Aphrodites Boutique Lodge | Two Years of Love ♥

 

Hello, I'm going to try and keep this pretty short and sweet and not get too carried away in a super soppy ramble, no one wants to be feeling queasy while reading a blog post, do they!

 

Yesterday was the 'official date' marking the two year anniversary of being the luckiest girlfriend in the world. With this being so close to Christmas it seems a little bit silly to buy each other a gift so instead we made the decision to have a night away last week in a luxury, local(ish) hotel as celebration and a pre-Christmas treat. I say 'local-ish' because it's only around 20 minutes drive from where I live but people come from miles to stay here; the couple infront of us at reception had come from Essex to stay until Boxing Day. It's in Windermere, in the Lake District, and the hotel is called Aphrodites Boutique Lodge - You can find their website here: link. It's pretty pricey for just one overnight stay but everybody needs to have a splurge and indulge themselves every once in a while. We halved the cost and called it our 'gift to each other'.

 

Each of the rooms are 'themed', which some people might find tacky, but we just thought that it was a bit of a novelty and something different to your standard hotel room. There's themes such as The Flintstones, James Bond, Cleopatra, Robin Hood, Pine Cabin, etc, and even the ever so cringe 'Love Shack Suite'. Try telling your family you're staying in there ;) !! Our choice of room was the Tarzan and Jane Suite (when I say 'our'.. it was my choice really), and it included themed decor as you can see from the pictures above and had a sauna in the room (picture on the top right), along with a jacuzzi bath tub complete with a TV. I now have my heart set on my own TV in the bath! Oh and I also took pleasure in pinching the complimentary Molton Brown toiletries provided.

 

We arrived on Sunday night, relaxed, made use of the sauna and the bath and the giant TV but decided against going for a dip in the swimming pool. It was Christmas Eve Eve and we wanted to get in the Christmas spirit so watched 'Christmas With The Kranks' sprawled out on the humongous bed with a Rekorderlig in hand totally loving life! We went for our evening meal at a place called Bodgea in Bowness and went a little overboard on the tapas - they were a quite a lot bigger than we anticipated so our 7 'mini meals' was probably enough to feed four people, not two! No point in wasting it of course so we stuffed our faces and practically had to roll ourselves back to the hotel. I don't want to chatter on for too much longer, but it was absolute heaven to be able to wake up on Christmas Eve and be all cosied up in this gorgeous hotel room lying next to the person I love most the most (hehe).

 

 

 

We wanted to do something nice yesterday but both of us have come down with symptoms of the flu and I didn't feel up to doing much unfortunately :( John snuck up early and nipped out before I woke up to go and buy bacon and sausages and cooked up an absolute feast for breakfast! Hashbrowns, fried egg, bacon, beans, toast, sausage, and whatever else is part of an fry up was sitting there on a plate ready for me - I feel so bad that I was too ill to eat much more than a few mouthfuls! He also bought me a lovely bunch of flowers that you can see in the picture above. We'd had a table booked for an evening meal but gave it a miss to be able to stay warm on the sofa looking like death! It is a shame, but it's not that it matters much anyway because of course it's not about spending lots of money or going out anywhere fancy, I just think it's nice to do something special every once in a while to break the mould and what better excuse than the anniversary of two years of being together and happy?

 

We literally have no photos of us together except from hideous joking around ones, or the ones taken when we were on holiday in Marbella, so I just put together a little collage of Marbella photos to show you our happy, smiling faces! Can you tell I've just found a new collage making site that I really love? I'm not gonna be soppy, I promise, but I just want to say that it's been the best two years of my life, I've never been happier than I am right now, and I'm very loved up. :)

 

♥

20th Birthday Presents

 

 

Hello my little lovely jubblies. I'm coming to you with a biiig smile on my face today after having another absolutely amazing weekend and have been spoilt so, so rotton! As some of you may know, it was my birthday on Friday and my nearest and dearest definitely treated me well, the little gems! I've hit the ripe old age of 20 now and have left those wonderful teenage years behind me *sob*, so as I'm an old prune now and this was no milestone age then I was expecting about 3 cards with a tenner shoved inside them and maybe some flowers from my boyfriend.. I didn't really expect to be showered with so many wonderful gifts and be up to my eyeballs in new and exciting things to try!

I feel like a spoilt little princess.

A very grateful, spoilt little princess.

 

Just a little disclaimer that this is no way intended to be any kind of 'bragging' or 'show off' kind of post at all, as it is basically just a haul.. apart from it wasn't me that picked the items out.. or paid for them. I personally like reading these kind of posts that other people do after their birthdays because more often than not they're full to the brim with beauty bits which excite me and also they're great for gift ideas so this could give you some hints and tips if you've not started Christmas shopping yet!

 

When I first caught wind of these advent calendars from Ciate way back in October I had my heart well and truely set on getting one - what could be better than opening a door to a bottle of nail varnish every single morning leading up to Christmas Day?! I puppy dog eyed my mummy if she could get me one as a birthday present and tryed my best to justify the steep price tag with the fact that it contains exclusive shades and and 4 bottles of the ever so famous caviar pearls. She finally said 'yes'.. but then let on to me that they had all sold out before she had chance to order one, allowing me to moan and sulk that I'd missed the chance and she well and truely threw me off the scent that she had snapped one up for me. Little minx. I was jumping for joy when I realised she'd tricked me and I ripped open that yellow Selfridges box and admired my new Ciate Mini Mani Month and all of it's glory with a great big smile on my face. Yay!
 

The Benefit 'How To Look The Best At Everything' gift set pictured above was from my younger sister and contains minis of everything that you need to create the ideal complexion and base with the Pore-fessional primer, Hello Flawless foundation, 2 shades of Boi-ing concealer, and Me Vain? setting powder and it comes in a super cute old fashioned book style packaging - LOVE. The earrings were from my boyfriend's parents and the elephant Pandora charm was from my Grandma. She also gave me some money with strict instructions that I 'must treat myself to something pretty' with it, and treating myself is of course one of my favourite things to do so I don't think I'll find that too hard!

 

Below is a 'Topshop Hottie', i.e. a hot water bottle, that I got from one of the girls that I live with at uni and she said that she picked this one out because it's a wolf.. but when he has his hood up he's a cosy little sheep - aw! Now, I know that the saying 'wolf in sheep's clothing' means something to do with pretending you're something you're not?.. but lets just pretend it's nothing to do with that and it's nothing but a cute little wolf with a fluffy white jumper on! This is adorable and who wouldn't want to receive this as a present?



The little collage above is all the gifts I got from my two best friends at university; how generous? Rachael decorated our house with 'Happy birthday' banners and even got me a little cupcake from Greggs and put a candle in it for me - aw! As if a gorgeous clutch bag from River Island wasn't enough there was a nice purple box absolutely full of little goodies! They definitely satified my beauty cravings as well as my massive sweet tooth! So many sweets haha. Soap and Glory goodies, earrings and a ring, eyelashes, Rihanna perfume, a Skittles candle (mmm) and more!

 

The collage below is presents from my boyfriend. I asked if there was any particular order that I should open them and his only specification was the one that needed to be last.. and it was the socks which confused me why these had to be last until I realised that inside one of the socks was a little Pandora box! It's the white mother of pearl 'Love Me' charm, and he said he didn't want it to be too obvious what it was straight away so tried to disguise what the box would be by putting it inside pair of socks haha! He also got me a Body Shop gift set with scrubs, body butters, soaps and shower gels and moisturisers in and although I've never known what 'Moringa' is before it turns out to be a scent I really like - it's fresh and floral so I'll be saving these for spring and summer, but the coconut body milk has already been put into regular use.

 

I think the biggest surprise was definitely a camera, there was no hints or clues about this one! I don't actually own a camera - I steal my mum's to take my blog pictures and have to take them in bulk too because she uses her camera all the time, but now I have my very own! It has lots of fancy settings on it that I'm not quite sure what I'm doing with yet but I've had a good play about with it and it has good focus on close up pictures which I really like. That's why this post is so photo heavy - I've been trialling my new camera!

 

Andddd on top of all that he also got me some sweets and one of THE best onesies that I have ever seen.. ever! It's from Next and I'd spotted it before and told him that I'd never buy it myself as it's expensive for a onesie - and I wasn't even hinting! Safe to say I want to live in this now for the next few weeks, it so amazingly cosy and warm, and look how well I match my new hot water bottle!!

 

I like sweets more than I like cosmetics and I think people may have figured this out! My teeth are going to fall out after I've worked my way through this great big pile of sweets - mmmm!

 

♥

 



Weekend in Liverpool: Michael McIntyre Live Arena Tour

I hope you all had a very good weekend and are enjoying your week - only 4 weeks til Christmas! Despite being almost 20, I am definitely still like an excited small child around the festive season with my daily countdown and extreme love for all things Christmas related! I had one of the best weekends that I've had in a reaaally long time and have decided to share it with you all, hope you enjoy..

 

For my boyfriend's 19th birthday present (in August!) I booked two tickets to see Michael McIntyre's 'Show Time' arena tour and an overnight stay in the Novotel Hotel in Liverpool city centre. We stayed in the Novotel last year and both absolutely loved it and enjoyed the luxury of a pricey 'executive' hotel room so I thought it would be a nice idea to take a trip down memory lane and stay there again, and also it's best to stick with what you know sometimes - I didn't want to risk picking a hotel that turned out not to be so great so played it safe. The hotel was just as amazing as we both remembered it and is in a prime location; one minute walk from the shopping centre and about five minutes to the Albert Docks and Echo Arena.

 

On the Friday we arrived, checked in and as it was only 4pm thought it would be the ideal time to hit Primark as maybe it would be quieter than Saturday morning and I was right, it was busy still.. but definitely bareable and gave me the chance to peacefully mooch around all three floors and spend a considerable sum of money... :D After treating ourselves to some Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a quick bite to eat we got ready and went to the Echo Arena. I was so excited for this! I tried to explain it to my friends as 'you know if you watch a comedian on telly and it's a bit like 'ha ha that was funny'.. well seeing them live definitely makes it a lot more like 'hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha I can't breathe, oh now I'm crying!' kind of funny and I can safely say that there were lots of laughs, it was a brilliant show. We planned on having a couple of drinks in Concert Square when the show finished but we were both just too tired and all I wanted was to get warm and snuggle up in bed. We wandered back across the docks and through Liverpool One having a peek at the ice skating and just taking in all of the festivity and Christmas decorations - it was a lovely romantic little walk.

Waiting To Be Picked Up | Wheel On Albert Docks | Michael McIntyre | Novotel Bed

The Lovely Lad Himself | City Centre | Christmas Tree | Christmas Lights & Decorations

 

The next day we hit the shops about midday and my bank account took a beating ..oops! I'm not sorry though because I got myself lots of lovely new things and made a start on Christmas shopping. I happily bought myself a pair of new disco pants in navy by Glamorous that I found in Bank with a little bonus of 20% off everything in store that weekend! What wasn't so great was that Tulisa's big chavvy face was slapped on the front of the shopping bag and I had to carry it around all day. Then I spotted Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant and suggested that we went there for lunch but when we went in they told us it'd be a 45 minute wait and our tummies were rumbling so unfortunately we didn't get to try it out.



 Shopping | Buying Christmas Presents | Decorations in Liverpool One | Jamie Oliver's Italian

Instead of Jamie's Italian we instead went for lunch at Las Iguanas - somewhere that I have wanted to try out for a really long time and it definitely didn't disappoint! I got a beef 'big burrito' and John's was chicken and we shared quesadillas for a starter. The food was aaaabsolutely amazing and I'd happily go again and would now choose it over a Nandos any day. Lunch was my treat so when our waitress brought over the pin/card machine to pay she passed it straight to John and I had to embarass her by taking it back out of his hands right infront of her and opened my purse to get my card out. Don't be so stereotypical - girls can pay too!



John in Las Iguanas | Las Iguanas | Beef 'Big Burrito' | Enjoying My Lunch

 

When we arrived back home on Saturday evening we were each heading off for a night out with our friends as it was the weekend of an annual festival in my home town: The Dickensian Festival, where everybody basically dresses up in old fashioned clothes, drinks mulled wine and eats roasted chestnuts while browsing our own version of Christmas markets. The evening always promises to be a great night out because it's always so busy and I had a really good time with the girls. The next day was a typical Sunday for me with a cooked breakfast.. bacon fried egg and cheese bun - thanks John! A chill out day and then a lovely homemade roast dinner with apple crumble for dessert with John's family later on, finally topped off by watching the final episode of Prison Break and ending up a sobbing mess even though I've seen it before ..but it really is just so touching and emotional!

 

If that's not a good weekend then I don't know what is!

Super loved up and happy!

♥ ♥ ♥

A Day Out At The Zoo

Hello. If you've not seen yet then yesterday I did a post all about myself called 'Get To Know Me' and if you're somebody who's interested in knowing 'the blogger behind the blog', or you're just nosy and like to have a read about lifestyle then you can see this post here: link.
 

In yesterday's post I did point out that although I come from a beautiful area - the Lake District - it is unfortunately pretty deprived of excitement, and even though going for a trip to a lake or up a mountain is a really lovely thing to do it obviously isn't to everybody's preferences to do on a Sunday afternoon. One thing that we do boast in our area is a zoo! Technically called a 'wildlife park' it's less than 10 minutes in the car from my house and has monkeys, rhinos, giraffes, etc.. so it's an exciting place to visit, no matter how old you are. We don't have a Primark but we do a have a zoo!

 

We all know that when winter comes around daylight hours are shorter and the air can be bitterly cold, meaning bad business for a zoo owner. Because of this, South Lakes Wildlife Park has free admission between November and February and asks for donations to keep the park running instead of a compulsary entry fee. As it was a nice day I convinced my boyfriend to take a Sunday afternoon trip to the zoo with me seeing as it's free and only down the road.

 

Here are a few snaps from our day:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now it's time for a cosy Sunday night in, with roast chicken for dinner, apple crumble for dessert and then a cup of tea in bed watching the final few episodes of Prison Break.

Hope you have all had a good weekend!

♥



'What I Got My Boyfriend For His Birthday'

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I know that this isn't in any way related to beauty, make-up, hair, fashion (ok, there is one item of clothing that I'm going to show) or anything else that my blog is typically about, but I am assuming that most of my readers are beautiful females and that a large chunk of you are likely to have a man in your life. In that case this post may actually be of some kind of use to you if perhaps you have a boyfriend/husband (or maybe even a brother) with a birthday or an anniversary coming up and you need some hints or ideas for what to get them.

I find buying gifts for males such a challenging task and for 19 years my dad and granddads have had to put up with a new book and a pair of socks from me on special occasions. Last August when my boyfriend turned 18 it had been the first chance I'd really had to go all out and treat him so I in in my full effort and filled a huge box with individually wrapped presents, each one numbered from 1-18. Some of these were just little things, 'stocking fillers' if you will, such a lottery tickets and a scratch card, a car air freshener, socks, boxers or a set of golf balls (golf is his passion), whereas others had a more meaningful background to them and had personal touches such as a DVD of the film that we watched on our first dates and a framed picture of us on a formal occasion (*I'm not trying to make anyone throw up by being overly soppy here!). Then there came the pricier gifts such as a new pair of trainers, a couple of Hollister tees and a bottle of Jagermeister - he did hit the legal drinking age after all - and while all of this was very fun and exciting it did mean that I had exhausted almost every gifting option on the first chance I got. Rookie mistake. Did I mention that I included a batch of homemade cookies that spelled out 'Happy 18th Birthday'?

Since then we've had Christmas 2011 and Valentines Day 2012 both of which have left me stumped for gift ideas and have settled quite boringly and unoriginally on just a new t-shirt or new jumper, often with a DVD or an Xbox game and some chocolates thrown in there too just to mix it up a bit.

So now here we again, one year on, and now my lovely lad is turning 19. Not a huge milestone or anything like that, but a birthday is a birthday and you want to celebrate it all the same. This time around I strayed away from the material gifts (slightly) and opted for something that was a little bit more of an experience - something that we could do and remember. So here is what I got him for us to celebrate him becoming another year older:

Moonpig Card

Everyone needs a card, and if you had a browse at my 'Instagram Diary of Marbella' post (link) then you are likely to recognise most of these pictures on the card. I got the extra large size as a bit of a novelty but it ended up coming to just less than £7 which is definitely more than I typically spend on a card.

Michael McIntyre Live Ticket

Something for us to do together. Something for us to remember. Something for us to get excited for. It means a road trip away to one of our favourite cities and something the promises (hopefully) to be fun and entertaining. There was a couple of other events that I could have chosen from but a lot of them were a long time in the future and this was the soonest one; two months from now, and we both enjoy Michael's humour anyway. When I showed this to my sister she was slightly confused why it said just '1x' on my DIY ticket and thought that I was making him go alone! I just meant to show that this was his ticket and I assure you that I bought a 2nd one for me to join him.

Friday Night Overnight Stay

Liverpool isn't miles and miles away from where we live, it's only about an hour and a half driving but staying over just saves the hassle of worrying about getting home late at night after the show finishes and also it means that we can blissfully spend the night in luxury and have a 'city day' on the Saturday to prolong the trip; perhaps go out somewhere fancy for breakfast and lunch with a splash of shopping in between.

Jack Wills Polo

Okay, I said I'd only slightly moved away from the materialistic gifts, ha. But what's a birthday without a new addition to your wardrobe? I do think that Jack Wills is over priced for what it is, especially when you aren't always getting what you pay for in terms of quality, but it is one of my boyfriend's favourite brands (thanks to my influence) and I picked this up in one of their sales so with some money off it did make the price a bit more reasonable.

In Time DVD

A DVD - how original and exciting - I know! We both buy each other a lot of DVDs and have filled up many of Blockbusters loyalty cards in the past, but we do spend quite a few rainy weeknights after work cuddled up and watching films while scoffing our faces with sweets, especially now that summer is bidding us farewell and the darker nights are soon to be creeping in. We saw this film at the cinema together and both LOVED  it - favourite film of the year without a doubt.

Chocolate, Sweets & Cake

Need I say more??

Also, his birthday isn't actually until Saturday which is two days from now, so I hope he doesn't see this before then and ruin the surprise ...not that he's a regular reader of my blog or anything!

♥