A Little Bit Of Bristol, London & Four Aussie Lads

You may or may not know but during the last week of the Easter holidays I went on a bit of an adventure. It started in Bristol where I stayed with my good friend Katie. We went on a tour of the area, finding all the street art and simply having a look at Bristol's streets. I had the pleasure of being treated to dinner at Pizza Express and played a game of jungle themed mini golf with Katie and her friends from uni, who were lovely. I was having a brilliant time and this was only the first few days of my adventure. Katie and I did a bit of shopping (of course!) and I ended up buying a toothbrush that looked like a red lightsaber from Primark (which I will never regret because of my inner childishness). Once reaching HMV I obviously had to get a 5SOS t-shirt to wear for the gig that weekend. That t-shirt has since become my favourite and I will continue wearing it late into my adult life. We also went to Bristol's museum and art gallery which I have to say was pretty interesting and with free entry and pretty cool place to visit if you have some spare time. Unluckily we didn't reach the art gallery before it was closing time but that only adds to the excitement of seeing it the next time I'm in Bristol!

After the couple of wonderful days I spent in Bristol Katie and I woke up early, headed to the coach station and made our way to London! We did a lot of travelling that day and I'm pretty proud of how we managed the tubes in London with little experience. The first stop we came to was the Buckingham Palace (which is a very stereotypical tourist spot to go to when in London) and took a few snapshots and footage before moving onto Hyde Park. I have to say, Hyde Park wasn't at all what I expected but it definitely lived up to my expectations of how big it was! We walked along the edge of the park after having lunch and watching a man expertly feed pigeons, trying to find the Royal Albert Hall but in the end decided to cut across the middle of Hyde Park because it was taking too long and there were other things we wanted to see. 

Our next destination was was the Sherlock Holmes museum near Baker Street Station. We ended going up the wrong side of the street (thank you Google Maps!) and walking back down it to cross and walk back up the other side. Despite our detours, it was still an adventure and we had lots of fun! We didn't go into the museum as it would have run out of time to do other things but it would be a lot of fun to do the next time we're in London. After this we took a tube from Baker Street Station to Temple (I think?) and made our way to Covent Garden (which has to be my favourite place in London that I've been too!). We walked around the square, watched a street performance and decided that we were going to sit down and relax for a bit. This is when I spotted the Ladurée shop and freaked out. I've wanted to try Ladurée macarons for years now and I even tried making macarons as a part of my Food Technology coursework during the time I spent in Sixth Form but nothing could compare to the professionally made macarons. 

After the little bakery shopping spree I went on, Katie and I decided to sit down in this cute little place (which I forgotten the name of but if I remember it I'll update this post) and had a cup of tea and a chat. The lady at the till talked to us about 5 Seconds of Summer, saying she had gone to the show the night before and loved our t-shirts. She was lovely and if I knew her name I'd give her a shoutout and try to hunt her down! After our tea we had to make our way on the tube all the way up to East Ham where we had to check into our Premire Inn room (big love to Premire Inn; I love how heaving their mattresses are!) as quick as we could as we were running late for getting to the concert. Luckily the man at the desk was lovely and helped us by ringing a taxi to take us to the O2 arena. The taxi man was also lovely and chatted to us about the concert and wished us a nice time. 

Obviously when we got there we got a bit lost yet again but we didn't panic and we found the right path with the help of a lady who passed us by. As soon as we saw the stalls selling mercy and the digital advertisement boards with the lads' faces on them we just kind of lost our shit. We made our way in, ate sandwhiches for dinner and I bought a programme to add to my collection at home. I can't begin to explain how I felt in the area. Before a guy called Jessa Rae (not sure about spelling so I apologise) came on as the support act for the evening we did a toilet stop and grabbed a couple of beers before rocking out to Jessa Rae and the best pre-gig playlist I've ever heard (goddamn 5SOS have good taste in music)! When they came on stage I couldn't help but fangirl badly. I've never been so carefree at a concert but I loved it! I filmed a lot of it and although it was shaky due to my excitement I'm proud of it. I think one of the best parts of the gig is when they performed a song they had made up on the spot called... wait for it... Fish and Chips! God, they're dorks but I love them all too much! 

After the concert we made our way to the tube and headed back to East Ham, groaning to ourselves how we wished the gig would have continued on forever and cheering about how the songs we wished they would play but doubted they would was played. As soon as we got to our room we basically crashed, having been busy all day. We rung our parents to let them know we were a-ok and I transferred everything on my camera to my iPad and looked through it all, unable to stop smiling. 

The next day wasn't very eventful compared to the day before but it made me very happy. We had some breakfast and travelled from East Ham over to Crawley were a lot of my family live and spent half the day with my grandparents. We also saw my uncle and that night after a dinner from the Chinese we went out with my sister (Shala) my brother-in-law (Jim) and their friends to a pub in East Grinstead to celebrates Jim's birthday. My sister talked to me about the house they were thinking of getting and how I could go up more often and even stay with them for a while in order to get a job and move up their permanently which I have definitely thought about. We left early in order to get a good night's sleep as we were up the next day by 6:15am. My grandad took us to the nearest station and we made our journey home, starting at the station at 6:51am, Katie's ending around 11:00am in Bristol but mine lasting until roughly 6pm as I had to go through the following process: Crawley - London Victoria - Bristol - Newport - Carmarthen - Home. It was a long day of travelling but I loved it anyway! 

I actually got home and the first thing my step mother asked was if I want to go to town for dinner as she fancied Chinese. I agreed but seeing as I had had Chinese the night before and I'm not too fond of Chinese anyway, I went for a good old Maccies. 

I had the time of my life during those 5 days and I wish I could live it all over again (or better yet, have an adventure everyday as a part of my job!) but until the next time I have to settle back into college and work. Seeing as I did take a lot of footage though, I edited it together and produced a vlog which is now up on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/pjS2kM5FISQ 

I would be forever grateful if you'd check it out and leave a like? 

Thank you for reading and I'll talk to you all again soon.

Love, 

A Wanderlust Being.

Celebrating a 1st birthday!

Hello!

Unfortunately this blog post didn't go up on the day I wanted it to go up as I was ill yesterday and fell asleep most of the night so here I am writing this blog post during my lunch break in college to ensure this bog post reaches your eyes because I can almost guarantee that I will fall asleep yet again as soon as I get home tonight.

Yesterday was a special day for me as this blog has officially been running for a year (and one day if you count today!)! It certainly hasn't felt as if I have been uploading blog posts for a whole year, it doesn't even feel like it has been a couple of months. I really can't begin to understand where the time has gone!

I am so glad to have this blog as an escape and a means of expressing myself and exploring the world a little more. I hope that in the next year there will be many more exciting posts to actually do with one of the main reasons I started this blog: travelling.

For now, I have a simple post just to thank you all for supporting me along throughout the year by reading my blog and encouraging me to continue when I feel like I don't have much to offer.

I'd like to share with you my most popular blog post: A Series of Serious Topics (ASST) - Rape.

And which of my blog posts was my favourite to write: Meeting Online Friends.

Seeing as yesterday was a birthday (of sorts) I decided to have a birthday party the night before (again, of sorts seeing as I was the only one celebrating - haha!) and bake some cakes!

I was going to decorate them all like the cake below but I ended up buying food colouring instead of icing pens and messed it up so this was the best I could do. This design is also a sneak peak to something I've been working on recently, which will be revealed soon enough! 

These are the alternative design I ended up doing. 

I wish I could thank each of you individually with hug and a cake for supporting me so much and for sticking around when I promise a consistent uploading but never live up to the promise but for now, I hope this blog post suffices because I'm dedicating this blog post to all of you! The ones who sit there reading what I have to say without any reward for doing so - so thank you!

Here's to another brilliant year together!

Sending my love,

As always,

A Wanderlust Being.

               -x-

My First YouTube Video!

Hello!

I'm very excited to announce that I have uploaded my very first YouTube video to my channel - A Wanderlust Being!

I know I'm late writing this post as my first video was actually uploaded on the 2nd of September but here is the link to the video - 10 Facts About Me. I would love if you could check it out and let me know what you think as well as giving it a thumbs up if you think it deserves it. 

I'd like to take this time to also say that I won't be uploading a video every week as I have limited internet a my father's house and I'm busy at college and work at the moment. I don't want to fall behind in my college coursework like I did last year. Although saying that, I will try to find a way around that and upload as often as possible, even if that includes stocking up videos and uploading them all when I go to see my mum or using free wifi.

If you have any suggestions for any videos or improvements I can make feel free to comment either on the video or this post or if you'd rather suggest something privately feel free to send me an email on awanderlustbeing_enquiries@outlook.com.

I appreciate every single idea, suggestion or tip you can give me and thank you for reading this post (and if you click on the links, thank you for taking a look at my channel and video!).

Sending my love,

As always,

A Wanderlust Being.

              -x-

Reminiscing over my summer

Hello!

It has been a long time since I have sat down to write a blog post for you lovely people and for that I sincerely apologise. I didn't mean to leave it for so long but I have been quite busy lately whether that may be due to saying goodbye to my friends who have left for university/another country or starting my second year of college. 

To make it up to you and to kick start my motivation into developing this blog into something better. I have decided to sit down to eat some Joe's Chocolate Swirl ice cream, watch Bridget Jones's Diary and write a few blog posts for you beautiful/handsome readers. At the moment I'm sitting home alone in my dressing gown and slippers beside the heater trying to keep warm (which I know makes no sense as I am eating ice cream but that's just how I roll!) as I think about my father and step mother on holiday in Egypt who are unable to actually sit in the sun as it is too hot for them. Anyway, let's move on from the holiday jealousy and get you up to date on what I have bee up to. 

At the start of the summer, I had decided to make a list of blog posts I wanted to write and upload to this blog. I loved some of the ideas a lot but as I said before, I was busy and seemed to run out of time because before I knew it we were back in placement! So I'd like to take this time to run through the events of my summer as I had created a summer bucket list.

Over the six weeks we had off for our summer holidays, I tried to do as much as possible in order to tick everything of my bucket list. The reason I had actually made this bucket list is the fact that I have never had a summer worth remembering. I often sat in my bedroom playing video games on my laptop and reading books. Now don't get me wrong, I love doing those things but I want more out of my summer this year, I wanted to make more memories and be more active. 

As we all know, my summer kicked off with seeing AC/DC live at Wembley in London. This was a dream come true and one of the highest things ticked off my bucket list (not just my summer bucket list). This was closely followed by the fact that I cut my hair to shoulder length and dyed it blue and purple. 

The next event of my summer and one of the loveliest days out I have ever had was the Blogger's meet up in Cardiff where I met a bunch of lovely lasses including two of my internet friends Katie (the brains behind the blog Funsize Beauty) and Becky (aka the wonderfully hilarious Bambino Becky)! I thought my social anxiety would get the better of me and I'd end up being to timid to talk to anyone. I admit that it did hold me back a little but I enjoyed my time despite this and tried to interact with everyone at the meet up in order to get to know them. 

Another thing that was ticked off my bucket list was to have a night out with my friends after they returned from their adventures in Holland. Unfortunately one of them had travelled to Cyprus to meet her family instead of returning with our other two friends but we still had a lovely time. That night we had a spontaneous sleep over at my friends house and played a few games to pass the night. 

I also had a day out with my mum where we went shopping and had Sunday lunch in a lovely pub followed by an ice cream from a local business which only sells products with honey it in. All their flavors are a mixture of honey and something else, i.e. strawberry, coffee, hazelnut, chocolate. If any of you are ever near Aberaeron I fully suggest going to The Hive to try their honey whippy ice cream!

On the 22nd of August, it was Shaniah's birthday so I came down to spend the day with her. We had lunch, bought a minion birthday cake and had a lengthy conversation about blogging and our favourite bloggers.

I was invited to go to the cinema with two of my other friends to see the new Fantastic Four film and I just had to despite all the negative comments I'd heard about it (as I am a Marvel fan and like to judge it for myself). I have to say I do prefer the original films to this one but there were some aspects I did like but I won't go into too much detail.

I face painted on two of my friends and wrote a blog post about it (as some of you may already know - here's the link if you didn't see it - Practice makes perfect!). My brother came up to my dad's then once I was back and we spent most of the weekend watching Mrs Brown's Boys (which so happens to be a Morrison family favourite!). My dad then took us to see The Man From U.N.C.L.E. before dropping my brother off at my mum's. I really like this movie and highly suggest seeing it!

The last chunk of my summer holidays consisted of working and top secret events that I'm going to discuss in another blog post! Overall I ticked off twelve and a half out of sixteen bucket list ideas. The only ones I didn't do was:

• Look into Astrology (I bought a book, which is where the half came from, but I haven't read it yet),
• Go Geocaching with three of my friends,
• Paint my bedroom at my dad's house and;
• Give my blog a makeover (I wanted to design the layout and update it but I haven't had time to do what I wanted to do with it - this is still going to happen though, I just need to figure out when).

I hope you all had a wonderful summer as well! Why not comment below and tell me the best thing about your summer? 

Sending my love,

As always,

A Wanderlust Being.
             -x-

Practice makes perfect!

Hello!

Over the summer holidays, for some odd reason, I've become more motivated and my muse has had a craving for practicing my artistic skills. This is something I was desperate to do over the summer as I really do love art but since I left school and entered college my muse hasn't been fed.

If you knew me back at school you'd know that this is a big deal for me! Throughout my life I've always been interested in more creative and artistic things. For as long as I can remember I have always been drawing (I even have an artistic based nickname to prove it!). I'll admit that over the past year I have done a few pieces of artwork but not to the extent that I used to and want to. Perhaps confidence and lack of belief in myself has a part to play but I've gotten into the mindset to tell myself that I'm still learning and that practice makes perfect. 

Seeing as I had visited my friends from school for a week I decided to feed my muse and take advantage of the bare faces in my presence -insert evil laugh-.

As you may have already figured out, I am partial to a bit of face/body painting (usually on the hands) and this is what happened:

I set myself the theme 'The Elements' and tried to match my friends personalities to the elements. Each element look has the symbol for that element painted just above the middle of the eyebrows (if you type in element symbols into a search engine, you're sure to find quite a few. I just happened to choose these).

In the first image is my friend Katie. I decided that fire suited her and the reasons for this is that she's passionate about her morals and opinions. She isn't one to let people extinguish (see what I did there?) her opinions easily and for any illogical reason such as to be spiteful. She's one to stick to her guns when it comes to her morals and that's something that inspires my own way of living (she's also totally hot in red - another shameless pun).

The lovely lady in the second image, and my best chum, is Layla; I based her design around the element of air. I did discuss the reasons why I chose these elements for each of my friends but I wasn't entirely truthful about Layla's. One of the main reasons I chose this element for her was that I adore her laugh. It's not a cliché airy giggle, quite the opposite but I smile and laugh along every time I hear it. Her happiness (and the happiness of all my friends) raises my own spirits and spending time with them never fails to bring me joy. Her laugh, despite being the opposite of an airy giggle, reminds me of the cliché anyway. 

"She is like the wind, open and free.", is a quote by Christine Feehan (cited in Dark Prince) that I have come across once before and I think it is extremely fitting for my friend. I do not know what the original sentence is describing or explaining (as I have not read the extract it comes from) but I think it describes Layla a lot. She's often travelling around, exploring different places whether it's abroad or at home. She's always got something to do but she takes it so well and seems as if nothing is to hard a task for her. There's a lot about my friends that inspire me and the motivation Layla has is one of them! 

Now I know this isn't really drawing with a pencil and paper but I enjoy it and it's still an art. I have been practicing with traditional materials as well but I'm not quite ready to show that off yet as I haven't finished the pieces. I'm sure you'll see them soon enough over on my Instagram account (awanderlustbeing) though.

I think that's it for this blog post! I was planning on doing Water and Earth themed looks as well but I ran out of time that week so perhaps you'll see them pop up on my Instagram. I'll update this blog post in the future if I do happen too them or I'll make a part 2! 

Sending my love,

As always,

A Wanderlust Being.

           -x-

Seeing AC/DC at Wembley (Rock or Bust World Tour)!

Hello!

After seeing AC/DC live at Wembley arena 10 days ago and still not having written about it makes me feel disappointed in myself that I haven't stepped up my game; but at 10 to 1 in the morning I feel inspired to write! I don't think there is a lot I can write about the couple of hours where I was physically in the presence of rock and roll gods but I will try my best!

First off, I have to say that seeing AC/DC live is a dream come true for me! It was one of my top bucket list points and I can't believe I was lucky enough to actually have gotten the chance to carry it out. It was easily one of the highlights of my life and I will remember it until the day I die.

As you would expect from AC/DC, an amazing performance was given. It was very different from when I saw The Killers live in the same stadium but I loved it. I'm so grateful for the experience to listen to one of my favourite bands live.

I have to thank my father for the experience as he was the one who bought tickets for us, my brother and sister to go (apologies for my baby face). I think I take after my father a lot when it comes to music as what he listen to when I was a child greatly influence my taste in music these days. 

With The Killers, they interacted with the crowd a lot during their performance whereas the members of AC/DC did not; and although I liked the interaction with the crowd when I saw The Killers, I didn't mind the lack of interaction with AC/DC. They made up for it with a fantastic performance and a killer atmosphere. 

The atmosphere was the best thing I've ever experienced! The fans who decided to stand where jumping and cheering non stop for hours on end and everywhere you looked there would be red flashing Devil horns that they were selling (which I was honestly hoping to buy but didn't get a chance). The feeling of the music travelling deep through your bones because of how loud it was was incredible! 

I honestly loved every second of the concert and by the end of the night my cheeks were hurting from smiling so much. I'll admit that my throat was also sore and my voice almost non existent my the time we got out of there from all the cheering and singing but hey, that's what you do at a concert!

The last thing I want to say is - OH MY GOSH! Angus Young's guitar solo was the greatest thing I have ever had the privilege of listening to. It was, as my Twitter bio says, 'a face melting guitar solo'. He is easily, in my eyes, the best guitarist of our time!

I realise how lucky I was to have gotten this chance my I'd love to know if you happened to be at the same gig? Isn't it a small world if we had been?! If you're not into AC/DC, who do you like? Maybe I can take a few music suggestions from you.

Sending my love,

As always,

A Wanderlust Being.

          -x-

Half way there!

Hello!

I just wanted to share with you that I have offically finished my first year of college, yay! It doesn't seem like I have because I'm still at placement/work experience until the 16th of July but this was my decision. 

I decided to stay until the end of the school year as I have spent nearly a whole year with them already and I won't be going back again because of two reasons: 1) I will be assigned a different placement next year and 2) The school I'm currently in is being closed at the end of next year by the government. 

It's such a nice little school and it being closed down has nothing to do with it being a bad school. It's because it's such a small school and there are many other schools in the area. So overall I guess you could say it is due to funding.

Anyway, I just wanted to spend as much time with them as I have grown to love the placement. Both the staff and children are lovely individuals and treat me like a fully qualified childcare practitioner (within reason) and I just know I'm going to miss everyone there a lot!

But getting back to the original statement, it also seems like I haven't finished because I have a few extended essays to check up on over the summer holidays which I'm sure I'll hate but it will be well worth it for the future. I'm just hoping I can get a good grade out of them as they boost your qualification. See if you don't do the essays you get an overall E grade for completing the course (Extended Diploma Child Care Learning and Development Level 3) but if you do the extended essays you can get higher grades. Apparently without the extended essays we cannot get into university. I don't know if I ever want to go to uni but I'd like to have the option and what's the harm in doing three extended essays over a two year course?

Now that I have finish my first year of work, I'm super excited to get into the next year. Yes this year was hard and stressful for me but next year has promised to be easier since we have the basics already and we have covered most of the work this year. 

I also have a prize waiting for me at the end of the second year which I'm hoping will motivate me a lot more: I'm moving to Australia to work! You read right, I'm leaving Wales for Perth, WA at the end of my course to live and work out there for a year (or more, depending on how I feel). I also have family out there who I haven't seen a lot and I would love to spend more time with them.

I hope that whilst I'm out in Australia that I can earn quite a bit of money and take as many opportunities as I can that I can't do here. Then perhaps after I have earned some money I can take some time off to travel to Edinburgh to explore my family's history and visit my friend who could possibly be in her second year of university there at the time! 

I think that's all I have to say for now but expect more posts over the next couple of weeks as I'm doing a lot of exciting things such as: travelling to London this weekend to see AC/DC live at Wembley, possibly going to Cardiff to meet a group of lovely girls and going on holiday to Somerset at the end of this month!

What are you doing during the summer? Any festivals or gigs you're going to? What about any holidays or summer jobs? I'd love to know!

Sending my love,

As always,

A Wanderlust Being.

           -x-