blogger-book-club-david-nicholls-us-review
The book : Us
The Author: David Nicholls
Where to buy : Waterstones | Amazon | Tesco 
Rating: 2/5

"Douglas Petersen understands his wife's need to 'rediscover herself' now that their son is leaving home. He just thought they'd be doing their rediscovering together.
So when Connie announces that she will be leaving, too, he resolves to make their last family holiday into the trip of a lifetime: one that will draw the three of them closer, and win the respect of his son. One that will make Connie fall in love with him all over again.
The hotels are booked, the tickets bought, the itinerary planned and printed.
What could possibly go wrong?"

I am one of the few that has neither read David Nicholls famous ‘One Day’ or seen the film. For some reason the fact Anne Hathaway being in it doesn’t sit well with me! Therefore going by the way everyone sang it’s praises I expected good things with ‘us’ and was looking forward to get stuck in.
The book is told from Douglas’ point of view. It starts with his wife Connie informing him that she’s thinking of leaving him. After years of marriage this obviously comes as a bit of a shock to poor ol’ Douglas. As Albie their son is also leaving for university soon they have a ‘Grand Tour’ trip planned around Europe, Douglas hopes that this trip can help bring him and Connie closer and be a great send off for Albie… This is another one of those books that has flashbacks to the past where we get to learn how Douglas and Connie came to be, along with pivotal points in their relationship that are worth mentioning. I think it’s lovely that we get to find this out, but the more you read, I found that this was definitely more of an opposites attract kind of relationship.

I will admit that I found it really tough to get into this book, happily stopping to throw in my bookmark when my train rolled into the station on my commute. (I’ve been known to carry on reading until I actually get out of the station before with some books as I have been so gripped by them!) I was never that gripped by it. As I explained to Tom it’s…very wordy. Nicholls likes to really set the scene using lots of descriptive words which I feel at times were a little unnecessary and made some of the chapters a bit of a drag to read! One positive I can take from this though, is that reading about the different countries in  Europe has made me want to book a fair few European city breaks, so it’s not all bad that he goes into quite some detail!

Throughout the book I found myself disliking both Connie and Albies characters, and felt a little bit of sympathy for Douglas. I think because I didn’t like these two, it made this book frustrating to read and I became quite bored of it. I even got to the point where I skim read quite a few chapters just so I could finish it in time for this review. Mainly those when they were very descriptive of the art in the galleries they visited (FYI Lots of Art references in this book if you like that sort of thing)  The story took a while to get going and probably three quarters of the way through it got a little bit exciting but not enough to make me say it’s something you have to rush out to read.

Since finishing the book and having a look at reviews on amazon, it’s clear that there is a bit of a divide between those who have read it. They seem to really enjoy it or dislike it quite a bit. I’m afraid to say I am the latter. It was just a bit too boring and didn’t keep me interested unfortunately.

I’m interested to find out what the other girls think of this months book as I wasn't really fan myself. You can have a read of what they say on their blogs here… Charli, Lorna & Lizzie.

Click here to read last months blogger book club review; The Two of us by Andy Jones

For the Month of September we will be reading The Good Girlby Fiona Neill. So if you want to be part of book club let us know, have a read & pop a review blog post (Or Youtube video) up on Monday September 28th. 

Much Love,
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frost-french-floozie-bikini-debenhams

I don’t know ANYONE who is 100% confident when it comes to putting on a bikini for their holiday – If you are one of those people well…. Shhh! Personally I really struggle with body confidence. At 27 I am nowhere near the size or shape I was back when I was 18 (and I used to moan I was ‘fat’ *Eyeroll*) Lifestyle changes, getting older, metabolism slowing down among other things are all factors in this change and I should accept that… but it is tough!

Not only do we have the magazines flaunting toned abs, lean legs and sculpted arms in our faces it’s all over the online world too. Blogs, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Youtube, Pinterest… you name it you’ll find a super slim, super toned females a regular feature in the popular uploads! It can be a bit disheartening. We are only human, so comparing ourselves to others is going to happen one way or another. However we need to remember that as humans we all come in different shapes and sizes. Summer is where I get the most self conscious when it comes to my body, and I admit I do have my moany days where I feel awful about myself, which leads to a mini meltdown in front of my wardrobe. But I’m slowly learning to accept that this is who I am, I can make some changes of course that may change the way I look, but overall I should be happy regardless. Sometimes confidence can be found simply by wearing something that suits your shape a bit better.

I went shopping at the weekend on the mission to find some new Swimwear for my holiday in September. I am apple shape, therefore pretty much all my weight goes on my middle (Seriously, why can’t it go to my boobs!) Although one pieces are pretty fashionable at the moment and there are some lovely designs out there, I just don’t want to be that covered up. I don’t mind tankinis, if I am going for a swim as a form of exercise but for a holiday I want a bikini! – I just love getting a tanned tum, and for that to happen I’ll need a bikini. Thankfully for me there seems to be a lot of ‘long line’ bikini tops on offer at the moment, so I have gravitated towards them, along with tie side briefs which are a great purchase if you don’t want your bikini bottoms digging in & creating extra ‘love handles!’
After a little bit of searching I came across the Floozie range by Frost French which is available in Debenhams. With a great selection of mix and match swimwear items, catering for the slim girls and more fuller figured I knew I’d find something suitable. Underwired & padded bikini tops are ones I usually opt for, it balances out my proportions a bit compared to if I went for a simple triangle style top. This beautiful striped number also comes with high waisted bottoms, however due to my apple shape they didn’t really suit, therefore opted for the side tie briefs. I always dread shopping for swimwear as like I said I have confidence issues, but do you know what? I was able to try this bikini on and feel confident. That usual feeling of upset didn’t rear its ugly head. I looked in the mirror and thought to myself. ‘yes, this is my bikini for holiday!’  Without hesitation I swiftly made my way to the checkout, much to Tom’s surprise as I usually take forever in deciding what swimwear to buy!  

So how did I get bikini body ready? I just put on a bikini.


Much love. 
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beauty-blogging-nostalgia

The other day I was thinking about how much the blogging world has changed. I started out predominately as a beauty blogger, I’ve since progressed into a jack of all trades really, featuring posts from different genres. This prompted me to look at my old blog posts, I did have a bit of a cringe reading them back, but I also realised how different blogs were back in 2010.. So different infact. It was all very basic, dedicated 1 post soley to a product, making sure you included swatches and heaven forbid you actually used the product before photographing it! Fashion posts would be pretty candid, if you had a tripod (or a stack of books) You’d set yourself up in a space within your bedroom and quickly take some snaps. Posts were nothing like the standard they are these days when you could easily confuse a blog post with an article in a magazine.


Therefore for a bit of fun & nostalgic purposes, I decided to collate a little list and ask you all to take a trip down memory lane with me…..

1.       Barry M Cosmetics were the bees knees back in the day, I lost count of how many Dazzle Dust pots I owned.. half of which I don’t think I ever used.

2.       Speaking of Barry M, Remember 129 palest Lavender? Only the brave would rock that lilac lip – I myself never attempted to jump on that bandwagon.

3.       I did jump on the 101 Marshmellow one though,  The ‘nude’ lip that was never really was a nude lip, a lot of us walked around sporting this concealer lip colour for some time.. go on admit it… you were one of us.

4.       Nude lips were a thing, so when Laura from Buynowbloglater (who at the time was known as Lollipop26) informed everyone about Gosh Darling lipstick being the perfect nude, I ran to Superdrug in fear that it would sell out!

5.       The same could be said with Natural Collection ‘Apple Blossom’ as soon as Zoella started featuring it in her blog posts as her perfect nude lip, I was on it.

6.       Eyeko was this cute kitsch brand where you could become a ‘Ambassador’ and get a code to plonk on your sidebar/at the end of blog posts in order to offer your readers 10% (I think) off their order.

7.       If you had 100 followers you could also sign up to be a part of the Sigma Brush Affiliate program where you would receive a free F80 Kabuki brush – I seriously don’t know anyone who didn’t take them up on that.

8.       Speaking of followers, there were giveaways for follower milestones. So you reached 500 followers mark? You rewarded your readers with a Mac Lipstick, 1000 followers? You went all out and offered 2.

9.       People would go ape sh!t over Mac Collections and pretty much buy everything from them, even if it meant they’d be living off beans on toast for the rest of the month. A particular fave of mine was the Hello Kitty one.. I didn’t own anything but I think everyone else in the blogging community did!

10.   These days bloggers love the minimal layout look, back in the day it was all about making your little space on the internet as cute and shabby chic as possible. Lots of pink, lots of flowers, ShabbyBlogs website got a lot of web traffic back in the day.

11.   Speaking of shabby chic... Forget Marble backgrounds it was all about the Ikea Cath Kidston style duvet cover! 

12.   Sleek palettes became available in Superdrug, they were the top dog when it came to palettes within the beauty community 5 years ago. I’m pretty sure every blogger owned the Storm Palette/ Contour kit.

13.   Models own 50% sale – Everyone would go crazy, this was the time to buy the many collections for a bargain price.

14.   ELF 50% sale – Even more people would go crazy. 75p for a product from the basic line? £1.50 from the studio line? We all got our orders in regardless if the quality wasn’t the best.

15.   We have our girl Anna to thank for the Jemma Kidd makeup school obsession. Shout out to the Light as Air foundation (RIP)

16.   I think it was around Christmas time when THE nail polish to own was OPI’s Rainbow Connection. Oh that multicoloured glittery goodness graced many an accent nail.

17.   Another sort after polish (which I actually still have! It's in the image up there) was Gosh Holographic. I know many of us would search high and low for this. It was always a bit gutting to get home eager to swatch it, only to find we’d gone and picked up boring Silver instead. Boo!

18.   When we were all feeling a bit fancy and wanted to step away from highstreet beauty, we delved into the world of high end makeup with Chanel Bronze Universal / Tan de Soleil despite it’s rather orange tone not suiting everyone!

19.   Chanel also brought us the infamous Illusion d’ombre eyeshadow in Emerville, I distinctly remember Lily Melrose always raving about this. 

20.   Finally where did we store all our makeup products, Muji clear drawers? No of course not… we all headed to WHSmiths and bought some cardboard stationery storage drawers instead didn’t we!



Have I missed anything? Thank you for taking a trip down memory lane with me!

  If you have enjoyed reading this post please share it on social media. 

Much love, 
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PANDORA STACKABLE RING IN BOX
PANDORA ALLURING DELECATE BRILIANT RING
Alluring delicate briliant ring (£55)

I’ve mentioned before in previous blog posts that several members of my family have Pandora bracelets. I do like them, and I think they are a great way to capture memories in charm form because you can pretty much get a charm for anything these days, however when it came to choosing something for myself I decided to be a little different. Tom asked if I wanted a piece of jewellery for my birthday. I’ve never been a huge jewellery person, however in recent months I’ve really wanted to get a ring for my right hand.  I don’t need anything for my left, my engagement and wedding rings have that space of their own, but my right was feeling just a tad left out.

When we visited Bath for our anniversary (Read my post here)  I did pop into the Pandora store to have a look at what they had on offer. Originally I wanted this heart ring, however in person I wasn’t as keen, so browsed a bit more. Eventually after a bit of umming and ahhing I settled on this one instead. My fingers are tiny, so I was surprised to find that their smallest size (Number 48) Would fit me perfectly. Admittedly I did want a ring for the next finger along, but sometimes we just have to make sacrifices! Ha! The ring I chose is actually part of the stacking ring collection, meaning over time if I wanted, I could purchase other rings and build up a bit of a collection on my fingers! A great alternative for those who aren’t as keen on the charm bracelets. There’s such a good selection that you would not be stuck on what to choose.

The rings can range from £35 each all the way up to £399, so there is definitely something there for every sort of budget! You can get special ones that some people choose to use for engagement/wedding rings. They also have the birthstone ones, which I would have liked to get seeing as it was a birthday gift however I liked the Turquiose the best…. And that would be for a December birthday…. I was born in July so that doesn’t quite work out does it! (Maybe I’ll just break the rules!) If you like a bit of bling, they’ve got the sparkly ones or if you like simplistic jewellery they have other plainer styles.

Slowly but surely I am getting into accessorising with jewellery! Who knows what I will be purchasing next!


Have you got anything from Pandora? Do you have a story behind yours?

Much love,  
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4-beauty-products-for-strobing-highlighting-blog

Strobing... basically Highlighting right? For those of you that aren't aware, this is the term being used at the moment to describe the process of illuminating the areas of your face where the light hits. We've had contouring, some can master that, others cant. 'Strobing' I would say is the easier of the two. I've been big on Highlighting/strobing for a while and because of this I have tried a fair amount of different products to achieve the desired look. The following are those tried and tested favourites which I feel you should pick up on your next beauty splurge. 

Two of the products are brought you to by Mac Cosmetics. Although I bought these from the official website, I have seen them crop up in my local CCO so it's definitley a good idea to keep an eye out when visiting your local one! The products in question are Cream Colour Base in Hush (£16) and the Mineralise skinfinish in Lightscapade (£24) It just shows whether you are a cream or a powder girl, Mac will have your back. I've noticed a lot of people opt for the cream colour base in Pearl as their highlight of choice, however I find hush is a little more wearable with its peachier tone and subtle shimmer throughout. This is a product I tend to reach for more in the summer. I'm all for the creamier products during those months! Lightscapade is the more subtle mineralise skinfinish Mac have available, but don't let that put you off, it gives you a beautiful soft glow on your cheeks with minimal effort. Honourable mention would have to go to the MSF in Soft & Gentle (The only highlighter I have ever completely finished!) 

After much deliberation I finally purchased the Marylou-Manizer highlight (£14) from The Balm. This is a purchase that I do not regret. The hype it gets in the beauty community is well deserved. This product is just B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L! This finely milled powder produces the most gorgeous honey toned glow, with the lightest of brushes across your cheekbones! You wont have to worry about hitting pan, a little goes a long way. This beauty will be in your stash for a while. An absolute winner! Last but by no means least we have the most affordable of the bunch. Topshop Glow in 'Gleam' (£9). After a minor panic that this was discontinued, it is very much still available in store. A cream based highlight in a pretty golden hue. Unlike the shade Polish this one does not remove your makeup on application - Yes really! So easy to work with, use a small stippling brush or your finger to apply along your cheekbone, brow bone, down the centre of your nose for perfect strobing! 

What products would you recommend for strobing perfection?

Much love 
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Having relatives living up in Scotland means getting on a plane happens on a more regular basis these days. No longer is it limited to our Yearly (ish) summer holiday. We find ourselves heading up North every few months or so. As we are in mid august, and everyone on my facebook friends list along with those on my twitter feed seems to be jetting off on holiday. I figured it would be a great time to share some of my travelling essentials when hopping onto a plane! 

TRAVEL CLOTHING ESSENTIALS.

Regardless if I am traveling for an hour up to Glasgow, or taking a 7 hour flight to somewhere like Dubai I want to be comfortable. This means, leggings a loose top, comfy shoes and some kind of scarf or pashmina will be in my possession! All pretty basic, but still looking put together and stylish! I like to wear layers because it often gets a bit chilly on the plane due to the use of air conditioning! Also remember to take some nice fluffy socks - I usually take a pair from Primark! I always have to be aware of the baggage allowance when flying, even more so when we go to Scotland because we never really fly with the same airline. We will usually go whoever has the best deal really. Every airline has different rules, because of this I have to be aware of how much I can take with me, especially when its cabin luggage only! Using a handy Luggage allowance table like this one from Purple parking is really helpful when you pack! Last thing you want is get to the gate and be told your bag is too big - This happened to Tom and I on a Glasgow trip and we had to pay £45 each extra to put our bags in the hold! #Fail, so make sure you check what you can take before flying! 

ELECTRONIC ESSENTIALS WHEN YOU FLY.


Entertainment wise, I usually keep it pretty simple. I've got quite into my reading recently so my Kindle or a physical book will be present within my hand luggage. At the moment for Blogger Book Club we are reading US by David Nicholls. Colouring books are a big hit at the moment, even more so as they perfect for keeping people relaxed and calm. So if you aren't a big fan of flying then perhaps this is something that you might want to think about putting into your hand luggage! This particular one is quite small in size so it is perfect for travel. Unless I forget it, I will have my phone in my hand luggage. It's perfect to play games on, or listen to spotify offline. I currently only have in ear headphones, but when I saw these frends ones they quickly made their way onto my lust list! How amazing are these! They are called Oil Slick, it makes a change from the white and rose gold ones everyone else seems to have! I also had to add in this cute bumble bee phone case from topshop jus' because. 

BEAUTY TRAVEL ESSENTIALS



Beauty wise I tend to keep it really simple when flying. I'll be honest I really cant be bothered to faff around with it all when I am on the plane! I will either fall asleep, read my book or get so sucked in with watching films via in the in flight entertainment that I just dont have the time to faff with beauty things. Does this make me a bad beauty person? Who knows! I tend to just make sure I have a good hydrating lip balm on me, some face cleansing wipes incase i want to take my make off off (this happens on the rare occassion - usually long haul) A decent hand cream that is within the 100ml limit! 

What are your travel essentials? 

Much love.
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I was long overdue a little visit to Lush. My desire to purchase some goodies escalated further when news broke that some of the exclusive Oxford St products would be available at the Reading branch. Que me hot stepping it along to Reading to see what they had in store, obviously I was going to part with some of my hard earned cash if they were stocking the items I had my eye on…

They were.

Say hello to The Comforter shower cream -250g (£9.50). Oh this product smells so heavenly! Do I really need to say much more? I’m sure you are all familiar with The comforter bubble bar. That huge, swirly crumbly goodness that helps produce masses of bubbles in your bath, whilst filling your bathroom with its gorgeous scent. Well Lush answered our prayers & have provided us with it in shower cream form so we don’t have to be without it even when we only have a few minutes to jump in the shower. I’m yet to use this with a poof loofah thing but using it straight from the bottle I am a little disappointed as there isn’t much of a lather! However the fact the scent lingers in my bathroom is enough to keep me happy so swings and roundabouts eh!

Another of the Oxford St exclusives I had to pop into my basket was the Intergalactic bath bomb (£3.95) Now, I don’t know about you but a lot of the time I chose products from lush based on what they either smell like or look like, in this case it was the latter. Having seen videos on Youtube & photos on Instagram of said bath bomb I had to buy it in order to experience it myself. I’m not usually a bath person but it just had to be done.

Keeping with the theme of having a bath, I wanted to purchase a classic bath bomb which falls under the category of many a blogger favourite, Butterball (£2.65). One of cheaper bath bombs lush offer it’s not surprising it’s a best seller, jam packed full of cocoa butter and Ylang Ylang oil. Your skin will thank you for popping this one into your bath, it leaves your skin feeling very soft and nourished. Just what you need after a little too long in the sun, or in the colder months when your skin tends to get a little drier.

Finally one of the other reasons I wanted to pop along to Lush was to get myself another pot of the BIG shampoo (£12.25). Now this shampoo was one of the first things I reviewed on this blog. The post is still there, but I wont link it because it is just far too cringeworthy! I do stand by what I said in that post and that is that I do class this more as a clarifying shampoo over a volumising one. Maybe I don’t use it properly (is there more than 1 way to shampoo your hair?) but I don’t see as much volume in my hair after use as others claim to have had. Regardless, I do love it, and even though it is a bit pricey for the size, a little goes a long way so it will last you a decent amount of time!

Have you been to Lush at all recently? Maybe you’ve tried some of the Oxford St exclusives. Let me know in the comments!


Much love, 
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Early-bird-tastebox-subscription-blog-post

 Earlier in the week Tom and I decided to have a bit of a movie night. An evening away from the laptop, or the Playstation and just chill. We have Netflix and lovefilm subscriptions so we are never short of finding something to watch. We decided to go for a bit of a Horror theme starting with Annabelle –  Seriously you will hate dolls after watching this followed by a film about the Catacombs in Paris called As above down below. 

When we decide to have a movie night, we will get ourselves some snacks. Usually this ends up being microwave popcorn, some form of chocolate treats and maybe even crisps and dip… all extremely healthy…. However this time around we decided to forgo the Crisps and chocolate and try something a little different. I was kindly sent the Early Bird Tastebox* to try. Similar to Graze boxes it is a subscription service that aims to provide you with healthier snacks for you to eat throughout the week – or if you are us consume in one sitting!

What’s different about the tastebox is you receive 5 different snack variations plus two types of tea to try. Not only that, each box has an illustration on the lid from their illustrator of the month. On this box the focus is on Lumina Watanabe who’s work you can check out here. The Tastebox isn’t just a snack box, it’s aim is to combine, food, music and art together, it’s early days yet but in the future they hope to include music from up and coming artists within the box. I am assuming there will be be a free download link included perhaps.

Early-bird-tastebox-subscription-blog-post

The Tastebox is priced at £4.50 including delivery, to put in perspective, how much do you think you spend per week on snacks? Probably more than that right? So if you were to sign up, you’d not only save yourself some money, you’d also be treating yourselves a bit better with these healthier alternatives. Just pop them in your desk drawer while you’re working and when that elevenses or mid afternoon craving emerges, reach for a handy snack pack from your tastebox instead. New customers can get their first box for £1 so its worth just trying the one box anyway, it wont break the bank! I also have a code that you can use which will entitle you to one FREE BOX. Just use the Promo Code JAFFA-4316 to redeem one! What are you waiting for. Click here to sign up!

Do you like the sound of The Tastebox, will you make the switch to healthier snacks?


Much love, 
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HOME : Lily flame candle trio.

Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Lily-Flame-candle-trio-set-blog-post
Lily-Flame-candle-trio-set-blog-post

I do love a good candle, so I am always on the hunt for new brands to try. Sometimes you just want a break from Yankee, you know? I’d seen Lily Flame candles before the past however wasn’t sure if I wanted to pay the £7/8 a tin if the scent payoff wasn’t worth it. Yes the candles smell absolutely divine in the tin, but what about when lit. Do they live up to my expectations?

Lily Flame candles are the brain child of Jo & Luc from Somerset. 2015 Marks the 21st year in business for the pair. It all started out when Jo created some candles in her kitchen way back in 1994, since then the brand has become wildly known and is sold throughout many stores and online in the UK. Every process of a lily flame candles journey is looked over by Jo and Luc, they are 100% part of the process from idea down to the final product, with a team of 20 to help run the day to day business of Lily Flame. It definitely sounds like this adorable brand will be providing us with beautifully scented candles for years to come!

I spotted this mini trio of Lily Flame Candles in a few shops but ended up purchasing it from Ebay from this seller for a little bit less than the RRP. First things first, I absolutely love the way the candles are presented. It makes them the perfect item to give as a gift to someone. I know my sister would love them! This trio is the ‘Girly Pink’ set, however the seller offers other trios on their shop too (Including a Christmas one – too soon?) The scents included are Blush, Dolly Rocker & Fairy Dust, All very different, yet similar fresh, powdery girly scents!

They are small but if you burn them for an hour at the time they last a relatively long time! The scent really does ‘throw’ well – technical term right there. Seriously.  Leaving the rooms in our flat smelling heavenly! Although the scents are rather girly and powdery Tom doesn’t actually mind them which is always a bonus! They also burn really evenly, I hate it when you have a candle and it burns wonky! It just doesn’t look pretty does it!

Having tried this mini trio of candles I will be purchasing some of the larger sized tins or glass candles in the future. Lily flame also have reed diffusers – another product I love to have around the home, they also look really pretty! Or if you wanted you could purchase a room spray for instant scent satisfaction! You can purchase a lot of the range here. 

Have you tried anything from Lily Flame before?

Much Love, 
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BATH PHOTO COLLAGE TRAVEL BLOG

For our two year wedding anniversary this year Tom & I decided to take a trip to Bath. We’ve been there before (I even filmed a little vlog thing which you can see here) but loved it so much we wanted to go again. Bath is a city we really enjoy visiting this may be swayed by the fact there’s an amazing Fudge shop called the Fudge Factory which is a must visit! I degress, as it was a special occasion Tom decided to book us into The Gainsborough Hotel & spa, and boy it did not disappoint!

The hotel only opened at the start of July so everything was immaculate. Upon arrival we were greeted by friendly members of staff, all of which wished us a happy anniversary which I thought was a lovely touch. (FYI Tom did inform them of this when booking, they aren’t mind readers ;-) ha!) The building hasn’t always been a hotel, it was once a hospital and also a college, it was weird to think that those corridors and rooms once had patients in them with doctors and nurses rushing about! The staircase was really impressive as you can see from the above photograph, it set the theme for the rest of the hotel. With a black, white and grey theme throughout, plus the added touch of mustard yellow here and there. The décor really was stunning. (I’m kicking myself for not taking more photographs) Although we were in one of the smaller rooms available, it was still very spacious. With an ‘upper level’ area for the bed, dressing table/tv, refreshments etc, whereas the bathroom was down the step and to the right. The bathroom was beautiful with its marble tiles, heated floor and Asprey toiletries for us to use.
We chilled out for a bit, checking out the refreshments on offer as the room had a Nespresso machine we could use plus the stocked mini bar which was free of charge. This was a nice added perk however for the price you pay for the room I would have expected a little more variety in there. 2 choc bars, 2 soft drinks and 2 beers. – I don’t like beer so if I wanted an alcoholic beverage before going out or just as a night cap I would have had to pay extra in the bar & that wouldn’t have been cheap. Not knocking the mini bar because of course in other hotels it isn’t complimentary but you would have expected some mini spirits or small bottles of wine in there too. Bit of constructive criticism for you there!

Rather than staying in the hotel for food we decided to venture out into the town. Having done a bit of googling beforehand I had read about The Real Italian Pizza Company. One of the top rated places to grab a bite to eat in Bath. Now everyone knows I am a HUGE fan of Pizza so I was keen to go visit. Located just along from the Abbey next to The Real Italian Ice Cream company (run by the same people, who’d have guessed!) is the small little family run restaurant where you can sample some delicious stone oven baked pizzas and other Italian dishes. We chose to sit outside around the back of the restaurant in a make shift garden area. With the small space available they made a good job of making it look pretty, with its little bistro tables and brightly coloured flowers. The pizzas were really tasty, the desserts looked just as good, however we didn’t try them as we were so full! The prices were reasonable, probably about the same as you would spend if you were heading to Pizza express and the staff were polite and friendly. Definitely somewhere to go if you are a pizza fan like me!

The rest of our time was spent chilling out in the hotels spa and drinking fancy cocktails at the Bar. We didn’t book any spa treatments when we stayed, however guests of the hotel has set times where they can use the facilities as they wish. This is something we did take advantage of. You receive a free robe, flip flops, towel, & bottle of water in each locker so there’s no need to take anything other than yourself and your swim gear! There was a set plan you could follow to visit each of the different pools and saunas/steam rooms, however tom and I just did as whatever we fancied, I get quite claustrophobic in steam rooms/saunas! – Anyone else? 

Overall we had a really lovely stay in Bath, I couldn’t fault the staff at The Gainsborough Hotel they made us feel very welcome! We only spent one night there as the following day we headed over to our wedding venue Orchardleigh house for a 1 nights stay in one of their cottages on site. It was lovely to be back there, it felt so weird but brought back so many lovely memories!



Much love, 
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Yumi-Lace-Roses-Dress-30-days-of-summer
Yumi-Lace-Roses-Dress-30-days-of-summer

The summer brings weddings, an excuse to dress up all fancy, visit a beautiful venue, watch two people commit to one another, eat all the food and dance the night away.This weekend Tom and I were invited to a wedding reception of someone he works with, therefore I felt it would be a perfect time to put on this gorgeous Lace Roses dress* from Yumi. 

Now this dress is completely out of my comfort zone but I wanted to try something different. Body con is not a style I go for as I mentioned in previous blog posts, but with a few trips to the gym and a little help with our good friend SPANX, I was pretty happy with how I looked. The lace detailing on the front is absolutely stunning. This is what drew me to the dress in the first place. I also wanted something colourful as I am the girl who mainly wears black on a daily basis! (Of course I had to throw in some black accessories to make it feel a little more 'me') I am short so the length probably is a little lower than on the average person, but I do think it is very flattering and perfect for a more formal occassion rather than just a night out for drinks with the girls. I love how the lace overlay is slightly longer so you get that beautiful hem line. Dreamy! 

Yumi-Lace-Roses-Dress-30-days-of-summer

I am not the biggest fan of the tops of my arms, maybe one day they will be all sleek and toned and I'll be shouting, give me the sleeveless dresses! However for now I prefer to keep them a little covered, this dress does a perfect job of this with its cute little sleeves. I love how the lace detailing continues, where as on the back of the dress it is just plain fabric (I'll admit I tried to take a photo of the back for you all, but lets just say they weren't the most flattering of photos, they ended up on the cutting room floor!) Fastening with a hidden zip it is a very sleek dress that looks great on its own or you could pair it with a blazer of sorts. 

My favourite shoes of the moment are these barely there heels in black from New Look. They go with everything. Admittedly I do get sore feet in them but that's because I am a flats girl at heart despite being under 5ft! Eagle eyes readers will remember that I also have these in a bright pink which I wore when I was a bridesmaid for my friend earlier in the summer. They are really affordable and I definitely recommend purchasing a pair if you want a fail safe pair of heels in the bottom of your wardrobe! 

Yumi currently have a sale on and this dress is part of it, available in black or this stunning pink for £37.50. I'll be honest, I would be tempted to pick up the black. a) You cannot go wrong with a LBD b) I really do love the lace overlay, its so pretty and finally c) It's in the blimmin' sale! 

Have you attended any weddings/receptions this year? What did you wear, leave a link to a post if you blogged about it! 

Much love, 

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