Summer Favourites 2016

Hi everyone, so as I sit here writing this, I'm looking out at a very wet soggy garden, there's a full on thunderstorm and it's chucking it down as well, so that's it, Summer over :-(  This does actually make me feel quite sad and very much dreading the cold weather that will soon be coming our way.  Back to having to wrap up or freeze and looking like a drowned rat every time you step out the door.  As you can tell, I'm not a lover of the colder months!!

Anyway, I've been enjoying many things over the Summer and thought it was time I did another favourites post, so if you'd like to know what I've been loving lately, keep on reading :-)

I haven't really been listening to much music at all lately apart from a load of old stuff on my mp3!  But I did find these few various tracks and I love them, they're all equally as good as each other and I've been listening to them non-stop the past couple of weeks!

Hobbie Stuart's cover of Cold Water – amazing, he's so talented and his version of this song is just gorgeous!!  Also I just had to add this one in, it's his new cover and it's gorgeous (LOVE this guys voice) - Let Me Love You :-)
Hozier - Arsonist's Lullaby – I'm sure this track has been in an episode of The Walking Dead, if not it should be it has the right kind of sound, very cool track!
NCS - Everlasting – anyone who needs free cool upbeat music for their videos, go check out this youtube channel, I know a few youtubers use them already.  The music on here is SO good and I'm obsessed with this track!
Mike Perry - The Ocean – This reminds me so much of the journey to Blackpool a few weeks ago, it has a real 'feel good' summery vibe, love this one :-)

If you didn't know already, and as I've just mentioned, I recently went on a little holiday with a couple of my best friends and had a really fun time in Blackpool, I took a ton of photos and bought back a few souvenirs.  If you haven't read my post all about it yet, click here to see a load of the pics and hear all about what went on there :-)

I absolutely love taking photos in general, but I've really been getting in to doing 'flatlays' lately.  I just love positioning all the bits, adding little props and ending up with (hopefully) a really nice photo, it's quite satisfying.  I've been scouring sites like instagram, pinterest and We Heart It for lots of inspiration too which has been quite fun and relaxing :-)

I've always loved Instagram but I'm just so in to it lately and have been trying to upload a photo every day for the last couple of weeks.  I've been enjoying trying to do more things lately too, (partly so I have some nice things to take pictures of) and I've been loving trying some new editing apps too.

I bought a couple of new lipsticks recently which I'm really happy with, but I've also gone back to using a few of my older favourites too and have been loving them all over again, like my Rimmel To Nude or Not To Nude and my Soap & Glory Charm Offensive lipshine.  The new ones I got are Tanya Burr's Martha Moo (so pretty) and 2 L'Oreal Sexy Balms in 203 Bold - Yala Yolo (daft name if you ask me!) and 111 Sheer - Go Pretty or Go Home.  They're quite bright but very pretty and very glossy so I'm gradually getting used to them and enjoying trying them out.

And finally, Autumn, despite my hate of cold weather, I can't help but love seeing all the newly fallen crisp brown leaves scattered everywhere and thankfully most of the time it's still quite sunny at the moment.  Plus of course what else comes along with Autumn, Halloween :-D  woooh!!  As always, I can't wait for that!

Are you looking forward to Halloween this year, what are you planning to do?  And what things have you been loving lately, let me know in the comments :-)
And Until Next Time Stay Happy ♥

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My 3 Day Trip To Blackpool (pic heavy)

Hi everyone, just to say first off, sorry for my lack of post last week, aside from feeling ill all week, our wifi had a fault and I just couldn't get online long enough to upload the post, sorry but I hope you enjoy it now!

Two weeks ago I actually did something exciting, I went on a little 3 day holiday with my 2 best friends to Blackpool.  I kind of went a bit crazy with the photo taking (I took over 100 on the first day!!)  So I can't show them all but I thought I'd pick out the best ones and tell you a bit about what I got up to in Blackpool.  So here we go. . .

The first day was probably my favourite, we did so much.
For once in my life I was actually ready on time that morning to be picked up at 10am, bags all packed (which took me at least 4 hours the day before) and finally we were on our way.

It took about 2 hours or so to get there thanks to an accident and typical UK bank holiday traffic but it wasn't too bad and with all the anticipation and excitement (and in-car karaoke), the time went really quick anyway.

We stayed at the Canberra Hotel, which was a really nice place, the room was quite reasonably priced and the breakfast they served each morning was amazing!

After unloading our bags we headed to the main town and found a Starbucks :-D  Then went on our first adventure on a tour of the Blackpool Dungeons underneath the tower.

It was like a fun, scary history lesson without the boring bits. There were actors in period costumes that walked you through different rooms, telling you all about the plague, the smuggling gangs, the War of Roses and the torture chambers, with added gruesome sounds and smells (yes one room actually smelt of urine)!!  All while getting random members of the audience involved at the same time, including me lol!  It was a lot of fun.  One of my friends brought her son along for the trip (that's the cute little one in the pics ;-) and he seemed to really enjoy it too.

Going up in the lift

After a little look around the dungeon gift shop, we stopped for a quick rest and a drink, then it was finally time to head up the famous Blackpool tower!  If you click on the YouTube link, you can see a short video I took of the view from the tower, while going up in the lift.  It was very impressive, but not as impressive as the view from the very top!  It was almost hard to believe we were 300 feet in the air!!

And yes I was brave enough to stand on the glass floor, and look down!

After a look in the tower gift shop and buying a couple more souvenirs. . .

. . .We headed off to find some food.

There's SO many places to choose from it's crazy but they're all quite expensive too.  We did manage to find a nice place though and had a really nice meal while we watched the sun go down.  The view and the beautiful sunset that night, were amazing!!

We decided to have a wonder on the pier for a while before we jumped on a tram and headed back to the hotel, then it was time for hot drinks, a good laugh and a look through all the photos we'd taken that day.  That was such a lovely fun time, like an old-style girly sleepover :-)

We were full of excitement again the next morning, ready to go to the Pleasure Beach.  I was really looking forward to going as it had been nearly 20 years since I'd last been to a fairground!  Although sadly for me it didn't go quite as I'd hoped.

We all queued up for the first ride, I didn't really know what to expect but definitely wasn't prepared for what happened.  My friend and I got in the back car and pulled the safety bar down (which didn't really go low enough to hold me down) we looked at each other all excited as the ride started off.  Within half a minute, the cars suddenly lurched forward and plummeted, I felt my neck yanked backwards and I hit the base of my skull really hard on the back of the car seat.  I looked at my friend this time with horror!  After a very long 2 mins and several more plummets, thankfully the ride had a break before the next section.  I saw some other people getting off so I got off too and I honestly couldn't get off quick enough.  I just felt really (mentally) shaken up!  The worst part was, as I touched the back of my head to see if it was bleeding, there was a huge lump!!  After that I ended up having a full blown panic attack, I felt so embarrassed but I just couldn't help it and unfortunately it pretty much ruined the rest of the day for me.  My head was paining and I felt too nervous to try any other rides. . .

Wallace & Gromit Ride

I did go on one later that day with my friends which was just like a drive through of the Wallace & Gromit world, that was quite sweet.  Looking back, I probably should have found someone from first aid but thankfully the pain did ease as the day went on, although I could hardly lay down that night and I still have a slight bump now, 2 weeks later!!  Really though I was very lucky as it could've been a lot worse!  I may sound like an oldie here but honestly I don't see how these rides are safe for the body and I will definitely know in future the type of rides I never want to go on again!!

Later that day, one of my friends and I went through another type of walk-through tour, this time is was a horror tour called Pasaje del Terror (apparently it's a worldwide thing, you may have already hear of it and you can google it).  That was very cool and very creepy!  I love stuff like that but I think I practically dragged my friend through it, holding her hand the whole time and half running to get through lol.  You had to walk through a very narrow passageway while people dressed like Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger etc jumped out at you with (hopefully) fake knives and chainsaws and chased you along!!  Eeek, lots of fun though.

After that we got ourselves some traditional fish and chips and sat looking out over the sea by the beach watching the sunset :-)

The next day we gathered up our swimming costumes and towels and headed off to the waterpark.  We pretty much spent the majority of the day there, in the water for the big waves, in the spa and having lunch in the restaurant part.  That was lovely and nice and relaxing after the previous day's bad experience!  I love the way it was decorated inside, with palm trees and pictures of safari animals.  I wasn't allowed to take any pics but I found this one on Google so you can see what I mean.  I decided not to try any of the slides but if I ever get chance to go again I will have a go, because I do enjoy those.

After that, it was finally time to get back to the hotel grab our bags and travel back home (and then try and recover for nearly a week!! #fibro)

As always I hope you enjoyed this post, I really enjoyed doing this one although sorting out which of the hundreds of photos to use took forever!! :-)  Where have you visited recently, did you go with family or friends and have you ever had a horrible experience on holiday?  Let me know in the comments :-) 

I will leave you with a few more pics that I took (and thank you Shelley for letting me use some of hers for this post).  And until next time, stay happy ♥

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