Life Lately #3

At my cousin Nicola's wedding, me (second from right) with all my cousins

With my best friend celebrating my 21st birthday

More birthday celebrations

Birthday celebrations with the family! Me and my baby sister - can you believe she's five years younger than me?!

Celebrating the end of university! *sob*

I cannot believe how fast 2014 is flying by, and we're already halfway through June! I've been absent for the last three months because I've been focusing all my attention on my dissertation, but I can't tell you how happy I was went I logged on yesterday to find out my views had gone up from 5,000 to 13,000. It means the world to me that you guys are still coming to the site and reading through my posts! So here's a quick little life update on what I've been up to, before I jump back to blogging everyday (and perhaps even more).

1) Dissertation - of course this had to come first. This is the biggest piece of work I have ever done, and probably ever will. It was a pretty stressful and tiring process but not as bad as I imagined. I was lucky that I tried to get organised so I didn't have any long nights or 72 hour stints in the library - well hopefully it was because I'm organised and not because I did it wrong!

2) Wedding bells - my cousin Nicola got married back in April so I travelled up to Hereford for the wedding and got to catch up with all my family who I hadn't seen in months. The wedding was in this wonderful old country house, and luckily it was a nice sunny day (mostly).

3) Time away - my boyfriend and I went for our second weekend away in beautiful Bath for his birthday at the start of May. We stayed in the most beautiful hotel ever, the Queensberry, and spent the days doing all the touristy things like sightseeing and shopping. It was great to get out of Bournemouth for a couple of days, spend some time together and enjoy a new place.

4) BIRTHDAY!! - yes that's right, I turned 21 back at the end of May! I was incredibly spoilt by my wonderful family, friends and boyfriend and it was one of the best birthdays ever. I celebrated by going for dinner and cocktails with my closest friends at my favourite beach-side restaurant. 

5) Finishing university - dissertation done, two weeks of newsdays checked off and now I am officially finished! Three years have gone so fast, but it really has been the best time of my life. Although I wish I could have relaxed and enjoyed my first year more, I definitely learnt some valuable life lessons and made the best friends I could have wished for.

6) Job hunting - now I've said goodbye to university it's time for the real world to start, and yes I am absolutely terrified! Although it's wonderful to see so many paid opportunities out there it is scary to think about all the other people with the same degree, or better, who will be applying for them as well. At the moment all I am hoping for is to get a full time paid job, which will allow be save and enable me to move to London to pursue my dream of working in magazines. 

It really has been a busy three months, but now it's all over and I have lots of free time to work on my blog and give it a big redesign. I'd love to hear your feedback if there's anything you'd like to see on the blog, or if you've got any recommendations for me then drop a comment below!

Beth xxx

Pancake day!

Hello everyone, I hope you've all had a delicious pancake day. 

(l-r) 1. Sophie S, Jasmine and Sophie T ready for tea, 2. Sweet and sour chicken with egg fried rice, 3. dinner date, 4. making a mess cooking!

1. getting the ingredients ready for pancakes, 2. our choice of toppings, 3. my golden syrup and blueberry pancake (delicious) 4. the pancake stack

We've been celebrating Chinese New Year, Pancake Day and Valentines Day here and it's been a fun filled evening. My housemate and I had 2 of our close friends from our course round for dinner - sweet and sour chicken with egg fried rice obviously - and then I cooked us all pancakes. It took me an hour but it was definitely worth it. It was nice to have a night off to relax and chat, plus we got to stuff ourselves silly with lovely food.

I hope you've all been cooking up a storm! What are your favourite pancake toppings? As you can see we went a bit crazy with ours.

Beth xx