Guess Who's Back...

Hands up...who continued singing along with my title!  It's been a while hasn't it...sorry about that!

I don't really have any legitimate reason for being absent for so long from my blog.  It's been very busy at work the last few months which definitely had something to do with it, but I could have made time to at least drop in a hello so I'm sorry about that!  Thank you all for sticking with me, and hello to the new followers I've gained despite not actually updating!

I feel a bit crap that I've missed out on all of the Christmas posting opportunities again this year.  My laptop has completely died now - sad times.  I'm currently tapping away on Liam's laptop hoping that he won't notice that I've downloaded plenty of new imagery and a copy of GIMP onto his laptop to edit my photos.  I had Photoshop on mine, along with all of my layouts for my wishlist posts etc so that makes me a bit sad that I'll have to recreate something similar!  I don't really know how GIMP compares to Photoshop either having used that for so long - anyone use this?  Please leave your tips in the comments below!

Apart from that...I do have some pretty good news!  Liam and I celebrated our ten year anniversary together at the beginning of the month.  2014 has been a pretty awesome year.  We bought our first house, celebrated ten years together and, just throwing it out there...Liam asked me to marry him.

Adventure Time: Holbeton & Grandad Michaels Mount

Dealing with the death of my Grandad was something that the whole family struggled with.  He became ill very suddenly, and by the time doctors realised what was wrong, there was nothing that could have been done to help him in time.  He passed away a few years ago now, but only recently did we take him to his final resting place.

His ashes were living at my Grandma's house, until his sister who lives in New Zealand was able to come over to help scatter his ashes, as she was unable to come over to the UK to attend his funeral.  It wasn't until my Grandad became so poorly, and even after his death that I really knew much about his side of the family.

My Grandad and his family came from Devon; Holbeton in fact.  My Great Grandparents moved to Lincolnshire during the war; my Great Grandad was given a choice of three places to go, and chose Lincolnshire as it was the most rural, and they hoped it would be where the least destruction was.

I had never been to Holbeton before, so driving down last Thursday was completely surreal.  It was so strange going to a place where such strong family ties lie, even though I knew nothing about the village, but felt so drawn to the village itself.  It was absolutely beautiful - the cottage we rented for the few nights we were down there was the cutest thing I'd seen in my life, and the view from the top of the hill was just fields as far as the eyes could see.  It was completely serene, and like I said, it kind of felt like home.  I didn't feel out of place at all, kind of like I belonged there secretly.

Whilst we were there, we took the opportunity to visit the church yard to see my Mum's Grandad and some more family which I didn't know I had.  It was actually quite sad to see that the graveyard, pictured above, was so overgrown on the areas that were away from the road.  Our family were hidden amongst the overgrown areas, so my Great Aunty spent some time tending to her Father's grave.  We also spent the evenings in the local pub, where we met even more family - my Grandad's cousins who still live in the village, and again, who I didn't even know existed.  We also walked past the home where my Grandad was born and raised, but obviously didn't 'visit' or take photos seeing as it's somebody elses house right now.

The most special part of the whole journey was visiting St. Michael's Mount.  My Great Grandad and Nana both used to work at St Michael's Mount as a Footman and a Chambermaid, where they met.  Family legend has it, that my Great Grandad scaled the drainpipe at St Michael's Mount, crept into my Great Nana's room and my Grandad was conceived there.  My Grandad's name was Michael, after the Mount, and here is his final resting place.  

 

I'd never visited the Mount before, but from now on I'll be sure to take my own family one day to tell the stories of our family, and of course, to visit Grandad Michael's Mount.

Adventure Time: We Bought A House!

Today is the day I've been waiting for for what seems like years!  Liam and I have finally bought our first home together!  I've been absolutely dying to tell everybody the news, but we both decided to keep our plans under wraps until everything had been confirmed.  Well...I'm pleased to write that everything has all gone through, and we finally have a date for our move in!  We should get the keys to our first home on Friday!

Honestly, it has all come out of nowhere.  We had always planned that we would start looking for a house this year - it's been a year since I left University, and my job became permanent and contracted at the start of April.  We had intended to start looking, but did not at all expect to find something we loved so soon!

I might have given away some clues as my Pinterest board has been brimming with home décor ideas and DIY decorations and furniture the past few weeks, but I am so excited!  I can't even put it into words.  Liam and I have been together almost ten years, so finally living in a place of our own has been a very long time coming!  We've kind of lived together before, and by kind of, I mean I crashed at his flat when he was at University for five days a week so I could see him more as well as walk to college instead of having to get the train every morning.  But now, we have our perfect little house!  Well actually...we have a perfect little cottage!

With both Liam and I coming from a creative background, we both have so many ideas for what we want our house to look like!  Our cottage is eighteenth century, so we feel like we have a theme to keep, but we also want it to represent the two of us...'shabby chic' (I hate that phrase so much!) and vintage style just isn't our thing, so we're looking forward to giving a good twist on what is expected!  I don't know how you feel about design and interiors, but you can expect to see lots of wishlists, ideas and DIY's being thrown your way!  Now...bombard me with great websites for homewares as we are starting completely from scratch!

Any advice you'd like to give us?  Where is the best place you've found for bargain homewares?

Adventure Time: Valentines Week

Well I have been taking the mick a bit haven't I!  Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I have been a very busy bee!  The week before last, I had a very busy week at work and lots of deadlines to meet, so blogging was the last thing on my mind when I got home, I just wanted to sit and do nothing which, apart from going to some gym classes, I did!

Last week, Liam and I both booked the week off from work so we could spend some time together and just mess around doing whatever we fancied!  We usually don't do much for Valentines Day because we're just not bothered, maybe a meal out somewhere or something, but this week off fell on the week of Valentines Day, so we called it our Valentines Week!

One of the things we had planned to do was finish our snow boarding lessons, so we booked those at Xscape in Castleford.  Our predictable hotel choice was Premier Inn - we stay in one at every possible opportunity!  It was great for getting to Xscape because it was just across the car park.  We didn't have snow boarding booked until the Monday, so we managed to get some cocktails in on the Sunday evening!  We started at Burgers & Cocktails by Giraffe where it happened to be Happy Hour!  We had an amazing Peach Melba Ice Cream Smoothie thing when we were there last, so thought we'd try out their alcoholic treats!  My favourite was definitely the Bubble Gum Slurpee!

We then had our tea at TGI Fridays (and again on Monday...) and a few more cocktails in there.  We don't have a TGI Fridays nearby where we live, so going there is always a treat for us!  We had nachos to share, and my usual choice of garlic chicken with a cheesey mash, and Liam had a burger.  Once again, I broke a blogging rule and didn't photograph my food before eating it, but I have zero self control.  After our meal, we went to the arcades and played on a few penny pushers and a toy grabber where I WON.  Never in my life have I won on one of these, but here I am with my prize.  I literally screamed when I realised it wasn't going to be let go.  What a saddo!

Snowboarding was amazing, but so tiring!  You aren't allowed a camera in the SnoZone area, so unfortunately I have no pictures!  We did our first two levels in April last year for Liam's birthday, and because I started working seven days a week shortly after, it got hard to get back to Castleford to finish off our lessons!  It was three hours of falling over, skidding about and knee bending with maybe a little skill thrown in!  To top it all off, ITV News were filming there during our lesson because of the Winter Olympics so if you're in that region, you might have seen me in the background of an interview with my boarding boot stuck on my board!!

Liam managed to pass both his level three and four, but I have to go back and do my level four again because the steeper slope was just too scary!  When you snowboard, to slow yourself down you need to lean into the slope because if you lean away from the hill, you speed up - it was a bit hard to get my head around, but on the smaller gradients I was feeling pretty confident!

Over the week, we didn't really do much, just enjoyed spending time together and watching cartoons!  But we did start to enjoy ourselves cooking our evening meals.  I got Liam a burger recipe book for Christmas, and we used it for the first time this week.  We made cheese stuffed burgers, but also slipped some bacon in with the cheese.  I swear they were the best burgers I've ever had - so tasty, I don't even have an after photo, but that just gives me an excuse to make them again and share our adapted recipe with you all!

On the Wednesday, we decided that we would take a trip to Cleethorpes for a day by the sea.  We didn't go for long, but had some seaside fish and chips and spent our afternoon in the arcades on our favourite ever penny pusher - PacMan Pac Ball.

Saturday was another busy day for us!  Our friend Katie has just moved house, so we went over for a house warming party and a night out in Sheffield.  We went to Leadmill, had a few too many drinks, went on a bucking bronco (twelve whole seconds I managed...pretty impressed!) and then got taxis back to hers!  The next day we didn't leave until quite late, but spent the day eating, obsessing over milkshakes and then played some Nintendo 64!

I'm back at work now, which is horrendous having had an amazing week off, and I can see this week going really slowly, but I have lots of things to blog about so I'm sure I'll end my days on a high!  Apart from when I am at the gym, working off the possible half stone I gained whilst eating like a King for a week.

What did you do for Valentines Day?

Adventure Time: Graduation

I am pretty late doing this post considering that my graduation was actually at the beginning of September!  You might have already seen some photos if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, if not, links are to the right, come follow and I promise you get to see pictures of my dog, cups of tea and some make up thrown in for good measure.

It's Freshers week at the University of Lincoln this week - this is where I went and I loved it.  In fact, I beyond loved it.  I almost wish that I had failed a year just so I got to go back for another year - and not even to be a lazy, bed-ridden student!  I want to go back to my classes!  If you're looking for a uni this year, look no further because Lincoln is amazing and you need to go.  Plus, you get to graduate at Lincoln Cathedral - amazing.

I graduated on the 5th September and it was the sunniest day ever!  So hot, especially under all those layers.  I spent ages planning what to wear and I knew I wanted a dress, and some pointy heels.  Obviously you get your black cap and gown, but the Lincoln colours for the hood was bright blue and yellow.  Lucky for me, cobalt blue has been a trending colour this season so there was plenty to choose from!  I went with a dress from Oasis, and you can find it and see it better online here - it was £45 but I think I got it with a student discount offer.

I wore ASOS Pasha Heels which were exactly what I was looking for, and for a bargain price of £25.  I even managed student discount on these too!  But...wide footed ladies, these are not for you.  Christ these are narrow, I had to full on talc my fat feet up to wedge them in the shoes because I didn't have time to find other shoes which were perfect in all aspects, including fit!  They were killing my feet by the end of the day!

I kept accessories simple, and opted for a gold cuff necklace from Dorothy Perkins.  I can't find this on the website to show you, but I believe it cost £10, and I've had a lot of wear out of it since I bought it!  Before I took these photographs, I actually had my first proper use of my Enrapture Heated Rollers, which I loved!  I am a total hair novice, but these were amazing and after a bit of practice, were pretty easy to use!  Sadly though, my hairspray didn't keep the curls in and they dropped pretty quickly...but my hair did look briefly amazing compared to my normal bolt straight hair.

Are you applying to University, or have you just graduated?  What do you think of my outfit?