H & M SPORTSWEAR // WINNING

I am obsessed with magazines but something seems to happen every time I read a fashion based mag - my eye is never attracted to the £20 top from Topshop, it is always attracted to the £300+ jacket from Rag and Bone or YSL. The same seems to happen when I'm on the search for new sports gear. As you probably know by now I love sport and exercising and I want to look cool while sweating pints on the cross trainer so I regularly spend my evening searching the internet for the perfect capri trouser and the coolest tank (sad?!). However, it seems that all the ones that I am attracted to are way too expensive, at least for a student's purse with a nice Nike pant costing £50+ but over the christmas holidays I stumbled upon H&M's sports section. H&M is not the first place you think to look when you're looking for sports gear but from now on that is the first place you should look! Cool looking stash that is cut beautifully giving you a nice silhouette while the material is perfect for a day of hard exercise and all at a very reasonable price. In the words of Charlie Sheen - WINNING! Here are some of my favs (and some that I have been rocking in the gym recently):

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 

SURFING TAKE TWO //

A year or so ago myself, Carwen & Ruth headed down the coast to surf. We had signed up for a weekend of lessons and spent about 4 hours in the water per day. The thing was that I was very ill - I had the cold to beat all colds and add the issue of my back wwwww, and the quite bad sun burn, it didn't go too great. Despite the fact that I couldn't do much surfing over that weekend I still love surfing and still really want to learn. Luckily then that my uni has a surf club which go on regular trips to Cornwall and abroad where you can learn. In a few weeks the club is heading down to Newquay, Cornwall for the BUCS Surf weekend and it looks pretty awesome - watch competitions, learn to surf and live music. Perfect. 

5 Things

Since it's pouring down with rain outside I thought I might cheer myself up with a list of five things that I'm really liking right now. So here we go . . .

This is a necklace my mam bough for me over the weekend and it is so cool! The lady in the shop took the label off before putting it in the bag so I have no idea what make it is but I love it. 

I have a never ending reading list for university to get through over summer and I have no idea how I'm going to finish them all but this one that I have almost finished is superb. A real insight in to the lives and mentality of the elite in early 19th century Britain.

Records seem to be so expensive to buy so instead of forking out £20 for a single album I've just been listening to my Mam's collection. Urban Outfitters however, currently have an awesome collection of old records for £6 each or two for £10 which is amazing. 

Exercising at home is great although not all the time. Most of the time I go swimming, to the gym or out on the bike but sometimes working out at home is harder. If you have the equipment then you're sorted. Here I use 2km weights to put on my feet, 3km weights in my hands that I do a lot of reps with and finally we have the 10km weight which is great when doing deep lunges etc. 

I know, you're probably sick of me going on about Bruce but I can not help it. He is The Man, The Boss, The Rock 'n' Roll God. He is more than just a musician to many people including myself. His music is incredible but so is his relationship with his fans. His concerts are out-of-this-world with him playing for up to four hours - and yes he is in his 60's. Since the end of his Wrecking Ball tour in Europe I've just been youtubing him all day which might not be the best cure for the Bruce Blues but hey :)

MILLENNIUM STADIUM //

Late last week I found out that my friend, Kyle, was going to be playing in the MILLENNIUM STADIUM in Cardiff (how awesome is that?!)!! So obviously I booked by train tickets to Cardiff and yesterday morning I left uni quite early and got the train back to Wales. I met up with Carwen, we grabbed some lunch and headed in to the stadium. It was so cool seeing people you actually know playing on the field. Kyle was playing for Carmarthen Athletic in the national youth cup final against Gorseinon (Leigh Halfpenny's team . . . he was there also!). Athletic got the home draw so their changing room was the Wales home changing room! Athletic convincingly beat Gorseinon 43-12! Woohoo. The game was really exciting and some awesome rugby was played by both teams but the last two tries by Athletic were superb!

Earlier in the week I wasn't sure what to do after the game - go back to uni, stay in Cardiff . . . ? I looked at tickets for a same day return and if I had left Cardiff at 21:00 I wouldn't have reached Egham 'till 10am!!! Cray. Carwen's mum was driving home that evening after the game so I got a lift home to West Wales from them. I wasn't really planning coming home from uni this term just because it's a really short term but because I was so close to home and I have no lectures (only exams) I thought I might as well. Yesterday was also my Mami's birthday so it was nice to be back for that also.

I'm going back to uni on Tuesday morning so I have a time to rest at home for a few days before I go back to revision and exams!

 Leigh Halfpenny (in the red)!

POSITIVE THINKING

Last Wednesday I went in to a hospital in London for the day. The reason for this was that I was being put under anaesthetic in order for them to inject on both sides of my lower back in order to attempt to get rid of the pain in my leg. The hospital was by Chelsea bridge so we had to leave quite early. They didn't take me down to theatre in till around 3:00pm and I was back about an hour after. They brought me in some food which, for hospital food, was delish! My mum and I watched Ted on the TV. Once the nurse said we could go we left, even though I could hardly feel my left foot - I just wanted to go home! We ate food from M&S in my uni room in the evening, my mum had some prawn thing and I had some fruit. I put the film 'Bucket List' on the tv and then we fell asleep.

I hope and pray that it's going to work. It's getting increasingly hard to get on with my life. It's even harder on days such as the one I'm writing to you on where the sun is shining and where, If my leg was good, I'd be outside exercising or just having fun. But I can't. Arghhhhhh!!! Being a person that did sport every single day of the week to now doing nothing, the only way I can describe it to you is it's like being trapped inside your own body. You want to do stuff but you can't. But hey, there are much worse things in the world. Positivity guys.

Hope you have a fantastic Friday.
Gwenwch mae'n ddydd Gwener :)

Don't I just look so awesome . . . . .!

This is me playing my first ever game for the Scarlets about nearly four years ago (V RGC Under 18s).

 This is after we beat the Ospreys away in Llandarcy last season (I think!)

This are just photos that I love and make me happy! 

 The picture below is from a blog called Muchomuchobuenobueno

 Photo from Roxy blog

:)

Pilates & Chelsea

On Wednesday I went to my first proper pilates class just a few minutes away from the university. Because of my back injury I was advised to go to pilates to strengthen my core. However, I wasn't able to find any classes in my first term here at uni but this week I started a pilates course that runs until March so that'll be good :)

Yesterday I had to get up supper early (6:50am) in order to get an early train into London. After getting lost and walking about 2/3miles more than I needed to, I eventually arrived at the Chelsea Outpatient Centre where I had an appointment with a spinal surgeon (I have to go back there next Friday again . . .). Once I came out of the centre I went and had an early lunch in a place called 'My Old Dutch Pancake house' and I had a Chorizo, Pepperoni and Chili pancake and read my book. I was on my own so I decided to have a roam about Chelsea and Sloane Square as I had never been there before. I went in to a few shops and tried on two awesome tops on in Brandy Melville. They looked awesome on but I decided not to buy them because I'm a student and I'll probably need that money later on in the term (sensible eyyyy?!). That shop is awesome though! I sat down in Sloan Square for a bit just watching the world go by. Eventually I took the tube from Sloan Square to Westminster where I decided get off the train and walk back to Waterloo where my train left for Egham.

I love Westminster. It might be one of my favourite places in London. Even though it's rammed with tourists and people asking you to take pictures of them! I just like the palace and . . . well . ..  I just really like it for some reason!

 

NEW ZEALAND RUGBY!

Early Friday morning I caught the train to Cardiff to see Nicola (: The train was close to an hour late arriving in the city but once I finally arrived we headed straight to Starbucks to grab a bight to eat and a coffee to warm us up - it was absolutely pouring it down and incredibly cold (typical welsh winter weather!). Once I could feel my feet again we caught the bus to my mum's friend's house to drop my stuff off because that was where I was staying for the night. Once we arrived back in to town we met up with Nicola's dad who had driven a bus load of people down to watch the Wales V New Zealand match that was on in the Millennium stadium that evening. We literally had only spoken a few words with him before Nicola and myself were running up the street! He had just told us that the New Zealand team bus was outside the Hilton hotel and being us we headed straight in the direction of the hotel!

When we arrived there we were just in time - Richie McCaw (NZ Captain and all round AWESOME player) had just stepped on the bus! We then saw world class players such as Ma'a Nonu, Piri Weepu and Dan Carter (OMG!). I have all of this on video, so once I upload it on to some format I will post it on the blog asap!

Once that jaw dropping excitement had come to a close (and after Nicola and I waved the bus off!) we went back to Nicola's flat for some coffee and a chance to dry up before we headed over to the local Weatherspoons to watch the match! We lost - but it was a much better performance than the last two matches!

Early Sunday afternoon I met up with Nicola in town for some brunch in a little place down Castle Arcade called 'Madame Fromage'. I had a ham, brie and cranberry baguette - yuuum! We then headed over to the train station (absolutely stuffed!) and we saw when we arrived that the train was delayed. Whilst waisting time around the station I noticed that ex All Black captain Justin Marshall, was sitting down in the station's cafe! So after some planning, we headed over to him and had a picture and a quick conversation! The train eventually turned up an hour late and the journey just got worse from there! There had been an engine failure at some point so we were running on one engine, a tree had fallen across the tracks so the driver had to go out and move it, there wasn't enough power in the train to go up an incline so we had to wait for another train to come and pull us up, we eventually got up the hill but then they couldn't get air in to the train so we had to evacuate, when we arrived at Reading the last train to Egham had left over and hour and a half ago so we had to wait a further hour and a half to get a taxi back to the Uni. So a 2 and a half hour journey turned in to a 12 hour journey! At least I got home and have pictures of NZ players on my phone to keep me happy!

WORK TIME

Freshers is officially over, as lectures have began. I received my timetable late last week and it isn't too bad. I only have 8 hours or so of contact time a week. Although that isn't a lot we have a lot of reading and work to do outside of the lecture room. The history modules I have picked for my first year are - Mao to Mandela: Twentieth Century leaders in the non-western world & Social and cultural history of Europe and Britain from 1453-1789. Along with these modules we have to do 2 compulsory modules which are Doing History & History and Meanings. 

As well as lectures starting, sport has also began. I've joined the rowing team which I am loving so far. It's just such an awesome (hard work!) sport! I'm also going down to watch the rugby training (as I still can't train as I'm injured). Friday morning at 7:30 myself and two of my block friends went down to the gym for an early morning spinning session. I'm feeling more relaxed and settled now that I'm starting to get in to a routine involving work and sport. 

After our spinning session on Friday we headed in to the nearest shopping town to do some . . . well . . . shopping! I only bought one thing - a nice woolly jumper! On this trip, I also had my first ever Nando's! When we arrived back I headed down to rugby training and then did my laundry! Proud!

 Now, I have some reading to do!