Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows...

I know it's been over a month since I last posted, but I have a perfectly good reason this time...I've been on holiday! 

I've been so lucky this year and I've actually had two holidays and spent the best part of a month relaxing. It's been fantastic!

On 24th June, Melissa, Katrina and I jetted off to Malaga in Spain to spend just over 2 weeks with Katrina's lovely Nan who lives out there. We had such a brilliant time and were so lucky with the weather. We all came back a beautiful shade of bronze and made loads of great memories.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a few of my favourite photographs from such a wonderful two weeks. 

June lives at the top of a mountain so we had some fantastic views of the sunrise and sunset each day.

Melissa and I enjoyed breakfast on the balcony each morning.

The village of Sayalonga 

Katrina and I in the garden.

The beautiful lake at Canillas 

A lovely evening spent at Nerja.

Horse riding up in the mountains.

Go Karting.

Katrina and I on our final night.

Melissa and I enjoying the biggest ice creams ever!

I really did have a lovely holiday and I'd go back in an instant. I'm so grateful to Katrina's Nan for letting us stay with her again and I feel truly blessed to have such wonderful best friends to share my summer with. 

Time to climb back on board the blogging train...

Okay, so once again I failed on the blogging front! It seems attempting to post every day was a little optimistic - especially whilst I was in the midst of exams. But anyway, I'm back and I have the whole summer in front of me to enjoy so I guess it's time to get back on board.

So, without further ado, I'd better start with a round up of everything that's happened in the past month.

My second year exams are finally over and done with. All in all, I think they went okay but it's always difficult to know. I guess all I can do now is hope for the best and keep my fingers crossed for results day on 1st July.

I've moved out of my uni house too which was such a bitter-sweet experience. On the one hand I was really pleased to leave as I hated my bedroom and I was excited to get home for the summer. But on the other, it meant saying goodbye to Lucy and Charl for the summer before we all headed off to opposite ends of the country. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss them.

Melissa, Katrina and I also went to see 'Cats' at the theatre a couple of weeks ago. I knew nothing about the show before we went so I didn't really know what to expect, but I was blown away! The entire show was fantastic. The quality of the sound was amazing, and the dancing was incredible, but the costumes were just something else! I'd definitely recommend it to anyone. My favourite cat was definitely the Rum Tum Tugger who was just SO dreamy and super attractive...even dressed as a cat!

I've also met up with my other friends from home since I've been back. Jessica, Michelle, Helaina, Katrina and I all went for a meal and cocktails a couple of evenings ago. It was so lovely to see everybody all back together again and we had such a great time catching up and reminiscing about old times. I'm so excited for this summer now that we've been reunited again!

I'm back at work now too. I'm mainly in the kitchen now rather than waitressing, but I actually almost prefer it in there because I don't have to think or smile at people! It'a all money at the end of the day and every little helps to clear my overdraft!!

Last but not least...I'm off to Spain on Monday! I am genuinely SO excited and I just can't wait to get away for a couple of weeks and relax with cocktails in the sunshine with my best friends. I'm at work until 11pm on Sunday night and then we fly at 6am Monday morning so I'm going to be so tired, but I don't even care, the excitement will get me through!! I shall definitely post a good blog post when I return.

I think that's everything for now so I'm going to head off for a cheeky bike ride while the sun is still shining!

Life has been so crazy but I've got a good feeling, so I wanna share it but I'm new to this...

So I'm currently sat painting my nails and listening to Nina Nesbitt's revision playlist on Radio 1, and I'm just feeling really really content.

I think it's mainly due to the fact that I've had such a productive day and blasted out an obscene amount of revision. I genuinely sat in the library from 10-5:30 and re-wrote up 4 lectures! I was seriously flagging towards the end of my mammoth session but I'm starting to feel like I'm getting there which is always good. I like staying in the library on an evening because it means I can come home and relax without feeling guilty about not working. 

At lunch time, as a reward to myself being so motivated, I indulged in my favourite sweet chilli prawn baguette from 'Cafe on Campus'. It sounds lame but it made me really happy and I thoroughly enjoyed it - even though it was impossible to eat it in an appropriate public manner! My tea tonight was lovely too. I made bolognese, jacket potato and salad, and it was just really really satisfying and delicious. I love days when I can really enjoy my meals but I can also feel good that I've been relatively healthy. 

So now that I'm feeling adequately full and satisfied with today's productivity, I'm relaxing and painting my nails with my new orange nail varnish which I absolutely LOVE! It's Topshop 'Stage Dive' and it's so gorgeous and is making me feel super super summery!

Tomorrow night I'm meeting up with two of my best friends from home and we're going to go for cocktails and pretend to be sophisticated. It's not been long since I've seen them, but they were absolute angels when I was feeling poopy last week so I'm excited for a good old chin-wag and an inevitably hilarious night.

Once my nails are dry, I think I'll snuggle up in bed with my Gavin and Stacey boxset and treat myself to an early night. Bliss. 

Take a little time for tea...

Although this weekend has been filled with revision and essay writing, it's been lovely. Charl, Alex, Lucy and I have made a really special effort to do fun and exciting things to punctuate the day and get us out of the house to preserve our sanity.

Yesterday we went for frozen yoghurt in the sunshine, and today we revisited our favourite little tea shop and had a good old natter over a cup of tea and a cupcake. It really is just so lovely to leave the house and do something a little bit different. Call me boring, but even though I'm a student I would definitely choose a cup of tea in a cute cafe over a wild night out any day!

So all in all, after a couple of unsettled days at the beginning of the week, my first week back at uni has been lovely and I'm so glad to be back. We'll be back to a full house of 8 again tonight when Chris and Kieran return after their longer holiday, and although it will be good to see them, if I'm completely honest I'm not looking forward to them coming and shattering the peace again! But hey ho, that's just the way it goes!

Where's your sense of spontaneity?

Okay, so I realise that this blog didn't really take off as I intended it to when I created it - I just found myself to be far too busy with work and assignments towards the end of the spring term that I just didn't manage to find the time to update it. However, I've decided that although exams are approaching and revision will once again take priority in my life, I'm going to try and post at least once a week in the build up to summer.

I have lots and lots of exciting plans for the upcoming holiday, so my aim is to document those as much as possible so I have something to share and reflect back on when I need a little old pick-me-up!

Having said that I'm excited for my summer plans, sometimes the best days are those that are completely spontaneous and manage to transform an average day into a really wonderful one. Yesterday was one of those days.

Since I'm a BA student, I have Friday's off for "independent study". I really do love my three day weekends and I'm genuinely a little worried about how I'll cope in the 'real world' when a working week becomes 9-5 Monday to Friday (...as opposed 6 hours spread 3 days a week!).

Anyway, my day got off to an energetic start with a Davina Mcall workout DVD with Lucy, which was followed by a healthy lunch of salad and pitta bread with hummus dips. I then went into uni to collect the results from an essay I'd worked really hard on before Easter - I got a first which I was absolutely chuffed with! It's brilliant to know that my hard work paid off, and it gave me a real boost to get cracking on my last assignment of the year. Since I'd made the half hour trip to uni, I thought I may as well get my head down in the library so I spent 3 hours working solidly and managed to produce a very detailed plan for my conversation analysis. Whilst I was in the library, I heard that all cakes in the Hidden Cafe (my favourite place on campus ever!) had been reduced to £1 for the rest of the day. Naturally, since we'd had a productive day and a healthy workout/lunch, Lucy and I needed no persuasion and basically ran to the cafe and treated ourselves to chocolate brownies and caramel shortbread.

The original plan for the evening was to go for a pub dinner and drinks with the girls, but as we were walking back from uni we realised that all of the pubs were absolutely heaving because of the Leeds Rhino's game at the stadium. All of us had been really looking forward to our girly night out, so we made a quick change of plan and decided to have a civilised and sophisticated meal out at our local Thai restaurant, Sukhothai.

We had such a fantastic evening! The restaurant was absolutely wonderful and the food was delicious. Given our student budgets, it was slightly more pricey than we would have liked but we all concluded that it was definitely worth it and we will certainly be back at some point in the future. It was just so lovely to get dressed up and have a grown-up meal out with three of my favourite girls, especially since it was so spontaneous. It was a truly serendipitous occasion and one that I will definitely hold as a highlight of my student experience this year. I feel really blessed that I'm living with such lovely girls and I'm 100% sure I've made three friends for life.