Sunday 30 March 2014

Home Is Where The Heart Is

I have been SUCH a bad blogger recently. I haven't posted in a bout 2 weeks, and I even missed the last #2014BloggerChallenge topic. So to make up for it, I'm posting this week's challenge a little early (and the fact that I've had such a good weekend I feel the need to write about it!).

This week's challenge is to show my week/day in pictures. I opted for the weekend instead, as I spent the weekend visiting my hometown for Mother's Day. I have a very love/hate relationship with this place. I live on the border of East London/Essex, in a pretty shoddy area! I mean, they say that the public transport is amazing, but when I opted to walk home instead of waiting 7 minutes for a bus from the station, not one single bus had passed me on the 20 minute walk. Win for me. Loss for TFL.

I got the 12:25 train on Friday from Canterbury to Stratford International, and had an obligatory stop at Westfield on my walk through to the other station, where I bought some loooooverly flowers for my mum (I also cut them and put them in a vase for when she got home!).


After a little bit of retail therapy, I got the train to my local station, and walked the 20 minutes home, with just my music and this cat for company!


Some of the best things about this walk is seeing the TFL bus stops and buses, instead of the regular ones in Canterbury, There's just something about a red bus... And of course, the out-of-business Blockbusters shop that's been closed for the last 5 years and still hasn't been replaced!




One of my favourite things about being home, is the big TV in the living room, and the ability to watch programmes other than what's on Freeview. In my case, that's non-stop Friends episodes on Comedy Central! 


After spending a mere hour in the comfort of my home, I was rushed out to a night of yet more retail therapy to Lakeside (and IKEA!) with some of my favourite people from home; my friends Rebekah, Jaymi, Sophia & Jordan. Believe me when I say we're a very strange group of friends...


After taking our #100HappyDays pictures for the day (you can check out my progress on my Instagram page!) , I got one of my favourite smoothies from Boost, Strawberry Squeeze, which I always miss very dearly when I'm at uni! It's like a fruit party in your mouth!



After a long day of travelling and shopping, I turned in for the night in my childhood bedroom. Although I'm now used to the luxury of a double bed at uni, there's something comforting about sleeping in your old room...


I was picked up on Saturday morning by Sophia, where we treated ourselves to ANOTHER shopping trip! Apparently I was feeling quite frivolous this weekend! Though I did buy some really lovely summery things... And Marvel... 


We then got Chinese in the evening and watched Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (a weekly tradition when I was younger!), and evened out the junk food with a yummy bowl of strawberries and cream! 


And now for Sunday: Mother's Day! My sister couldn't make it down until Monday, so me and my brother took my Mum to Westfield for something to eat. We decided on the Chicago Rib Shack, which is basically an American diner-style takeaway that specialises in BBQ food (ribs, chicken wings and burgers!). I ordered ribs and wings with homemade lemonade. Honestly, it baffled me that it was part of a food court - it was worthy of being a real restaurant!


I had such a lovely weekend at home - I hadn't been back since Christmas! As much as I love uni, it's nice to just get away from that atmosphere for a while, and spend some quality time with my old friends and family. I also managed to get my mum involved in some selfies! ;)



How did you spend your weekend? I hope it was as lovely as mine was! 

Monday 17 March 2014

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside...

Here in the UK, we're so used to the crappy weather, the wind and the rain, that we tend to get a little overexcited when the sun comes out! We've been lucky enough to have had a pretty good couple of weeks weather-wise. The sun's been out, it's got a lot warmer (warm enough to walk outside without the big fluffy coats!), it's like summer's come early!

My lovely mama came to visit me at uni yesterday, so we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went to the beach! How often do we get the opportunity to do that?!




With plenty of sunny days still in store, I can't wait to spend more days at the seaside, with friends, family, chips and ice cream. Perfect <3

Tuesday 11 March 2014

Strange, Strange Child...

I was having one of those nights where you think of completely random moments in your life, when it struck me just how weird my childhood was. Not in the sense that I was brought up any different than anyone else, in fact I'd say my mum did a pretty fantastic job of bringing me up. But more in the sense that some of the things I did as a child were pretty strange.

Me, my brother and sister had pretty wild imaginations. There's one particular memory I have of when me and my brother were in the back of my mum's car, during a 7 hour drive to Cornwall. Most other children our age would have slept, or read a book, or just watch the other cars go by. Us? We'd pretend that we were sat in the back of a limo, being driven to our mansions. Our water bottles were glasses of champagne, and the pouch in the back of the front seats were actually letter-boxes. Because it's completely possible to receive mail through the front seat of a moving vehicle...

As a child, I was always fascinated with fashion models, and the how they could make inanimate objects like clothes, look so beautiful. I used to doodle women in clothes for fun, and there's one memory in particular that always makes me laugh. My lovely Nan lives in Manchester, so I only get to see her about once a year. There was a running joke in my family that because of my fascination, it was inevitable that I would end up being a model myself (major LOLs). One summer, my Nan came to visit, and I remember her sat at the end of my garden, while I strutted up and down the path in whatever random items I could find. I specifically remember walking round with a scarf tied around my arm...

Me and my sister had these games that we would play together, creating characters for ourselves and putting them in different situations. One of them was a wedding. One of us would pretend that we were getting married, and would walk along the "aisle" (it was really a little walkway we made my clearing the floor of our bedroom...), and kiss thin air... Although the games we played were awesome, I think the best thing about them has to be the many names we came up with. Humans, People and Fumans were some of the best names for each situation and their different characters. Again, strange children we were...

Me and my brother used to love playing in the garden during the summer. We'd get into our swimming costumes and throw water down the slide we had at the end of our garden, then slide down it, pretending that we were in a water park. We had a sandpit filled with buckets, spades, and moulds, and a swing that we'd play with. But no matter how much fun we were having, the sight of a bee or wasp, and we would run straight for the back door, lock it, and refuse to go outside for the rest of the day...

My mum told me a story about when I was about 3 or 4. She'd be clearing up the house, and find random bits of half-eaten food that I'd apparently hidden to save for later...

One of my ultimate favourite childhood memories was this one situation that me, my brother and sister would act out. It NEVER got old. The Restaurant Scene. We had a play kitchen set that we'd put in the hall, and set up a table in the living room. We would take it in turns being the customer, the waiter and the chef (my favourite by far was the customer). We'd play out a scene of ordering the food, but instead of pretending to enjoy it, I loved to play the spoilt brat and would throw things on the floor and demand a refund, then storm out telling the waiter that they had lost a customer.

I'm realising now that the majority of these things won't be found funny by anyone but my family, but thinking about these memories makes me so nostalgic! I couldn't have asked for a better childhood, although I'm starting to wonder why my siblings and I aren't actors or something...