Travel Plans For 2018...

For years George and I have been saying 'this needs to be the year we go on holiday' but it's just never happened so this year we've said it, we really, really mean it, and we actually have proper plans in place which makes a change! As we have a few different little holidays planned I thought I'd do a blog post about them and explain why some of the places are at the top of our list!

York

I actually only did a blog post about York a few weeks ago which explained why I'm so keen to go there, so you can find that here, if you would like to have a read of it. We're actually going next week and I can't wait! I thought it was the perfect place to go as a little 'minimoon' as it's somewhere we've never been before and it just looks beautiful. I'm so excited to walk around the city, visit the cathedral, go to the Shambles and so much more. We've booked the most wonderful hotel which is definitely the fanciest we'll have ever been to, but as it's a special occassion it's totally worth it. I've already found some cosy little restaurants that I can't wait to visit and I'd love to go for afternoon tea at Bettys Tea Room! Oh, and York's Chocolate Story looks perfect for us, because we are actually a little addicted to it.

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Paris

For our proper honeymoon we were torn between Paris and Amsterdam, and it wasn't really until it came to actually sitting down and booking that we settled on Paris. I am incredibly excited! Paris has been on our list for ages but I didn't think we'd actually go any time soon, thinking about it now though is there anywhere else more perfect for a honeymoon? We're going for 3 nights in May and I just can't wait, it's going to be amazing to wander around and just see what we find, and of course eat as many croissants as we can. I could eat pain au chocolat everyday so I don't think there is another place more suited to me! I'm currently making a list of places we want to see so if you have any recommendations of things we should do or any food we should try, let me know!

London

Even though we've been to London many times now, I can't let a year go by where we don't go for at least a night. I'm usually so sad when we come home but after a night there in November, I actually felt okay and I was just so happy we went as it was such a last minute thing, but as time has gone on I've started getting that urge to go back again. We've done a lot there now so we don't really need more than one night there, but we're going to go the week after we come back from Paris. We're mainly going to see another show, this time Kinky Boots, which I can't wait for! but of course we'll also make a trip to places like Borough Market and Covent Garden, our absolute favourites. It already feels like such a long time since we last went so I'm counting down the days.

I just can't wait to get exploring this year and go on little adventures together. I am so looking forward to seeing some new places and having our first proper holiday abroad!

Have you got any travel plans for this year?

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Refreshing Our Home For Spring*

Though the weather is very up and down at the moment, Spring is here and it's been making me want to have a serious sort out in our flat. Does anyone else get like that at the start of a new season? I always get the urge to almost start again as each new season starts and have a little refresh of everything. As I'm in a serious sorting mode right now, I wanted to do a post on a few things I'm doing to change up our home for Spring and Summer this year, and they're all things you can do too!

De-Clutter Each Room & Get Rid

I find we get our flat into a good state and everything will have it's own place but over time we just get a bit lazy with it all and before we know it things have started to build up again. Our spare room is the main problem and it's been the bane of my life for the last 3 years! It's not too bad at the moment as it's close to becoming an office but that's basically been a dumping ground since we moved in. Every so often George and I like to have a serious de-clutter and sort through all of our stuff in each room. I always feel 10x better afterwards! We always find things that we just don't need and have been holding onto for no reason at all, just taking up space that could be used for other things. To do a serious de-clutter I tend to tackle one room and he will do another, that way we're out of each others way and can just focus on the job in hand. I tend to start in the kitchen, getting pretty much getting everything out of the cupboards and only putting things back in that we actually genuinely need and use. We apply this to each room and afterwards everything feels so much clearer, clean and fresh. I also find when the flat is tidy, I feel much more focused and together, it's so true 'tidy house, tidy mind'.

Spring Clean

Following on from my last point, when doing a bit of a sort out, give everything a good clean too whilst you're at it. When sorting through the kitchen, before putting things back in their place, I give it all a deep clean and by the end it looks like brand new. I do the same with every other room and by the end of the day everything looks sparkly clean and smells beautiful. I like to pick up cleaning bits from places like B&M as they're really not expensive and last ages so that's all I use. I always feel so much better after a proper spring clean, put some music on and get to it and by the end you'll be so thankful you did.

Bring In New Spring Like Pieces

I always like to pick up a few bits to change up each room when a new season starts, I just can't help myself. For Spring I'm all about the yellows, flowers and pastels and I find bringing in a few new pieces like this can completely change up a room. At the moment I'm after a yellow fluffy blanket to add to the living room, I'm loving this Honey one from Asda and it's only £5! Next also have some gorgeous Spring pieces in like this Meadow Floral Bedding, Time For Tea Oven Gloves, Our Nest Doormat, and my personal favourite the Wooden Digestive Tray - perfect for afternoons in the garden with a cup of tea! Another place I've been looking for a few Spring like pieces is Groupon. Groupon are somewhere I've turned to a few times in the past for all sorts of bargains, you can find just about anything, from brilliant patio and garden furniture deals, to Home Decor and even Health and Beauty amongst lots of other things. I'm currently eyeing up the Yankee Candle bundles as I clearly don't already have enough!

So that's the things I'm currently doing to get our home feeling all fresh and spring like! I love a clear out and I think the start of a new season is always the perfect time to do that. 

*This post is in collaboration with Groupon. Affiliate links also used in this post

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Some Kind Of Wonderful By Giovanna Fletcher Book Review

Recently I've really got back into reading again and it's been so nice to pick up a book and just get stuck in. I ordered a few from Amazon last month, one of those being Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine which I've already reviewed and one being Some Kind Of Wonderful by Giovanna Fletcher. Book reviews aren't something I've ever really done on my blog but I loved writing about Eleanor Oliphant so I thought why not carry on and do a review of Some Kind Of Wonderful too?

When the love of your life says you're not The One, who are you? 

Lizzy and Ian have been a couple since the first week of university. Now, after celebrating a decade together, everyone thinks they're about to get engaged. Instead, a romantic escape to Dubai leaves Lizzy with no ring, no fiance and no future. Lizzy is heartbroken - but through the tears, she sees an opportunity. This is her moment to discover what she's been missing while playing Ian's 'better half'. But how much has Ian changed her, and who should she be without him? Determined to discover who she is at heart, Lizzy sets out to rediscover the girl she was before - and, in the meantime, have a little fun...

My review

 I've been following Giovanna Fletcher on Instagram for a while but it's taken me until this year to buy one of her books and I really don't know why that is as I've seen so many great reviews of her previous books, such as Billy and Me. As I saw many of her insta stories last year where she showed herself working until late writing and clearly putting so much time and effort into it, this one stood out to me from the beginning and just like the sort of story I'd like to read. I started it pretty much straight after I'd finished Eleanor Oliphant and though both quite different stories, both I loved for their own reasons.

This was a very easy read and just so enjoyable, I ended up getting through the whole thing in just a few days as I couldn't put it down. I'm going to try not to give too much away now but I want to try and explain properly why I loved it so much. You might think as it starts with Lizzy being dumped, it could be all doom and gloom but it really wasn't. We get to see the change over time of Lizzy from broken hearted girl to a strong single woman, and without giving too much away I love the journey she goes on. I thought Lizzy was a really relatable character, as even if you haven't been heartbroken like her, everyone has moments of doubt and confusion over where their life is going, and who they really are, and that's what a lot of this is about. I know I could certainly get where she was coming from, sometimes you do look around see so many people with their life together, and wonder when that will be you, so for that reason I think she's someone a lot of women could warm too and gain some comfort from. Something else I loved about the story was how realistic it was. After splitting with Ian, she finds herself back at her mums, being supported by family and friends. There's no big 'thing', it's just very normal and probably how a lot of people would deal with being single after such a long relationship. Finally, I also really enjoyed that there wasn't another big romance brought into it. Though there are hints of something between Lizzy and new friend Alistair, she doesn't jump straight into it and act as if the past with Ian never happened. It's a very empowering story I suppose of how you don't need a man to make you happy, and even though I love the little bits between those two (and I'm deffo rooting for them if there's a follow up), it was left open and definitely not the main focus of the book which I liked.

Overall I just loved reading Some Kind Of Wonderful. It made me smile, laugh and even get a little bit emotional, but I think that's how you know it's a good book if it makes you feel something. So far I've not seen anything about a follow up to this but I so hope one day there will be. Lizzy was a really endearing character for many reasons and I'd love to see how life turned out for her. 

If you want to give this a read, which I highly recommend you do, it's currently £6.49 on Amazon.

Have you read Some Kind Of Wonderful? or any other books from Giovanna Fletcher?

*Affiliate links used in this post

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Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman Book Review

I don't often write book reviews because I just don't think I'm the best at explaining things and doing them justice but I could not put this book down and genuinely think it's one of the best I've ever read, so I thought I have to at least try and do some sort of review because it totally deserves it. This was one of those books that seemed to be doing the rounds on social media, I couldn't go more than a few days without it popping up on Instagram and eventually I thought, okay I just need to read this, there must be a reason people won't stop talking about it. Now that I've read it I can totally see why it's had so many positive reviews.

'Meet Eleanor Oliphant. She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kind of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond's big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one'

My review 

Pretty much as soon as I started this book I was hooked. Straight away I was intrigued by Eleanor and wanted to find out more. It didn't take long for me to start to understand why Eleanor is the way she is, she'd clearly had a difficult past from the snippets we were told and she soon became someone really endearing, someone I was rooting for. I loved that Eleanor just says what she wants and genuinely doesn't care what people think, I so wish I could be more like that, but there was clearly a deep sadness to her that really got to me. The theme of loneliness runs throughout the book which I'm sure is something a lot of people can relate to but there is also so much humour throughout. Just subtle little lines she says that made me laugh out loud, or some of the situations she gets herself into, you can't help but giggle so there was a really good mix throughout the whole book. I think part of the reason I love the character Eleanor so much is because I could see bits of myself in her and could really relate. What with her being quite socially awkward and not really knowing how to interact with people sometimes, I'm exactly like that and I'm sure people think I'm a bit strange sometimes too! I found myself desperate to see her get a happy ending, but I won't spoilt it for you - it was just one of those books where I was really just willing for things to work out for her. Overall the book is just brilliant and I could rave about it all day. It's a beautiful story of love, hope and happiness with many twists and turns throughout. In fact the plot twist at the end, had me so shocked, I almost wanted to go back to the beginning and read it again! To say this is Gail Honeyman's first novel, you would honestly never be able to tell. I was genuinely hooked from the first page to the very end and I got through it all within 24 hours, I can't even remember the last time that happened. I could picture all of the characters so well and I was really sad by the time I'd finished it as I just wanted it to keep going! I just couldn't recommend it enough, it totally deserves the hype it's getting and I think it will be one I keep forever and re-read.

Favourite Quotes

'People don't like these facts, but I can't help that. If someone asks how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn't spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.'

'Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with while you dealt with things.'

'The supermarket in question carried a wide range of quality goods - not just food and drink, but toasters, sweaters, frisbees and novels. It wasn't a Tesco Metro, it was a Tesco Express. It was, in short, one of my favourite places in the world.'

Have you read Eleanor Oliphant yet? If so, what did you think?

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