happy birthday wolf

Happy 22nd birthday to my best friend. 

"I'll love you today, tomorrow and more. 

I'll love you always, small ways and all. 

From the moon up high to the ground below, 

your my one and my only and I'll never let go."

Birthday weekend in London - Day #1

So, I'm now 21!

Wow, where is time going!? When I was a little girl imagining my life, 21 seemed like such a long way away and such an old age. In my head I would be married with a job and a house and a baby by the time I was 21 and here I actually am, still having to ask my flat mate to help me iron some of my more difficult dresses! It's crazy that I'm in my final year of university and I'm thinking about whats going to happen next, what I'm going to do with the rest of my life but that I'm still staying up till 2 am singing Steps hits with my best friend and having play fights with my boyfriend. Its scary, thinking about the rest of my life and my career and everything, but I'm also still having a stupid amount of fun. And, to be honest I was really worrying about becoming 21 way more then I should have been. However, it is kind of depressing that my next mile stone birthday is 30 :(

Anyway, for the big 2 1 my mom and dad paid for me and my boyfriend to spend a few nights in London. I love London as I've mentioned once or twice or twelve times, but I'd never spent the night there before, so it was such a wonderful present and I had the best time.

I'm going to do three separate blog posts about my trip to London as they are going to all be pretty picture and word heavy so I'll split them up into different days so it's easier for any one to read and easier for me when I want to pop back here and reminisce about the trip :)

So day 1 was Friday 20th September.

I didn't get too many photo's from this day. We arrived in London at about 1 o'clock and went looking for our hotel. Once we'd checked in, unpacked and spruced ourselves up we headed out to Camden Market. After perusing the stalls, scoffing salt and pepper chicken and rice from our favorite food stall and a quick pit stop back at the hotel to get changed, we headed over to The Lord Raglan pub where were met by Richard Jones to begin our London Ghost walk.

This was the first ghost tour we'd ever been on and it was amazing. Richard was such a good story teller, he was funny and passionate, engaging and interesting and, most importantly to us, truthful. He didn't just tell scary stories, he told stories of fake ghosts who were foiled by Samuel Johnson and showed us famous places for example, where Braveheart was hanged drawn and quartered, the graveyard where the "She - Wolfe" Queen Isabelle is buried, a walk around the wall that the Romans built when they first created their city Londinium and, for Sherlock fans, the hospital where Benedict Cumberbatch jumped from the roof in the last episode. Also, probably my favorite of all, was the stop off at the beautiful St Bartholomew the Great Church, which has been used in many famous films, such as Four Weddings and a Funeral (the church where Hugh Grants marriage that doesn't actually happen is set to take place). Every stop was beautiful and fascinating and after every story Adam and I turned to each other and said "wow!". We were so impressed and for a mere £9 each it was one of the best experiences of  the weekend. Next time we head to London we're going to check out some of Richards other tours of London, I'm particularly interested in the Jack the Ripper tour.

After the hour and 40 minute tour, to settle our grumbling tummy's, we took the tube to London Bridge and made our way to the Garrison Pub for a gorgeous meal. And when I say gorgeous meal, I mean the best meal either of us have ever eaten. Ever. The pub had a wonderful atmosphere, it was loud and buzzing with happy people laughing and chatting away and it was really nice to be surrounded by everyone. But we were also in our own little corner and could still enjoy our own conversations. I'm not sure if that makes sense or if its everyone's cup of tea but we loved it. And the food! It tasted so good neither of us wanted to ever finish what was on our plate. To start we had the the crab (me) and the chicken (Adam) followed by the cod (Adam) and the veal (me) for mains.Just thinking about the food now is making my mouth water and my stomach moan. So I speak for both of us when I say we would definitely recommend the Garrison and would definitely go back again. The staff were super friendly, the atmosphere was great, the food was amazing and the decoration and little touches were so cute. 

What I wore:

Choies dress | Boohoo boots | Topshop socks | Ebay jacket | Charity shop bag

Jar of Love; DIY gift

For my boyfriends 21st, as well as presents I wanted to make him something sentimental as 21 is a really special birthday. Back in February many bloggers posted about Valentines gift ideas and it was on Bambella's post (which you can find here if your interested) that I got the idea for this little 'Jar of Love'. She said she'd made her boyfriend one and I thought it would be a wonderful little gift for Adam on this special occasion.

what you will need: 

As it was his 21st, I decided to write 21 little notes to place inside (obviously when you're making your own you can put as many as you want in) and the notes consisted of all different things; things I love about him, special memories, my favourite poem, lyrics etc. I wrote the notes on a piece of paper, and folded them in to all sized pieces and placed them inside the jar. 

I then filled the jar with sweets and miniature chocolates; Love Hearts to continue the love theme and because they smell gorgeous, Star Burst because Adam likes them and as they are in wrappers they can be kept for as long as you want and chocolates from a box of Heroes because Adam is addicted to chocolate! 

The idea is that whenever he's feeling down or just wants a snack, he puts his hand in the jar gets a treat and a little note that will make him smile. It is such a simple creation, so cheap and incredibly thoughtful and I think just about anyone would love to receive a 'Jar of Love'.  It was fun to make and so so cheap, this whole thing cost me about £5 and it was one of Adam's favourite presents.

Tips

• Remember who the Jar is for. I could have brought a more expensive and prettier actual jar but as it was for a boy I thought this plain one was best. Not too girly so when every things ran out he can use the jar for other things!
  
  
  
  
• Be as creative as you want with the notes! Adams favourite band is Queen so I wrote him a letter filled with Queen song titles - he loved it! The more personal, the better.
  
  
  
  
• Only use sweets, or chocolates that will not spoil.

Has any one made anything like this for a gift? Does anyone have any other sweet, simple and sentimental DIY gift ideas? 

from Rebecca with love

Dear Adam,

4 years ago you were the older boy I perved on in school, whom I kept an eye out for in the corridors because your beautiful face put a little smile on mine, the boy who I told my friends I thought was the fittest boy in our school. 

Today you're my boyfriend, my best friend, my inspiration and my hero. You push me to do things I'm too scared to do, hold my hand through every tough day and hold my chin up for me when I'm too sad to hold up my own. For everything you do for me, thank you. I just hope I return the favour sometimes.

You are a wonderful person and I'm so lucky that you're my boyfriend. I literally have to pinch myself some times because I don't believe that you're with me. But I'm so glad you are. You make me so so happy ever day and I wish I was better with words so I could really explain to you how much I love you and how perfect you are.

You are hilarious and we have so much fun together. My favourite thing in the world is knowing that that's always going to be the case.

"I'll love you today, tomorrow and more. 

I'll love you always, small ways and all. 

From the moon up high to the ground below, 

your my one and my only and I'll never let go."

Happy birthday beautiful!

I love you x

TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY HAPPY DAYS

Tuesday was another wonderful day. The sun was, not only shining, but actually providing warmth in Swansea for once! I had planned to wrap up warm with my beanie and a scarf but I found that it was such a lovely day, a dress and leather jacket was more than sufficient!

It is Adam's 21st birthday next month and, as his parents are teachers, they took the opportunity to come down to Swansea as it's half term and treated us to a lovely meal. We went to The George in Mumbles where we had a really nice, filling meal and all got to have a little catch up. We then walked to the amusements and topped the afternoon off with a famous Joe's Ice-cream. I  haven't seen Adams family since Boxing Day and his Mom, Dad and sister are all really lovely so it was so nice to be able to spend the day with them all. They definitely picked the right day to come for a visit!



Speaking of Adam's birthday, I'm taking him for a weekend in Bristol and was wondering if anyone could give me any ideas of fun things to do there? Would really appreciate any ideas, especially with what to do on the Sunday.

Rome Rome, many tears have fallen here

So in my last post I mentioned something I was going to be hopefully spending my student loan on but I didn't want to say what it was in case I jinxed it or something but my boyfriend got a big sum of money the other day from his tax rebate and so we decided not to wait 'till I got my student loan and just spend his money on... BOOKING OUR HOLIDAY TO ITALY!

Colosseum, Rome

Trevi fountain, Rome

Florence

Venice

Venice

*All images taken from Google

On the 19th September (so in exactly 5 months time, eek!) we will be flying from Gatwick to Rome, where we will spend 3 nights. Then we will travel to Florence where we will spend one night and then to Venice, where we will spend 2 nights before flying home from Marco Polo.

One of my 20 things to do before I'm 20 is to visit Italy and I can't believe I'm actually going to do it!! I have always wanted to go to Italy as it's my favourite place in the world. Silly really, considering I've never been there but it just looks so beautiful and I am sure it is not going to disappoint. To make it extra exciting we will be there on my 20th birthday so it will actually be the best birthday present ever!!

The whole trip, including the around Italy trail pass is costing us just under £400 each so not too expensive really for 6 nights in 3 amazing cities! As neither of us have been to Italy before we're not too sure on how expensive it is there so don't really know how much spending money we will need and stuff so if any one has been to these places before if you could let us know roughly how expensive it is there and perhaps recommend some things to do I'd be grateful! I'd love to hear your stories about your travels to this wonderful country. Or if your from Italy! This post really doesn't do my excitement justice but I'm literally like AHHHHHHHAKRJIJREGAHH YAYYYYYY!!!! inside and I will be for the next 5 months. Since booking it, I've spent the hours googling the three cities and deciding what clothes to take/buy! So so so excited haha.


I also want to mention Being Little's blog give away. If you're not already a follower of her blog you should be as not only does she post lovely outfits and cute decorations she also does the best give aways and this one is no exception! Definitely worth checking it out and I'd say good luck but it is so good I'm quite hoping that I win it haha.

Does anyone else have any holidays planned for this year? Or exciting birthday plans? I'd love to hear them :)