Visit to Great Yarmouth

On the Wednesday of our holiday we went to Great Yarmouth. Lee and I really like going to the seaside, like when we went to Scarborough last autumn; we like to walk by the sea and play in the arcades. Not all of them were open in Great Yarmouth, it being out of season, but quite a few were. The only thing we didn't get to do was play mini golf, boo!

It was hailing on the way there and we had to slow right down

This is just to prove that I beat Lee at bowling - I scored 123 to his 119!

I also beat him at air hockey the first time, he beat me the second though.

And here he is playing House of the Dead

We drove out of Great Yarmouth heading towards Lowestoft and stopped on the seafront. There was an ice cream van so you better believe we bought ice creams and ate them in three degree weather!

I love this picture, we both look cute. It's my current profile picture on Facebook

Looking towards Great Yarmouth's dockyards on the left.

And the wide open sea on the right.

Visit to Aldeburgh and Snape Maltings

On the Tuesday of our holiday Lee and I went to Aldeburgh and Snape Maltings. We went to Suffolk in 2007 with my mum and dad, shortly before my dad died; he was very ill at the time and it was very sad and stressful. So it was nice to go back to some places and make new memories. The weather was very changeable, it was raining one minute and bright sunshine the next.

We had lunch in the Cragg Sisters Tea Room which I recommend - I had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast and a really yummy hot chocolate. We wandered into some shops and got some souvenirs and presents, and I bought a couple of Maggie Stiefvater books in a charity shop for £1.50!

I liked the pattern on the tables in the tea shop!

Fresh fish wasn't available that day unfortunately

I love working ports - fishing is so fascinating.

After we'd been to Aldeburgh we drove through Thorpeness but it was raining, so we went to Snape Maltings which we'd again been to back in 2007. I liked the craft shop, which I don't think was there last time; I bought myself a scented candle and a silver decorated R. We had cake in the cafe and I had Fentiman's rose lemonade for the first time, it was delicious! 

This is a Barbara Hepworth sculpture that they have there, I like her work and she's from my hometown

This was the pond back at our cottage, there were loads of ducks and geese. 

And two boats, for some reason. You'd need the first one to reach the second, weirdly. 

In the games room was a dartboard - I've never played darts before! 

These are my very first darts, one out of three scored....

Monday make up

I rarely wear make up, but I do like to wear it go out. I don't have loads of make up, and I own a range between cheap stuff and higher end stuff like MAC and Urban Decay. While we were on holiday I put on what is for me quite a lot of make up - concealer, mascara, eyeshadow, and lipstick. I almost never wear foundation - I'm lucky because my skin is quite clear so I only have to conceal a little bit.

I was practicing my pout

I thought this yellowy Urban Decay eyeshadow set off my eyes.

I put a slightly darker colour in my eye scoket

This was my nail polish, it's one of the Barry M Aquarium collection and I absolutely love it! It flashes between purple, gold and green.

A Lush bath

I am not a bath person. I never have a bath at home, because ours is tiny, and I rarely do anywhere else either. I don't have time for baths! I love showers, I'm a shower person. I own over twenty bottles of shower gel for crying out loud!

However, while on holiday, we had plenty of time to relax and a bath, so I planned in advance and asked my Lush guru friend Stacey to choose some bath bombs for me, since I have no clue which are good. She bought a good selection and told me to choose which I liked and she'd keep the rest (this is true friendship!). I kept most of them, actually. I think I left Sakura with her.

I used this on the Monday before getting tattooed, since you're not supposed to soak new tattoos. So I only used one of the four (five?), but they'll keep for next time I go somewhere with a decent bath. I had no clue what the Lush bombs did, so it was really fun to watch!

This bomb is called Twilight, and although it does smell of lavender, there's something citrus in there too I think. It was lovely!

Firstly the bath went pink

Then the blue starts to dissolve and the water goes purple

And here's a photo to prove that I was indeed in the bath! I actually spent ages in there, just relaxing. The bath bomb has a nice silver shimmer in it too, which stayed on my skin for a while.

New tattoos!

On our second day in Suffolk, the Sunday, we went to the supermarket to get stuff for the week and then relaxed for the whole rest of the day, watching loads of TV and films. I was working on a cross stitch and Lee did a jigsaw - so rock and roll!

However, on the Monday we went to see Lee's friend Zoe and she tattooed us! She's based in Curiosity Tattoos in Ipswich and I highly highly recommend her if you're in the area or you want to travel.

Lee wanted "You suffer but why" which is a Napalm Death lyric, Zoe drew it up. I wasn't sure what I wanted, but liked the henna design tattoos she does. Lee mentioned I should get some ivy leaves (since our cat is called Ivy) so I said those two things to Zoe and she came up with this amazing design for me. She offered to redraw any part I wanted, but I loved it just as it was. She added a couple of the edge leaves. You can't really tell here, but the henna ink is brown like actual henna. It was really painful, especially towards the top of my arm, but it's healing well and as I write on the 6th of March it's just really itchy! I love the shading, I love how it's got ivy in, I love how pretty it is!

All taped up just after it was done. It bled quite badly - I bleed a lot though.

Here's Lee having his done - he liked it much better than last time. 

Here's mine, isn't it beautiful? I'm so in love, especially with the swirls and the shading. I keep looking at it! I don't usually have my arms on show but I think this summer I'll have to to show it off!

And here's Lee's!

Holiday times!

Lee and I went to Suffolk at the end of February/beginning of March. We wanted to go away, and a friend of Lee's was putting on a gig in Ipswich so we decided to combine the two. We went down on Saturday, arrived into our cottage, then set off to Ipswich. We had delicious curry at Maharani and then went to the gig at P J McGinty's. Lee's played there before with his band. Loads of his friends were there, so it was nice for me to meet all of them - I got lots of hugs and was made to feel immediately part of the family! Lee's bass player's other band was playing and I haven't seen them before, so that was nice too.

Lee in the restaurant

Me - yep I was wearing clashing patterms! The dress is from Asos and the cardigan is from George. A woman told me she liked my dress, haha

This was the cottage we stayed in - it was The Hay Loft on this complex. It's a really comfortable cottage, well equipped and very cosy. It's upside down - the bedrooms are on the ground floor and have ensuite bathrooms, and the open plan living area is upstairs and has the beams on show. The kitchen is really nice, there's a big dining table and really comfy couches. We really liked it!

Brian Lowens, the bass player in Lee's band, took these three photos. You can see the back of Lee's head in the first two, he was enjoying himself. The third one is Casual Nausea, who are friend of Lee's. Thanks for letting me use these, Brian!

Films of the Month - February

I watched a lot of films in February! This is partly because Lee and I were on holiday, staying in Suffolk for a week in a cottage. We took tons of DVDs and watched 11 films while we were there! Some fall into this month and some into March's.



The Man Who Would Be King - I really liked this. I like Michael Caine (The Italian Job is one of my favourite films ever) and I'd never seen this, so I watched it on Netflix
Legend - this was excellent. I feel like a lot of stuff about the Krays ignore how nasty Reggie Kray was - you always see Ronnie portrayed as a violent psychopath but Reggie always seems sort of benign to me. He isn't in this, he's absolutely off the scale just like his brother. Tom Hardy was great, I recommend this
School of Rock - this is also one of my favourite films, and I don't even like Jack Black. It was on the TV so I watched it.




Grease Live - Like many girls my age, I grew up on Grease and loved the live version.
Magic Mike - I've seen this before but didn't really like it on the second watching
The Empire Strikes Back - after our trip to see The Force Awakens at Christmas, Lee and I have rewatched all the originals. This is my favourite of the three



We The Tiny House People - I am fascinated with tiny houses. If I was single, I could so live in one. This was a lovely documentary about them
Men in Black - the first film Lee and I watched, we both love it
Finding Nemo - this was on TV and I watched it while Lee had a long bath in our holiday cottage. It's possibly my favourite of the Pixar films, although I really like Monsters Inc too



The Strike - this is a Comic Strip feature film thing, so I'm counting it here. It's really funny and I haven't seen it in ages. Do watch it if you're into The Young Ones or anything and haven't seen it.

Books of the Month - February

 

I read entirely kids and Young Adult books in February! In fact, that's all I've read this year so far. Whoops!

Famous in Love by Rebecca Serle. 

I bought this because it's about showbiz, and so is my MA novel, loosely, but I didn't really enjoy it at all. Very little actually happened so it dragged. 

The Top Secret Diary of Pig by Emer Stamp

I was given these books by the publisher and read the first one. It's really funny - kids would love this!

Read Me Like A Book by Liz Kessler

My friend Lucinda leant me this and I was expecting it to be so much better than it turned out to be, sadly. It promised so much but I didn't feel it lived up to it. Too much was going on.

Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson

I never read much Jacqueline Wilson when I was younger and I picked this up in a charity shop a while ago and found it recently. I enjoyed it, it's quite funny.

Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom

I loved this so so much. It's a stand out example of Young Adult literature. The main character is blind and has just lost her dad. I really really recommend this.

You can find more in depth reviews of all my books here on my book blog.

Visit to Prashad

My friend Laura asked me if I wanted to go to Prashad's restaurant which is between Bradford and Leeds, very close to the M62. It's a totally vegetarian restaurant, and there's lots of vegan choice, gluten free, nut free, and so on, too. We went on Wednesday 17th February; we hadn't booked a table so we had to wait a few minutes but it wasn't too long a wait at all.

The restaurant has won lots of awards and is fine dining, so prices are a little higher than they are in your average Indian restaurant, but it's worth it. Everything is decorated very nicely and as soon as we'd sat down we were brought a complementary amuse bouche - I didn't catch exactly what it was but it tasted a bit like falafel and was yummy!

We got poppadoms and pickle tray to start off with; the poppadoms had cumin seeds in and were yummy but were very thin. I ordered chaat to start with and Laura had dahi puri. The chaat was delicious but very spicy.

Chaat (NF)(MF)	£6.55
A medley of tastes and textures: diced hot samosa, topped with pastry, potato, chickpeas, yoghurt & tamarind dressing. Dahi Puri (NF)(MF) £6.55 Mini crispy puris individually filled with potato & chick peas and drizzled with yoghurt & our magical tamarind chutney.

For main course we both went for massala dosa with paneer filling. It was one of the strangest things I've ever eaten due to how it was presented in the crepe, but it was delicious and very filling.

Massala Dosa (V optional) (GF)(NF)	£10.95
Additional Paneer Filling £1.70
Lentil & rice flour crepe with a spiced potato &onion curry served with lentil broth and coconut chutney.

Finally Laura had chocolate orange ice cream but I was too full.

Orange infused Chocolate Ice Cream	£6.25
Rich ice cream served with honeycomb

Our total bill was just under £56 which I felt was fair for what we'd had. It's a really nice experience and I'd definitely like to go back!

All opinions are my own! I just liked the restaurant and thought I'd share :)

Valentine's Day 2016

Lee and I usually buy each other a little something for Valentine's Day and have some nice food,but we don't usually make a huge deal of it. I was driving past The Sovereign at Shepley the week before though and saw that they had a special Valentines menu for £19.9 per person. I booked a table for 1pm. Lee didn't have the Valentines menu, but chose from the normal one. I did, though, and it was lovely!

This is what I bought Lee - they're made of chocolate! I got them from this stall in Meadowhall. I love the bottle opener.

This is what Lee bought me, it smells amazing, it is really musky.

This was the card Lee made me (he calls me Bee)

Here was my face! My lipstick is a Models Own lip crayon.

I got this necklace from Laura, isn't it cute?

There were hearts on the table which I thought was a nice touch

And here's my outfit - excuse the vacuum cleaner! This is a Scarlett & Jo dress, I bought it in the sale last year. I've only worn it a few times but the lace is already pulling and going fluffy, which is annoying. I do love the colour and style though.

What did you do for Valentines?