my fortnight in pictures.

Finally getting slightly better at keeping up with my updates...

I haven't got as many pictures as I would have liked

due to the absent camera situation. 

But seen as I've bought myself a new one I should be back on track!!

 

1.

We ventured out to Pure last Tuesday as for the first time this term,

they were offering free entry - YES!

The theme of the night was a "popcorn party"

where they fired popcorn from the cannons.

Very, very odd! But a different kind of fun!

2. and 3.

I've managed to keep up with looking after my nails,

but the other day I went to use my favourite bright pink nail varnish

and found it had dried solid.

I was devastated, but I painted them pastel pink instead.

4.

Last weekend was spent babysitting my cousins with my Grandma.

Pictured here is little Samantha,

who I've just been asked to be Godmother for, 

so I'm very chuffed right now!

5. and 6.

Urgh. Another wonderful picture of my floor filing system.

And the glass of wine that I just HAD to have

in order to get me through the night in order to finish my assignment!

I got it done in the end, but not until 2am!!

7.
For a friend's birthday we all had to pick a partner and dress the same
because the theme was "Noah's Ark"!!
Abi and I went as Pink Rabbits,
and I'm so proud of our face paint which I did all by myself!

8. and 9.

I'm finally feeling in the Christmas mood!

There was an adorable "Happy Christmas" sticker on my

festive 'Brie, Cranberry and Bacon' baguette (from Greggs of all places!)

And I bought my Christmas Hat for this years Xmas Carnage

and spent the whole of Thursday wearing it keep my head warm, ha!

10.
Last night was the Christmas Carnage.
I don't remember anything from the night...
Fabulous!

there is always, always, always something to be thankful for.

After the American's celebrated Thanksgiving to other day, it got me thinking.

The sheer amount of work, combined with mouldy student houses

has got be down in recent times.

However, as the picture says,

there is always, always, always something to be thankful for!

So, I thought I'd take a moment to say what I am thankful for.

The Boyfriend.

When I get cross at my work, I have a tendency to snap at Ollie,

even though all he ever does is support me.

To his credit I haven't managed to chase him away just yet; thank goodness!

I love him so much and his patience just make me love him even more!!

The Long Distance Friends

Two of my best friends in the world, literally live elsewhere in the world!

Liv and Em have been there for me through thick and thin.

Even though they're both in Canada

(which means I can't speak to them as much as I'd like)

whenever we do catch up it's like I saw them yesterday!

The University Housemates

This is the motley crew that I live with (minus the waitress and including Ross).

Lately I've been frustrated with the state of the kitchen and various other antics,

however, I need to remember how much I do love them!

They're here for me when I miss Ollie, and stressed about work.

(Plus Bria and J-Ho gives the best cuddles ever!)

The Family

When I'm at home it's really easy to forget 

the good qualities of my family and get frustrated!

When I'm away at Uni, I really start to miss them (especially my Mum).

I need to try and remember this feeling when I go home for Christmas!

the cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.

This quote pretty much sums up the holiday.

Some parts were amazing - like going to my favourite beach and spending time with Mum,

whilst others were difficult, like being constantly surrounded by 4 teenage boys

and others were downright hard, like when I got splattered with sand on the beach

(It went in my tea and everything; I burst into tears).

Llangrannog beach at low tide.

 On the Tuesday we visited a beach I've never been to, 

with an amazing Whelsh name - Llangrannog. 

It was so long, and so hot, and so busy. We almost had to sit in the shade(!).

It was down a really, really steep hill 

and we had to get this clapped out minibus down to the seafront.

Adorable houses along the seafront.

Our second beach day was Wednesday.

Pure spur of the moment.

It had been raining all day but suddenly stopped around four.

So we decided to go to Mwnt beach, which is the beach of my childhood.

We've been visiting this same area of Wales for around 9 years now,

so this beach has so many memories
(The most vivid was when we found a dead seagull in the sand!!)

Gorgeous Mwnt Beach from the cliff top.

 The beach is at the bottom of a huge cliff face. 

And this time there was no shuttle service! 

Just a huge number of stone steps, and I tell you,

after going up them for the sixth time I was starting to feel the burn!

We stayed at the beach through the whole of the late afternoon.
As it started to get a bit chillier around 7 o'clock

I went and joined Mum and Nigel who were sat on the cliff.

You see they had the camping stove, so I could have a cup of tea! 

As the evening drew to a close, we witness the most beautiful of sunsets.

And we got to watch the bottlenosed dolphins that this area are reknowed for.

I couldn;t get a photo as they were too fast for the shutter on my camera,

but they were diving beautifully, completely coming out of the water!

What was pretty special was that for the whole hour they were around,

almost everyone on the beach stopped what they were doing and watched.

The whole beach sharing in one magical moment of nature!

All in all we did have a lovely time and I'm glad I went!

But I'm also glad to be back in my bed with phone reception!

Do you and your family camp?
If so, what do you think?
And if not, why not??

a delayed introduction to our newest family member...

Hey Guys...

Meet Blue.

He's a labrador collie-cross.

He's our new puppy.

Well, not so new now. We've had him just over a month.

He appeared whilst I was in London and so he was a pleasant surprise.

In that month we have found out many things...

1) He's really good at falling asleep in any and all positions...

He can just flop on to the sofa and fall asleep instantly.

How he does it we're not quite sure.

2) Don't be fooled by his puppy dog eyes and how cute he looks when he sleeps.

He's a terror. His favourite pass time is barking at 5 o'clock in the morning.

And finally ..

3) He knows he should pee outside, and yet he taunts me

by peeing just infront of the open back door.

I mean seriously Blue! Cut me some slack!!

But, whilst he is a noisy, peeing machine, I love him.

In the evening when he's all tired out he's so cute!

we're all going on a summer holiday...

Mwnt Beach at Sunset

... Well actually I've just been on holiday.

No where fancy I'm afraid,

just five days camping in deepest, darkest Wales!

It had it's ups and it's downs,

but that's a story for a proper post.

This is just a pop in to let you know I'm still here.

Did you miss me?

twenteen

Thursday was my birthday. My twentieth birthday.

And I had the whole family make 'old' related jokes;

so I decided it was I was turning 'twenteen'.

Being a teenager has had some downs, but it's definitely had some huge ups.

Waving goodbye to them means waving goodbye to my childhood.

And I need to learn to embrace the fact I'm getting older,

more mature if you will.

Something I didn't ever think I'd do! Haha!

Despite all this, I decided to have a little family get together.

The weather was horrendous in the morning,

however by the time that my grandparents and best friend arrived

it had all cheered up and the sun was blaring!

Mum and Grandma had, without meaning to, coordinated their wrapping paper!!

I love this heart pattern from Emma Bridgewater,

I received the mug in this pattern for my last birthday!!

The presents inside the wrapping were just as wonderful!

I received 6 hearts for my decorative wall (post to come soon),

some beautiful fairy lights,

books galore and a new Emma Bridgewater mug!!

As for birthday cake, we had plenty of choice.

Porscha brought over the little cupcakes that were incredibly sinful!!

And tasted soooo good!!

The big cake was made with a slimming recipe that I got from my class!

And even though I was sceptical at first, it tasted lovely.

And it was filled with tonnes of gorgeous fruit,

so it was very healthy!!

Even though it didn't want this birthday,

I did have a wonderful day with my friends and family.

I didn't want it to end!!

lovely london

What with all the madness going on in London at the moment,

I thought now would be a perfect time to show the lovely time

Ollie and I had only a week ago!

You can read about what we had planned here!

sunday, 31st july

Our first day started nice and early for an 8 o'clock bus. Owch.

And then we had a nightmare getting through Victoria station,

with a 55 minute wait for oyster cards.

However, on the other side of this hideous wait

was my wonderful aunt, uncle and two small cousins!

Ollie and I spent the early afternoon babysitting,

but then we were allowed out and into London!!

So we went to....

Covent Garden, hurrah!

I loved all the street entertainment that was going on.

Lots of "human statues" {some better than other}

a VERY grumpy magician,

a comedy duo doing circus acts,

and above - a dog in a basket; something I've never seen!!

We had a mooch around some of the stalls and the independent shops,

we stumbled upon the cutest ice cream parlour called "The Icecreamists"

and between us chose a scoop of 'the vanilla monologues' and 'sex, drugs & choc'n'roll'.

We were worried that being a sunday night,

that we wouldn't have much time before the shops started to close,

but when we left around 8 o'clock everything was still in full swing.

Which was just what we wanted!

monday, 1st august

Monday was the most jam packed day of my life;

river cruise, london eye, yo! sushi lunch, harrods,

bistro pub dinner and a westend show.

And lots and lots of walking!

We had another early start, as we wanted to get our tickets

for the eye and the cruise early because we knew there would be huge queues!

Once we had our tickets we had time to kill until our cruise

so we walked along the embankment next to the Thames.

Along the embankment they had a festival

celebrating the 'festival of Britian'.

Ollie and I had our photo taken in a little photo booth

and had fun looking at the decorated beach houses that were there.

For our River Cruise, we were given a wonderful air conditioned boat

that even had an on board bar!

Originally I was disappointed it wasn't open topped,

but after seeing them packed on like sardines I changed my mind!

There was a bit where we could go outside,

and we took a few photos with the London Bridge,

but soon retreated back to the cool!

Straight after we started queuing for the London Eye

as we expected a long wait, but were pleasantly surprised

that we got put in the short queue! Amazing!

I've been on the Eye before, but it was Ollie's first.

But the experience is always amazing.

I find it interesting to realise that everything in London is so close

because you can often feel detached when you're on and off the tube.

Plus the views are amazing!

Next up in our busy day was a trip to Harrods,

my favourite part is the food courts - especially the chocolate displays.

I've been to Harrods once before, but this time

we discovered rooms that I didn't before.

Like the technology room - which was Ollie's heaven.

And also the chocolate bar, where we had the nicest hot chocolate ever!!

Finally in our jam packed day was a trip to the theatre

to see wonderful show Wicked.

I didn't have any idea what the plot was about,

which was really rather nice as everything was a surprise!

The whole show was so well acted, and the singing impeccable.

And the end the audience gave them a standing ovation.

It also brought me to tears; I definitely welled up!

When we finally got home, we'd been out of the house

for over 14 hours.

Safe to say we collapsed in bed!

tuesday, 2nd august

Our last day in London had been left to do the things

we came up with during our stay.

We went to Westfield shopping center

with my aunt and it was like another world!

So many gorgeous shops - it has the only ugg shop in the UK!

Next up we went to the National History Museum

to visit the dinosaurs as Ollie has wanted to go since he was small.

I remember the exhibit when I was little,

they all seemed bigger, but that's probably because I was smaller!!

Our final stop was a trip to tea room 'Bea's of Bloomsburys'

which I had been eagarly awaiting the whole time.

And I wasn't disappointed.

For my tea I chose 'Earl Grey Supreme' which knocked my socks off

and we enjoyed the lightest scones I've ever tasted,

homemade lemon marshmallow,

raspberry meringue, tiny brownies,

and two beautiful cupcakes there were literally works of art!

After this we had a mad sprint to the bus station to catch the bus home

as the tubes had huge delays on them; stupid London tubes.

But we made it!

Even though London is rioting now, it is a beautiful city

full of culture and history.

It makes me sad that people would seek to destroy it.

But this won't stop me going back, I'm in love with London too much!