30 April 2013

April 2013



1| Tyneham beach in the Sunshine on Easter Monday
2| Becki and I having lots of fun and being drunk on wine at her brother's wedding
3| One of the many procrastination treats that Sophie and I have spoilt ourselves with, at the beautiful Cocoa Wonderland

I am once again up to my eyes in end-of-term related stress, so apologies for the blogging lull as standard. Tomorrow I hand in my penultimate assignment, which I have barely started so will probably be up all night having a panic attack over. By the time I do my round-up of next month I will have officially finished uni, how dreadfully frightening.

Although I am still wrapped up in essays and revision currently, I have an absolute tonne of exciting things to look forward to which are getting me through - this summer is going to be so much fun. Also I parted with thirty pounds in order to buy a ticket for my graduation ball today, which is on the 13th I believe. I have my eye on a beautiful full-length black number which I will try to persuade my Mother to contribute to when she comes over to visit at the weekend. I tried it on yesterday and felt so glamorous, I really hope that I manage to work out a way to fund it and turn a few heads before I wave goodbye to Sheffield Hallam, glass of champagne in hand. Having never been to black-tie event before, I'm really excited to twirl the night away with my partner-in-crime surrounded by handsome gentlemen in suits. We may even fork out for a room in the hotel afterwards so we can continue to pretend that we are made of money, with cheap fizzy wine and room-service breakfast. It's what me and my bestie do best.

23 April 2013


My dissertation is all done and dusted, how utterly and completely bizarre. It actually went rather swimmingly; I've definitely never been so proud of a piece of work before, nor put in so much effort on everything, down to the presentation. Fingers crossed tightly that the grade will reflect how pleased I was with it. It's a litter frightening actually being proud of a piece of work as I'll be really gutted if I haven't done very well!

Also, one month today will be my very last exam and I will wave goodbye to university forever. I'm terrified but at the same time very excited to see what the future has in store for me. I still have around 5000 words of assignments plus two exams to go, so I still need to knuckle down but this really is the home straight now. It's mad to think that in a month I will have completed a three year degree. Now my big portfolio is all handed in I can also put loads of effort into finding a job and looking for a flat here in Sheffield for next year. I'm not ready to wave goodbye just yet.

Alabama Arkansas I do love my Ma and Pa
Moats and boats and waterfalls,
Alleyways and payphone calls

Home is when I'm alone with you.
Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
 
This song/video combination is adorable, prepare for goosebumps.

16 April 2013


One week to go until hand-in day for my dissertation/portfolio. It's mad how much I still have left to do in such a short amount of time, I quite clearly will never learn from my bad decisions. Speaking of which, my head is still all in a big muddled up cloud currently, but I'm attempting to throw myself into my writing etc, rather than get tangled up down-in-the-dumps of my poor quality character judgement. But enough of all that sad stuff.

This week is shaping up to be crazy busy, squeezing a social-life into the large quantities of panic writing with a couple of shifts thrown in, to keep me on the right side of poverty for another week. Tomorrow calls for a staff night out to West Street Live, which will be hilariously rubbish, but gives me a great excuse to put productivity on hold for a little while longer. I will always favour dancing at a seedy late bar to doing anything that I should be doing.

Good luck to all of you other poor souls suffering through the trauma of a dissertation.

13 April 2013

 Calling all tea lovers

I was recently contacted by Matt and Sarah, the genius minds behind the up-and-coming LoveTea delivery service. Not dissimilar to the very popular LOVEFiLM and graze, LoveTea is a pay-monthly and receive a delicious treat in the post kind of deal. As a big tea drinker with an open mind to all sorts of new and exotic gourmet teas, I was super excited to try my first batch. The tea arrived very quickly in the post and comes with everything you need for the perfect tea experience.

This month's hand selected tea is Wild Excelsior, an Oolong tea from Paksong in Laos, and boy is it good. I drank mine black with one sugar as I always feel that a little sweetener helps to bring the flavours out of exciting teas. Along with your tea and DIY teabags, you're given a little bit of background to your treat, and how long to brew it for to get the best taste. I think I may have been a little impatient with mine, but I also piled more into the teabag than was actually needed so it worked out okay! There is more than I thought there would be in the sample packet too, I might even be kind enough to let my housemates try a little and get them on board with the tea-lovin.


I'm super excited to inform you all that LoveTea have been kind enough to offer my beautiful readers a brilliant  40% off your first month. If that isn't a good enough excuse to treat yourself with super tasty tea then I don't know what is! Hop on over to their website right away: http://www.lovetea.co/ and when you get to the checkout put KINDLYT40 into the Promo Code box. It'll work with any of the packages, so it's totally up to you how much you want to indulge. 

In other particularly exciting news, this is my 100th blog post! Thank you again to all of my friends and followers, it's a really great feeling to know that I've attracted a little interest! It's always lovely to hear from you.

12 April 2013

Film Club Fridays
Good Vibrations




Yesterday was my un-birthday (I turned exactly 21 and a half) so Sophie and I celebrated by going to the cinema and then having plenty of gins. As my headache is finally beginning to subside I'm just about managing to squeeze in my weekly film post before the clock strikes midnight.

Good Vibrations is an inspiring bio-pic about the life of Terri Hooley, the godfather of the Irish punk scene. Set amidst the war, poverty and desolation of Belfast from the 60s through to the 80s, the film captures the escape from misery that music provided for many young people, and how Hooley made so much possible for them. The film itself was super feel good and had a lot of laugh-out-loud funny moments, something that definitely grabs me in a film. Sophie and I left the cinema feeling like we were born in the wrong era and wanted to go smash some shit up. Or at least find ourselves a couple of leather-clad rebels to cause mischief with.

Check out the trailer:


You should definitely go and watch it if you get the chance, the soundtrack is killer, as you can probably imagine, and the story is really powerful. We were both suitably impressed, and I'm sure all of you will be too. This evening calls for films and sweets in bed as Sophie and I postpone our dissertation stresses for one more day, promising ourselves that tomorrow will be super productive. We'll see how that goes.

11 April 2013


Tuesday I accompanied my beautiful friend in the Silver bridesmaid dress, Becki, to her brother's wedding in Doncaster. I wore this floral maxi dress, from New Look surprisingly (I'm not usually a huge fan) with signature 90s-esque ebay goodies. I'm super pleased with the dress cause I'm sure I'll get plenty of wear out of it on the beaches of Malta when I go with my family in the summer. I also wore my Litas, but it was difficult enough getting these couple of pictures!

The wedding was lovely, and I can't thank Becki enough for inviting me. We drank a lot of red wine, blew a lot of bubbles and danced to a lot of slow romantic songs, it was as pretty as a picture. We'd decided to get the last train back to Sheffield as we both had university the next morning, which ended up being a really funny little adventure, both of us stumbling across the centre of Donny, looking for the station, in heels and pretty dresses, screaming Taylor Swift lyrics and yelling at each other in Scottish accents. Loads of cuddles for Becki for being such a babe.

I'm over 100 followers for definite now! Thank you new readers <3 I have a couple of exciting discounts to offer you within the week so keep your eyes peeled!

5 April 2013

Film Club Fridays
DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson


This week, rather than review a new release I've decided to pay tribute to one of my very favourite directors, the fantastic Wes Anderson. Stylistically, you don't get much better - I don't think there is a single director with a more recognisable house style. Everything is so very very aesthetically pleasing, central and well framed. I have a special adoration for the tracking shots which fill almost every single one of his films. In terms of content, I love his take on the "dysfunctional family" and the humour is pretty much spot on for a collection which deal with some surprisingly sensitive issues to say that on surface level they're cutesy and fun.

I find it really hard to pick a favourite as they're all so wonderful, but I think it's probably a toss-up between The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom - if you haven't seen either of those, make sure you get them watched. I had the pleasure of catching the latter at the pictures, on a particularly hot and sunny day, not at all well suited for the cinema - but it was totally worth it. I keep promising myself that I'll buy a copy on DVD and force all of my Anderson-loving friends to watch it with me.

Check out how adorable it is:


I could bore you with pages upon pages of wonderful words on this glorious man, but I'll keep it short and sweet. An Anderson-Marathon is definitely in order for a lazy day off from writing in the not too distant future. In other film related news, I am now officially a member of LOVEFiLM again! They're running a special offer at the minute where you get 3 months for the price of 1, which for the online package that I have is only £4.99, so it's a steal really! If anybody is interested in getting this couple of months free, a friend of mine works on commission for them, so it would be great to help him out by letting him pinch you as a sign-up. (How cheeky of me).

4 April 2013

A face not fit for public viewing, but I had ANOTHER fringe-trim, ain't it pretty.

A belated Happy Easter lovely readers! I was fortunate enough to hit 100 GFC followers whilst I was away but some little tyke has backed out so I'm back down to 99, rats. That being said, a big thank you to my now unofficial 100th follower Dani from Floral Danielle (I urge you check out her fantastic blog).

Dorset was exactly as I hoped it would be, a perfectly rejuvenating escape, which was over far too quickly. It was lovely to visit a couple of beaches, spend a little time with my extended family and do a lot of sleeping-in. It wasn't warm, but we did get sunshine on a couple of days, the South is always pretty magical. By avoiding any kind of work for almost a whole week now I've put even more pressure on myself for my return to Sheffield on Sunday, but it was inevitable really - I'm useless at being organised. I'm actually looking forward to getting back now, which is mainly down to a couple of very pretty faces that I'm beginning to miss quite terribly. Only a few days until the wedding too - I finally bought my dress! I'll post photos after the wedding so you can see my date and I looking fly together, but its a summery floral floor-length number, and I'm very pleased with it! Once I've been paid tomorrow I'm planning on scouring the net for a tikka or headpiece that will arrive super quickly!

My Dad has recorded a documentary on Radiohead for me to watch this evening, over another handful Baileys coffees; perfect.