Sunday, 10 May 2015

Coffee Cups With Chloe: Bath and Bristol

Begin...
HEY
I've had a crazy busy week and that means I haven't had time to write this weeks blog post. PLUS, I left my idea notebook at university so I don't have that to hand to look over all my ideas. And so what does that all add up to? A Coffee Cups with Chloe post (AKA, updates galore)!

BUSYNESS EXPLAINED
As I said, I was really busy this week. But luckily, it was the fun kind of busy, rather than the worky kind of busy. My sister came to spend a few days with me in Bath and we packed a lot into those three days. On the first day we went to Bristol to do some shopping and also to go to the aquarium. It was really wet and windy (shocking for England, I know) which meant we didn't actually do much shopping, but it's all good because the aquarium was awesome. They had jellyfish, stingrays and tiny frogs which were incredible colours. (And hella poisonous; the information about them said that just one tiny bit of their poison was enough to kill eight humans!)


On the second day I had lessons in the morning, but then we went shopping in Bath in the afternoon. It was still very wet and windy, so we had to dodge the rain by running from shop to shop and spending as little time as possible outside.

One of my purchases... the most beautiful brush ever. It's the tapered blush brush from the Bold Metals collection by Real Techniques <3

Jumping photos never really work out when you have long hair...
And on the third day, we went back to Bristol to go to Bristol Zoo, and it was actually sunny! I was really impressed with the zoo because they made the most of what they had. What I mean is that they didn't have many of the 'exciting' animals like giraffes, tigers, elephants, etcetera, but they made the animals they did have really interesting to look at. There were talks and feeds going on all day so you were guaranteed to catch at least one. We saw the otters and gorillas get fed, and it was so cool to watch this. Fun fact: gorillas are so like humans that they can have Calpol and paracetamol when they're ill! They also had a butterfly house which was rad, the butterflies are flying all around you and you can get some amazing close up photos of them.


The time spent not shopping or looking at animals and fish, we were in Walkabout, an Australian bar, eating Aussie food and drinking bundys. And when we weren't there we were in The Pig and Fiddle in Bath drinking bundys. Bundy is good, okay. (it's Bundaberg rum and coke, in case you didn't know.)

Sydney Burger and bundy in Walkabout, mmmmm.

And when we weren't shopping, looking at animals and fish, or being Australian, we were watching films at my home. We watched Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, which was really good. It was just easy-going and funny, and I think they ended the trilogy perfectly with that. The other film we watched was the modern version of Little Red Riding Hood with Amanda Seyfried in it. I'd never heard of this (I don't know how?) but I thought it was great. I liked the clever twist on the classic fairytale, and plus Gary Oldman was in it, so it was guaranteed to be good.

CALM
Life is going back to normal next week and I'll just be doing my usual uni thing, which means an few lessons, lots of reading and lots of TV watching, hahaha.

Make sure to follow me for weekly posts, with some extra posts thrown in here and there :)

Thanks for reading, I hope you're having a wonderful day and I'll talk to you soon.

Love Chloe x


HAVE SOME LINKS
Me on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGiddyElf
Bristol Aquarium: http://www.bristolaquarium.co.uk
Bristol Zoo: http://www.bristolzoo.org.uk
Makeup brush: http://www.boots.com/en/Bold-Metals-Collection-by-Real-Techniques-Tapered-Blush_1645015/






Sunday, 3 May 2015

April in Photos

THE PHOTOS 

THE STORIES
This is my April in photos, and here are the stories of these photos: 

1. My sister did a Disney photo shoot and this was the Belle inspired makeup that I had. 
2. Easter treats #1.
3. Easter treats #2 - pavlova made by me and my my mum! 
4. Easter treats #3 - hot cross loaf made by me! 
5. Penguins at the zoo. 
6. Me at Marwell zoo :) 
7. I held a baby for the first time ever and he held my hair. It was kinda adorable (okay very adorable). 
8. Bundy and coke with my sister on National Sibling Day. 
9. This sunset view was on the roof of a carpark. Pretty rad, huh. 
10. We went to get churros and mocktails before going to the cinema and they had sombreros in the bar so we became SOMEBREBROS.
11. Waiting for food in wagamama and I was STARVING. I don't think I'd eaten food that wasn't pretzels since about 9am and at this point it was about 7pm. That's a long time to live on just pretzels. 
12. More mocktails, but with my mum this time. They were deliciooous!
13. We were looking through old photo albums and I found this photo of my sister and I at the 12 Apostles taken in 1997. How crazy is that? I would have been 1! (I'm the one on the left.)
14. Look at this adorable little cake! It tasted as yummy as it looked. 
15. My family and I went for afternoon tea at the Jane Austen centre in Bath and it was one of the best I've ever had. If you're in Bath definitely visit this place for "tea with Mr Darcy"! 
16. On that same weekend we stayed in the Tracy Park Hotel (just outside of Bath city) and we had a four poster bed! It was so cosy. 
17. Coffee in the sunshine just before my lecture. It was lovely. 
18. I went to the Harry Potter Studio tour in Watford with my mum and sister and saw the REAL HOGWARTS EXPRESS. So so so cool <3. 

THAT'S IT
So that's my April in photos. April was such a great month and I did lots of lovely things. 

How was your April? Let me know what you got up to in the comments :) 

Thanks for reading, make sure to follow me for posts at least once a week. 

Love Chloe x



Friday, 1 May 2015

April Book Haul

HI, MY NAME IS CHLOE AND I AM A BOOKWORM
So I bought a lot of books in April, and it was all because I found this £3 bookshop in Bristol, where all the books are obviously £3. And is if that wasn't good enough, they had a offer on of buy 4 books for £10. So being the massive bookworm that I am, I wasn't about to pass up the chance to buy books for cheap.

So here are all the books I've bought this month...

THE BOOKS


'All I Know Now' by Carrie Hope Fletcher. This book is a mixture of stories from Carrie's life as a teenager and advice for people who might be going through the same things she did. For example, there are stories and advice on bullying, heartbreak and making friends. I'm about a third of the way through it and it's great. If you are a teenager, you probably need this in your life. And if you're not a teenager, you still probably need this in your life. 


'The Song of the Quarkbeast' by Jasper Fforde. This is the sequel to his book 'The Last Dragonslayer' which I read a few years ago and loved. This book is about Jennifer Strange who is running an employment agency for magicians. I bought this in the £3 bookshop!


'How We Met' by Katy Regan. I hadn't heard of this, but the cover was what made me want to buy it, it's so pretty! This book is about a group of friends who have to try and find a way of living without their friend, Liv, who has just died. I'm not entirely sure what else happens in it other that because I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like a good YA/romance novel, so i'm excited to get into it! This is also from the £3 bookshop.


'A Long Way Down' by Nick Hornby. This book is about 4 people who all end up on the roof at the same time, all with the intention of killing themselves. But when they all meet, they stop each other from doing that. I hadn't heard of this book until picking up, but I did know about the film adaptation of it, which I thought looked quite good from the trailers. Plus, there is a quote from Johnny Depp on the back, saying that he loved it, which seems like a good sign. AND, it was £3 so I couldn't really not buy it.


'Flyte' by Angie Sage. This is the sequel to her book 'Magyk' and is part of the Septimus Heap series. I read 'Magyk' a few years ago (at the same time as I was reading The Last Dragonslayer weirdly) and really enjoyed it, so as this was just £3 I decided to pick it up and continue on with the series. This book is about Septimus' mission to rescue his adoptive sister Jenna, who was kidnapped by their brother, Simon Heap, who clearly has turned bad. It's very magical as they're all wizards, and as it's predominately aimed at children, it's a pretty light and easy read. 


'Days of Blood and Starlight' by Laini Taylor. This is the sequel to 'The Daughter of Smoke and Bone' which I read last year and absolutely adored. I'm not exactly sure what this one is about, and to avoid spoilers for those of you who haven't read the first book, I won't write what the blurb says here! But the first book is about a girl called Karou who runs errands for Brimstone, who has raised her. However, the door that leads to 'Elsewhere', a more magical version of earth, is closing and Karou needs to decide whether to stay in her normal life in Prague or go to Elsewhere. I'm so excited to start reading this because the first book was brilliant!


'Lips Touch' by Laini Taylor. This is a collection of short stories, that are all connected by the theme of kissing. The three stories are called 'Goblin Fruit', 'These Spicy Little Curses' and 'Hatchling'. All three stories are very magical, but all with a slight hint of darkness in them. I have read this one, and I loved it! My favourite story from it was 'Goblin Fruit' but they were all excellent. 


'Sophie's World' by Jostein Gaarder. This book was actually lent to me by my best friend Amber (the person from my blog post 'Human Stories' <3) so technically it shouldn't be part of this haul, but hey this is my blog and I make the rules. This book is about a young girl called Sophie who starts getting letters in her mailbox about philosophy. She doesn't know who is sending them and so tries to find out. It's part fiction, part philosophy lessons, and it's all very mysterious. 

FIN
And so that is all the books from the month of April. Well actually I also got 'The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender' by Leslye Walton, which Mr B's sent me for the reading year that I have with them, but it's at home so I couldn't photograph and include it in this because I'm at university right now! But that book was amazing, so I'd definitely recommend it! 

Let me know in the comments if you have read any of these books, or if not, tell me if you bought any books this month! 

Thanks for reading, make sure to follow me for new posts at least once a week!

Love Chloe x