September in Photos

THE PHOTOS

THEIR STORIES

1. I bought a new bookshelf and that meant I had to entirely rearrange my room. IT IS BEAUTIFUL NOW. 
2. My mum's birthday presents! 
3. We went out for dinner for my mum's birthday and this was my starter - prawn cocktail served in a jar. Yes yes yes.
4. FOO FIGHTERS. AH YES. MY BOYS. MY FAVOURITE PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. I SAW THEM LIVE FOR THE SECOND TIME AND IT WAS INCREDIBLE. 
5. The baes <3
6. Cute coffee and cake with my mum. 
7. Stage one of moving into my room for my second year of university.
8. And stage 2...
9. And stage 3... Complete!
10. The drive to Bath to actual move into my new uni house. Got all the important things, obvs. 
11. Afternoon tea at the Jane Austen centre. It was delicious at it looks. 
12. Scone close up. 
13. I went for a little explore around my new town, and discovered a beautiful view. Is it just me or does this look a little bit like The Shire? (Probs doesn't but I like to believe I live in Middle Earth okay.)
14. I could have taken photos of this abandoned building forever. 
15. Found a cute little path that was lined by trees and it let to this stream! V. cute. 
16. I also found a church and had a look at all the gravestones. They had some insanely old ones in there and it was just really interesting to look around.
17. Cows all stood in a weird line. Um guys what you doing? 
18. This is genuinely the view from my bus stop. And no, it hasn't got old yet.

FIN

And that's it for now! I just want to apologise for the month long break in between blog posts... There area couple of reasons for this; partly that I moved into this new house and had no internet for a few weeks. And also that I just have no motivation to write blog posts. I'm just not feeling inspired to write and I have no good ideas so posts might be few and far between until I get back into the groove (which lets all pray will happen soon). 

Alright, good. Byeeeeeee x

June In Photos

STORIES BEHIND THE PHOTOS

1. We discovered this tea shop called T2 and they had Australian tea in there (it's an Australian company so not really that shocking but STILL). Now I hate tea but this place made me want to like it. 

2. Cinnamon doughnuts at one of our favourite local Italian restaurants. 

3. Mocktails at Bills with my dad and sister. I can't remember what this was but I know it was very yummy. 

4. Picnic lunch on the train to Bath with my mum. 

5. We went on a tour of the Bath Abbey and you got to go on the roof of the abbey and boy, was it cool.

6. My dad met us the next day for a delicious full english breakfast at the farm shop. Gunna miss this place over the summer holidays. 

7. We went to see Carl Donnelly at a comedy night and it was so great. He makes me laugh almost dangerously hard. 

8. Waiting for the pizza man to arrive.

9. KEYS TO MY NEW HOUSE. KEYS TO MY NEW HOUSE. 

10. This is Hall and Woodhouse, a new restaurant/bar in Bath I've discovered. It's amazing. And look bunting! 

11. Me and Jade (my sister) at the Roman Baths. Despite living in Bath for a year this was the first time I've visited the baths since I was very little. It's pretty rad. 

12. At Bills again, this time for curry and more of that delicious cocktail from before. 

13. Summer at my house means fire bowls in the garden. 

14. Pub lunch in the sun. (This was a lovely lunch BUT I should have been at the Foo Fighters show in wembley, except Dave Grohl fell of stage and broke his leg so it got cancelled. That MAN.)

15. Wearing a cactus t-shirt and admiring the flowers at the garden centre... is it obvious that I really like plants? 

16. We visited Castle Coombe for Father's Day, and it turns out they filmed Stardust there which is a film I adore! 

17. Castle Coombe again. This place is adorable and I want to live there. 

18. Bookshop crawl! 

19. Mocktail break at Revolution on my bookshop crawl. 

20. Of course I visited Mr B's during my crawl. Fave place <3 

21. Post crawl coffee. 

22. Also we met a deer. Bit weird. 

23. Me and Jade took a selfie exactly like this one when I moved into uni, now i'm moving out of uni. That went very quickly. 

24. We discovered this rad garden centre in Bath. 

25. Officially moved out of halls now. Bye little uni room :(

26. All empty! :(

27. Avocado on toast and coffee. Classic me.

AND ONTO JULY

And that't my June in photos. June was a pretty rad month, and if Dave hadn't broken his leg it probably would have been my best yet (I say probably but I mean definitely, I love the Foo Fighters that much.) Luckily Dave Grohl is my favourite human in the universe so I don't mind too much, plus there's always next time. 

How was your June? Let me know in the comments. 

Remember to follow me weekly posts. 

Thanks for reading, 

Love Chloe x

#IBW2015 Bookshop Crawl!

THE BOOKSHOP CRAWL
It's Indie Booksellers Week and to celebrate I participated in the bookshop crawl (I mean of course I did, it's a bookshop crawl). The set date for the bookshop crawl was actually the 27th, however I have to move out of my university halls on that day so I definitely won't have time for that and exploring  bookshops, so I did my crawl on Monday the 22nd instead. As Bath has some of the most amazing bookshops I decided I would do my bookshop crawl there. Here's what I got up to...

BOOKSHOP 1 - THE OLDFIELD PARK BOOKSHOP

I'd never been to this bookshop before, in fact I didn't even know it existed until now, but I can tell I'll be spending a lot of time there in the future. It had a great selection of books and I had a good little browse whilst there.

I came away with 'The Moth' which is a collection of 50 true stories that were each told at a live storytelling event in America, and then put into the book. I originally picked this up because of the oh-so gorgeous cover and then the concept of it intrigued me so much I couldn't not buy it.

I decided that I would find 9 other books to recommend to you from each bookshop I visited on the crawl. The books range from ones I've read and loved, ones on my forever growing To Read list, or books I saw on my journey that I thought looked good. So here are my 9 recommendations from The Oldfield Park Bookshop...

1. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (i love this book!)
2. The Night Circus by Erin Morgernstern (this is my all time favourite book, oh my god, go read it)
3. A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman (in shop spot)
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (to read)
5. Tigerman by Nick Harkaway (on my to read list)
6. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger (to read)
7. Who Could That Be At This Hour by Lemony Snicket (to read)
8. Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey (to read)
9. The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin (to read)

MOCKTAILS AND BURRITO BREAK

Every bookshop crawl needs a mocktail and a burrito break!

BOOKSHOP 2 - TOPPING AND COMPANY

Toppings was the first bookshop I ever went to in Bath and it's still one of my favourites to this day. I love it in there, I could spend hours just browsing the shelves. Whilst there, I bought 'How To Be Bad' by E. Lockhart, Lauren Myracle and Sarah Mlynowski. Because Toppings is so fab, they have loads of signed books on offer, and when I saw this book was signed I had to pick up a copy. (Unfortunately I missed E. Lockhart actually being in store by a day! If only I'd have done my bookshop crawl a day earlier!) 'How To Be Bad' is about three girls, Jesse, Vicks and Mel, who are desperate to get out of town and discover their true badass selves. And that calls for a road trip!

And here are my 9 other book recommendations from Topping and Company...

1. The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly (love this book!)
2. Uprooted by Naomi Novik (in shop spot)
3. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (I adoooore this book)
4. The Song for Ella Grey by David Almond (to read)
5. I'll give you a sun by Jandy Nelson (to read)
6. The Perfectionists by Sara Shepard (in shop spot whilst looking for Pretty Little Liars)
7. The Grand Budapest Hotel (to read)
8. It by Alexa Chung (to read)
9. The Great Automatic Grammatizator by Roald Dahl (in shop spot)

BOOKSHOP 3 - MR B'S EMPORIUM OF READING DELIGHTS

This is my all-time favourite bookshop in Bath and just in general. I absolutely adore it. It has an amazing selection of books, friendly staff who will always chat about books, plus tea and cake on offer. I had a long browse in here before coming out with 'Vivian Versus The Apocalypse' by Katie Coyle. I've heard lots of good stuff about this book and for some reason never got round to buying it, so I decided now was the time. It's about Vivian Apple (amazing name) who wakes up one day to find a 'New World', or more simply an apocalypse. Her parents are gone and all that's left is her memories of what life used to be like and her friend Harp (again amazing name). And so they embark on a road trip across America in search of any family they might have left. (There seems to be a road trip theme going on with my haul... that wasn't intentional, haha.)

And here are 9 more book recommendations from Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights...

1. Leon Cookbook (to read)
2. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (read and loved)
3. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (obviously love)
4. The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman (in shop spot)
5. Gingerbread by Robert Dinsdale (to read)
6. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (to read)
7. Jamarach's Menagarie by Carol Birch (to read)
8. The Bookshop That Floated Away by Sarah Henshaw (in shop spot)
9. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Saffron Foer (to read)

BOOKSHOP 4 - GOOD BUY BOOKS

Good Buy Books is a discount bookshop, offering books for half price. However, I didn't actually end up buying anything from here as their fiction section wasn't very big and nothing was really jumping out at me. But it's still a bookshop so that's what counts, right?!

POST CRAWL COFFEE

And then that was it for my bookshop crawl! We had a quick coffee at the Forum Coffee shop (which is one of my new favourites) and then it was time to head home. I had so much fun on my bookshop crawl, I'm in bookshops all the time anyway, but this just added a little something extra to my shopping! If you want to see more Indie Book Week or Bookshop Crawl stuff then make sure to check out the hashtag #bookshopcrawl or #IBW2015 or go to the Indie Bound website here: http://independentbooksellersweek.org.uk/Find-Your-Indie/Bookshop-Crawl#. I also have a vlog from my day, click below to watch it.

Thanks for reading! And make sure to follow me on here for weekly posts.

Hope you're having a bookish day!

Love Chloe x

Rooftops Galore

A WEEKEND IN BATH
I spent the weekend in Bath with my mum, and I had a rad time! So get ready for a photo heavy blog post because I took a ton of photos.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON
Friday was spent travelling to Bath, followed by a walk around the lake on my uni campus and then onto Newton St. Loe for cake! That evening we went to the pub just by my uni which meant we got to walk down the beautiful driveway of Bath Spa uni, which never ceases to amaze me with how lovely it is!

Fancy train lunch ;) (I can't make this not be underlined? sorry)

We basically got surrounded by sheep whilst on a lakeside walk at my uni.

Newton St. Loe has gorgeous houses and I want to live there please.

Cake and milkshake at the Newton St. Loe farm shop.

We also had to walk through a cow field. Lots of animal encounters available at my uni ;)

#unipride

NO FILTER OMG LOOK HOW PRETTY

This is a part of my university. Yes, it is the best uni ever.

SATURDAY
Saturday was a shopping day in the morning and then in the afternoon we went on the tower tour in the Bath Abbey. It was amazing and so worth the achy legs I had from climbing up the 212 steps! Our evening was spent at a rooftop bar in Hall and Woodhouse, followed by dinner at Ponte Vecchio, a lovely little Italian restaurant.

Saturday brunch.

We went on the tower tour in the Bath Abbey and got to sit behind the clock face, little bit cool.

View from the top of the Abbey. AMAZING.

It was just a little bit windy up there though. 

Literally on the roof of the abbey. So so cool.

From the abbey rooftop to a rum and coke on a rooftop bar. Both equally great ;)

Not a bad view for a bar.

SUNDAY

Sunday was a last day, and my Dad joined us for this day so we could begin to move some of my stuff back home. We began with an amazing full english breakfast and then into Bath for a boat trip down the River Avon where we went up to Bathhampton (where I must visit soon, it looked so cute!) and back again.

Delicious farm shop breakfast!

A Ponte Vecchio for coffee.

We then went on a boat trip down the River Avon.

TO HOME
And that's it. I had a lovely weekend! Despite living in Bath during uni, I always feel like I'm on holiday when I go for a weekend like this - I can literally never get bored of it. Plus I always manage to find somewhere new to explore, like the roof of the Abbey, the Forum coffee house and the rooftop bar.

If you're ever in Bath, all the places from this blog post are worth visiting!

Thanks for reading, remember to follow me for weekly updates.

Hope you're having a rad day.

Love Chloe x

May in Photos

May Photos

These photos make up my May and here are the stories behind them...

1. I went to Bristol for the day with my friend Fiona. We explored the docks and it was so pretty there! 

2. I went Bristol Aquarium with my sister and they had these super cool jellyfish there. 

3. Silly selfies at the aquarium. 

4. Stingray at the aquarium. They're so weird looking but I kinda love them for it, haha :') 

5. Bundy and an amazing Aussie burger at Walkabout. 

6. I treated myself to this BEAUTIFUL Bold Metals blush brush. 

7. The best Thai restaurant ever with my sister. 

8. We went to my local farm shop for breakfast and oh my god, it was so good. 

9. Bristol zoo with Jade (my sister). 

10. They had a butterfly house at the zoo and it was so amazing to see these gorgeous creatures up close. 

11. I went to the Jane Austen centre with Fiona and this is me writing with a quill there! It's actually a lot easier than I thought! 

12. Me and Fiona at the Jane Austen Centre. They had outfits to dress up in, she wasn't just randomly dressed like that, haha :) 

13. Lemon drizzle cake at Jacobs, my favourite cafe in bath <3

14. More silly selfies. 

15. I met my sister for lunch and we had a super yummy Thai green curry. 

16. I found my MAC retro lipstick after losing it for weeks. YES. 

17. Empty cinema for the new Avengers film. It was sooooooo good <3 

18. Eurovision night. These were my countries, they all sucked. 

19. Scones at the seaside. 

20. Me and Jade at Chicester Harbour. That was such a lovely day :) 

21. Boats at the harbour. 

22. Riccardo (my avocado tree) grew a new leaf that wasn't from the top of his trunk. Ahhhh! 

23. Last day of uni selfie. I took a photo just like this on my first day so I thought it would be cool to recreate it :) 

24. I spent my last night at uni watching Leon (my favourite film).

25. I took this out of the train window because the train ride from Bath to my home is so pretty! 

26. Simon Baker in Home and Away :o 

27. My parents bought me this beautiful copy of Emil and the Detectives from Hatchards in London! 

JUNE

And now we're in June! This year is going so fast! Make sure to leave a comment telling me what you got up to in May. 

Thanks for reading, remember to follow me for new posts every week. 

Hope you're having a great day. 

Love Chloe x