ATTENTION!

University work is insane. When they said there was a jump from first to second year they weren't lyin'. I am basically in the library from 9am till about 5pm everyday then work at home until at least 9pm each evening but I think I've come up with system that might save me a lot of time and allow me more time to do other things such as sleep and relax! Because I am constantly so busy time flies by. I have no idea how it is already the weekend. I'm looking forward to next week a hell of a lot but you'll have to wait to understand why :)

Last Wednesday myself and Hollie headed to Kingston as I needed to take my laptop back to apple to be fixed and we thought while we were there we might as well make a day out of it. Neither myself or Hollie are big shoppers thus we spent most of our time in HMV, Disney Store and in Zizzis where we ate a delicious meal before heading back home.

It seems as though Wednesday is a day for little trips. This Wednesday myself and Hollie (again)  had to jump on a train to Ashford as we needed some fancy dress stuff for the evening as we were going to our lacrosse initiations and we were ordered to dress as army privates. After grabbing some camo bandannas and facepaint we stopped off in Staines where we bought some plain t-shirts and of course we had to stop in Starbucks for a frappacino. Later that evening we got ourselves ready and went to our initiations . . . It began with an assault course in a garden, then a funnel, a ring of shots, another few houses and some party poppers and then eventually we were awarded with a soldier that officially made us a part of the lacrosse team :) I don't drink so I was fresh (but tired) the next morning whereas others were, let's just say, not!

I SPENT MY WEEKEND IN A JACUZZI WITH SOME SCARLETS PLAYERS. WHAT ABOUT YOU?!

Hey Lisa, what's up with this not blogging business? Yup, I've been asking myself the same question and I have a very reasonable explanation! We STILL HAVE NO INTERNET in the house and the BT openzone cuts out all the time thus the only time I've been able to go on the internet properly is in the uni library and I tell myself not to go on the internet when working because I get very, very distracted! Alas, I am here now :)

Last Friday my Mami came down from Wales for the weekend and I had one of the best weekends ever. I had a few lectures and seminars on Friday morning so I met my mam on the train just after lunch as we were heading to Twickenham which is 3 stops away on the train from where I go to university. The weekend didn't initially get off to the best start with the hotel telling us that they hadn't received our booking but, as I have recently come to realise, everything happens for a reason and thank God that they couldn't initially find our reservation because we got to do and see things that we would not have been able to do otherwise, like sitting in the Jacuzzi with a few of the Scarlets players ...  but we'll get back to that in a minute!

While they searched for our booking they gave us a room and said that we could have free breakfast for our whole stay which was awesome . . .  the reason for this will be revealed in a second. After we 'unpacked' (read: flung bags on floor and made huge mess) we got our swimming costumes on and headed over to the Virgin Active centre next door which was also where the hotel's gym, pool and spa was. Where we stayed was pretty cool because it was actually inside Twickenham stadium! My mum and I had went from sauna to steam room to the Jacuzzi and I even had time to do a reasonable amount of lengths and just as we were starting to head back to the changing rooms we heard the unmistakable sound of the Welsh accent and saw some of the Scarlets players walking down in to the spa thus the only thing to do was to get back in to the pool! The whole reason we had made our way to Twickenham was to watch the Scarlets take on the Harlequins in the first round of the Heineken cup match and it was one of the best rugby matches I have ever been to - club or country! It was insane. (If you want to read my account of the game click here.) Thus it was amazing to be so close to the players.

The next day we got ourselves together reasonably early as we had a long day ahead of us and the day could not have began any better - breakfast with 20+ rugby men anyone? Yes, please, thank you very much! While I ate my Muesli I could see the likes of Jonathan 'Fox' Davies, Liam Williams etc preparing for the match later that day. It was Awesome and I even made awkward eye contact with Josh Turnbull - I think he caught me staring! We also ended up in the lift having a chat with Scarlets' player Gareth Maul where I'm sure my mother put the fear of God in him when she said jokingly (maybe) "no pressure but I've travelled 5 hours on the train to be here so you better win!", well at least it looked like he was scared!

Once we had recovered from our breakfast date with the Scarlets (they didn't know it was a date but that doesn't mean that it wasn't!) myself and my mam headed in to Kingston as we wanted to do a bit of shopping. While we were there I bought a woolly hat by Hype, an amazing black fur lined coat from M&S and I also got the new iphone 5C in coral/pink. A good day's shopping I think. Before heading to the hotel to change in to my Scarlets shirt we went in to the Cabbage Patch pub to see some Scarlets supporters and once the game was over my mum and I celebrated with cocktails, her a Martini & me a cosmopolitan. We ended the night with a scrumptious Zizzis and some Jools Holland and the Manic Street Preachers.

I headed back to uni just after lunch on Sunday and my mum headed back to West Wales but we weren't going to leave before we went to that spa/pool once more :) A perfect way to end a perfect weekend :)

A STRANGER CALLS

... well not a stranger exactly!

On Thursday my friend from university, Laura, came over to West Wales for a few days. These easter holidays have been really long and when I go back next Sunday we will have been away from there for five weeks! So it was nice to see Hollie in London and then Laura last week. Because she arrived late Thursday that's all we did that day was grab a Costa and have dinner.

Friday however we went for a little walk in the morning so I could show her more of where I live. Since Laura lives in quite an urban area it was totally different for her to see fields everywhere along with sheep and almost no cars at all on our walk. After our walk we headed in the car to Penrhiwllan for some lunch at the Daffodil restaurant. We had awesome food - her lasagna & me beer battered cod and chips. Delish. As a second part of the meal we headed to Aberaeron to get some honey ice-cream and to walk by the beach. That evening we ate some of my mam's homemade Chinese.

 

 

Saturday I wanted to show Laura more of where I live so we went to Lampeter to grab brunch and then in the afternoon we went down to Llanelli to watch the rugby. I haven't watched a live game of rugby since christmas, so I was looking forward to watch the Scarlets take on the Blues. It was a beautifully sunny day - perfect weather to watch the rugby!

Sunday we watched Pitch Perfect (I love Fat Amy!) and then we took Laura to the train station. I'll be seeing her along with the rest of the block J crew next Sunday when I make my way back to Egham. :)

HENDRIX & ODETTE'S

Last Sunday Mam and I headed to London on the train, in first class! Yes, first class. Because we were travelling at a super off peak time it was super duper cheap :) It was nice, except for the seats. Now, I do like a leather seat but on a train you just slipped off the chair. Other than that the experience was pretty cool. Once we arrived we walked the short distance to Marble Arch from Paddington as we were staying in the Cumberland hotel. The hotel was probably one of the coolest hotels I have ever stayed in (except for when i stayed in The Luxor in Las Vegas). The reception was like a contemporary art gallery with sculptures, water falls, cool chairs and the most awesome thing of all - a wall dedicated to THE Jimmy Hendrix. :) They also had a Hendrix suite which looked awesome with the whole 70's thing going on. Apparently the Cumberland hotel was the last known location of the musician and also it's the 40th anniversary of the guitar hero's death so that's why they had so much Hendrix going on.

The first day we were there we arrived quite late and just threw all our stuff in to our hotel room and went to grab a bite to eat and a drink in the hotel bar 'Carbon' before tucking ourselves in to bed :)

The next morning we didn't rush and we had a nice long sleep :) We were going to have a super nice lunch so decided on a fruit bowl and latte for breakfast. We were dinning in Primrose Hill so we made our way to the tube . . . however I did get quite distracted by the Topshop that was right next door and ended up spending waaaaaay too much money on a new top, trousers and later on in the day I headed in to the mahoosive Topshop on Oxford street and spent even more money on their make-up (this, this & this)! Anywho, we (eventually) made it to Primrose Hill and to Odette's. We decided to have lunch in this particular restaurant because we had heard that the food is awesome and also because the chef - Bryn Williams - is Welsh and we had watched some of his Cegin Bryn programmes on S4C. Oh my word - the food was aaaaamazing. Seriously. To begin with I had a glass of Prossecco and mam had some wine and then we had our food. wow. Please go there and try the food because it is just an explosion of taste in your mouth. After our meal we walked down through Primrose Hill and Regents Park.

 

It was a beautiful day - freezing - but sunny :) We then headed to Regent St. 'cause mam needed to pop in to Tommy Hilfiger. So while we were there we had some tea and cake to get some energy and then we made our way to Harrods and to the Dior exhibition which I blogged about here. While we were in the mahoosive shop we came across a £61,000 watch. I mean, who would spent so much on a blinkin' watch?! - Crazy people that's who!

 

 

After Harrods it was quite late so we grabbed some food from M&S, a cocktail in one of the bars in the hotel and then went to to our rooms, ate our food and watched The Campaign (Will Farrel) on the ipad.

 

The next morning I got up quite early as I was meeting Hollie aka Hollie McHollieHollie for a bit of breakfast. We went to Starbucks behind Selfridges and had some frapaccinos and natural yogurt and had a catch up on what's been going over the holidays :) The reason we had to meet early was because I was going to the doctors just before lunch to have a check up on my back (I had an operation on my back about 3 weeks ago) - this was actually the reason for the trip to London. He said everything was great and I can now start to get back to doing exercises like swimming and eventually a bit of bike riding and then slowly but surely I'll be back doing daily proper exercise.

 

 

Wwwww . . . we also bought these Marc Jacobs coke bottles from Selfridges' food hall, along with many other very yuuuuumie foods that we ate on the train (normal class) back to West Wales :) I'll be back in London (well, Egham) in about two and a half weeks and I'll be reunited with Hollie and the rest of the Block J crew - yaaaay :) Oh yeah, and there are those other little things that I also need to do - exams! 

 

A quick picture of what I wore :)

 

 



SPRING HAS ARRIVED

'Suuuup :) So the sun decided to make an appearance over the last couple of days - yaaay. However it's still been freezing! On Friday night Carwen, Kyle, Sulwen and I headed to Aberaeron to get some fish & chips. We arrived just in time to see the sunset over the sea so we ate our food on the harbour - b-e-a-utiful :) (these pictures will come later this week) Also this week I began to revise - I am very unsure what I'm actually supposed to revise or how the exams are set out but I'll just try my best to prepare even though I've been procrastinating a hell of a lot! I even filmed a video that you'll also see later on this week!

I'm going to London for a few days because I have to go back and have a check up with the doctor and we're going to do a few fun things while we're there and hopefully I'll see a couple of my friends while I'm in the city for a bit over Easter :)

Here are some pictures from the last few days.

NEW YEARS BEACH DAY

New Years day we headed down to the beach. I think I rather the beach in the winter time because there are hardly any tourists, the beaches are mostly empty and the sound of the waves hitting the sand is awesome. We always go to the same two beaches, so on Tuesday I decided to drive to another one that I haven't been to since I was in primary school. We arrived in Cwmtydu at around midday with my mum and I also picked Carwen up on the way.

The wind was incredible! I was standing on top of the beach wall trying to take a picture with my penny board and the wind was so strong that the board would just fly off! Myself and Carwen walked up the cliff that sheltered the beach. When we got close to the top we could see miles and miles of sea. It was beautiful. I also brought my penny with me so we did some skating on the little road that leads to the beach. Another reason why I love winter time by the sea is because there are hardly any people, there is hardly any traffic which means that you can safely skate on the roads.

Once we'd been there for an hour or so, we headed down the single track road to another, more popular beach in Llangrannog. The place was absolutely packed. There was no room to park, there were loads of people on the beach and the pubs were even fuller. I managed to find a place to park tucked away by some boats. Carwen, Hendrix and I ran out to take some pictures and then jumped back in the car to come home. It was freezing there!

I love the beach and I love that I live so close to the coast :)

Happy New Year :)