TRAVEL | ILFRACOMBE, DEVON

I love to travel. I love to see new places, experience new and interesting cultures, treat my eyes to the beauty that is planet earth. But to me travel isn't just about hopping on a plane and jetting off to exotic, foreign lands. It's about exploring your own back garden, jumping on a train/coach/in the family car, and heading off to learn more about the country you call home. On the 26th July that's just what I did. Accompanied by my mom, dad and best friend, I spent the week soaking up the English sun in the stunning north of Devon.

The first place we ventured to was the seaside town of Ilfracombe, an absolutely beautiful little town with a sweet little harbour, surrounded by cliffs and sea. This little place is steeped in history having been around since the Iron Age, being the town the late great Peter Sellers made his very first stage appearance, a brief home for the evacuated Joan and Jackie Collins and now for the artist Damien Hirst. It's history, it's cute little buildings, beautiful views of the harbour, beach and cliffs all make this town a very worthwhile place to pay a visit to if you are ever in this part of the country.

If you do find yourself in Ilfracombe and are looking for somewhere to grab a spot of lunch, I'd definitely suggest heading down to the harbour and popping in the The Smugglers, a beautifully decorated, cosy cafe where you can grab a very tasty light bite.

my mom and dad inside The Smugglers

#nofilter

 

As I'm sure everyone is aware we've had some gorgeous days recently and the sun has been out in full force. Swansea is a great place and I love living here but sometimes, when it's rained every day for a month and everything is so grey and miserable, I can forget how beautiful it really is. Days like this, when you can go for a walk and stumble upon a stunning, hidden park or stroll down the coast to the wonderful fishing village that is Mumbles, remind me just how lucky I am to go to a uni in such a nice location.

Aim high, hum along lady...

My aim this summer is to get fit. I used to be fit and in kind of good shape, I used to play football and run and was so sporty it was unreal. My favourite subject was P.E and I could run up the stairs without being out of breath afterwards. Now however it's a whole different story. I lost all my enthusiasm and energy a couple of years ago and since then I have done no exercise at all. Walking was the only time I did anything remotely physical (and dancing on nights out but I don't really count that). I want this to change for 2 reasons...

1 - I am sooo not happy with my body and I want to lose weight. I know the best way of doing this is eating right and getting plenty of exercise so when I'm back at Uni I want to join the gym. But I don't want to pay all that money for gym membership if I can only manage ten minutes at a slow pace on the running machine. I want to have a proper 'gym session' and to do this I need to be fit!

2 - Next year at Uni I want to join the netball team. I used to be quite good and I think it'd be fun and something that would enrich my uni experience. But I've got no chance if I collapse dying after five minutes so I really need to be fit!

I'm going to go for long walks with my dog every day that I'm available to and start jogging, first only short distances I can manage and gradually jogging for longer and longer. I'm also thinking about going swimming a few times (although I hate swimming so I'll only go if I can drag some one along with me) and I was contemplating yoga? Does anyone do yoga? Is it beneficial?

This is something I really, really want to do. I'll be so annoyed if it comes to September and I can't try out for the netball team because I'm in bad shape. I'm hoping that posting about it will give me more motivation and at the end of every week I'm going to do a round up post of what exercise I've done. Does anyone know how I can moderate how much fitter I'm getting by the way? That would be useful. Is anyone else doing anything like this? It would be nice to talk to other people trying to get fit and see what they're doing and stuff :)