decided to order:

Starter - BBQ chicken wings (succulent chicken wings in a sticky BBQ sauce served with a pot of blue cheese sauce)

Main - Classic steak and chips (our 28 day aged 7oz *mine being medium rare* and served with chips)

Side - coleslaw

Dessert - ice cream (three scoops of chocolate ice cream).

 

My mum ordered:

Starter - bruschetta bites (toasted mini ciabatta slices topped with homemade mix of freshly chopped tomatoes, red onion and garlic, drizzled with nut pesto)

Main - penne arrabiata (penne pasta tossed in our Neapolitan sauce, with fresh chilli, olives and garlic)

Dessert - chocolate fudge brownie sundae (creamy vanilla ice cream with chunks of warm brownie, crunchy honeycomb with swirls of chocolate fudge flavoured sauce, topped with whipped cream).

Just thinking about the food we had is making me hungry haha *yum*! Overall though, the food was absolutely amazing and extremely delicious and considering I have an allergy to gluten they catered for me very well, which I was extremely grateful for J

 

 

After the amazing lunch, we had a quick 3 minute walk to Topshop oxford street. This was around 14:00pm and this is when the girls and boys split up from each other as Topman is up stairs while Topshop was on the ground floor and two floors below that *massive I know*! Myself and the girls went downstairs to meet our personal shoppers, sadly I don't remember the name of the lady I was put with but she was one of the nicest people I have ever met and had a great fashion sense too! Myself and my mum were put into our room, with tea, fizzy pop and two Lola's cupcakes J and that's when the shopping began! My personal shopper had already picked out some outfits for me to try which I loved, so I put some of them into my buying pile, for the next two hours I was hunting all around Topshop for clothes, shoes and accessories or I was in my dressing room trying thousands of pieces of clothing on *it was a tiring job haha*.

 

Overall I brought -

A short padded woolly parker coat

A burgundy swing dress

A grey woolly jumper

A white top with mesh flowers along the bottom

A collar top (white collar then the rest is black)

2 scallop frill tee’s (black and purple)

a black pleated skater skirt

2 pairs of jeans (grey and blue)

a red satchel bag

3 pairs of socks

3 pairs of knickers

little mermaid pyjamas (Disney fan J )

positive pencils (for school haha)

dune shoes – black Lace Up Brogue

white converse

And that came to a grand total of *currently drum rolling* £503 J

After all the shopping we made our way back to the coach with all our bags and made our way back to the Royal Marsden, again myself and my mum were enjoying the journey back as we got to look out the window and view London again aha! Once back to the Royal Marsden we said our goodbyes to the other patients and the volunteers. We also said a massive thank you to the wonderful volunteers for the day J

 

But overall, I had an amazing day as I got to meet some lovely new patients and the volunteers, the experience with the personal shopper was luxury as the personal shopper really helped me out with fashion and getting whatever size I wanted when needed, I would definitely recommend trying the personal shopping experience in Topshop as it's free, all you’ve got to do is book it in advance!

I would just like to say an extra thank you to the Emily Ash Trust, as they did not only organise the whole day, they paid for the scrumptious food we had and gave me £500 to spend in Topshop. Without them this trip wouldn't be available, so thank you again to the Emily Ash Trust for doing this for me. Here's a link to the Emily ash trust website if you would like to know more about them (http://www.emilyashtrust.co.uk) they are an amazing charity that helps and supports children and teenagers who have gone through/going through cancer.

 Arabella ♥