New Zealand - 2015

I had the pleasure of visiting New Zealand back in October last year and have only now got round to uploading my video diary of my time there. I've been to New Zealand a few times now, both times before being when I was a lot younger and joined by family. This time was different and I was able to see a lot more of the country. My friend Louisa joined me, and we split the time we had there between both islands.

The majority of our holiday was spent in a van we called Terry, driving around the South Island eating noodles and porridge. That sounds terrible really, but it was honestly very fun. We saw and did some incredible things, including boat tours, glowworms, Lord of the Rings locations, rivers, bunji jumping, zorbing, kea birds, lakes, art, lugeing, The Remarkables and various other mountain ranges, Maori culture experiences and mueseum after mueseum. The highlight for me was visiting Milford Sound and kayaking in Harrison Cove. We filled our bottles with fresh Harrison River water and heard some interesting stories about moose. You'll notice theres literally about 3 seconds of footage of us on the water, but this was because we only had a low charged go pro with us at the time! I was way too scared to take my camera out considering this was my first kayaking experience.

I took a total of 900+ videos whilst there, and below is an attempt to arrange it into something worth watching. I've always wanted to try doing this whenever I've been on holiday in the past, so I'm quite pleased that I stuck with it and have something to show at the end! I made this for Louisa and I to remember our experience, but please enjoy.

Wales - Nadolig Llawen!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sorry it's so late, I've been wandering from Wales to Edinburgh and finally Inverness over the holidays. It feels so good to finally have a weekend where I do absolutely nothing and get the chance to be in my own head for a bit. I don't know about anyone else, but I need an occasional day where I talk to no one. 

I always feel most at home at Christmas when I'm in Wales. Which makes no sense really as it isn't my home. Hazel and G's little house fully packed with family, squishing up together to watch the TV, the single bed I get assigned with an electric blanket, G and I sitting in silence reading our books and crowding round the dining table to eat. Hazel always over buys food and we're offered something to eat every hour. It's probably very similar to most peoples Christmas, but non the less I love all those little things that make the day. 

We are now well on our way into 2015 so talking about Christmas is now a bit outdated I suppose, but I never got a chance to post some of my favourite moments of Christmas 2014. So here I go! 

We left at 4am in the morning of the 24th, arriving at about lunch in Carmarthen. I went to visit some friends in the pub the night before in my home town so I hadn't slept much. I went for a much needed nap as soon as we arrived, waking up fresh as a daisy at about three for a shower and some food. Anyways, I won't go into an hour by hour recount of the day. 

Needless to say, everyone woke up on the day bright and early and some went for a walk. Presents were given, and we had some tea and toast whilst the dinner was made. 

We were down until the 28th, so Christmas day aside there were a few walks, a trip to the pub to see friends and a bit of shopping on Saturday. It was on Saturday that I purchased my yellow Seasalt wellies. I am in love with these wellies. (photos in next post) 

We also visited a gorgeous little vintage shop that sells everything. It's when I'm in shops like that, that I wish I owned my own house and had the money to buy furniture and decorate. Such beautiful things. 

Anyways, time for a few photos, most of which were from that little shop. 

 

We drove back early in the morning again. It was a lovely cold misty day and I took a few photos from the car window.
All in all, a very enjoyable Christmas.

Simple Sundays - Life update.

I really love Sundays because they are the only day of the week where I actually get a chance to relax. I think posting on Sundays might be a good idea. More likely than not, I'll have some free time to sit down and write about anything that's happened this week.
I've posted twice today, but this was mainly because I was too tired to write up anything when I got in last night. Ideally I would have liked to post that yesterday. However, lucky you gets two posts today!

I thought it might be nice to do a quick life update, like what I used to do on here a few years back. Since then I've graduated and have been working at an app company as their lead designer. My first year in a full time job was maybe a bit different from most peoples experience. We struggled to get an office so work involved signing in on Skype every morning for a catch up. It was a difficult way to work and did ultimately take an impact on my mentality. Nothing too serious, just some bouts of sadness or cabin fever. I'm quite a sociable person and rely a lot on my peers, so having no one around me for a while and no outlet or routine was a struggle. I think this was because I had been constantly surrounded by people for 4 years whilst I was at Uni, and the contrast between that environment to living alone and a new job was distressing.
Luckily I have some pretty amazing friends who I could talk to and they helped to pull me out of that when it got to be too much. This July we managed to eventually move into a space and since then it's been much better. After a year of working from home, getting back into the routine of waking up earlier and leaving the house actually improved my work and rekindled my love for design again. It was slowly sucking the passion out of creating for me, and I'm glad to have found that again.

I've also been living alone, like I mentioned earlier, and that's been a new experience for me too. Since my time at uni I've lived in a flat with 6, 5, 8 and finally 2 others in different years. Each year had it's pros and cons, but I think living in my own space has been far more exciting. Apart from all the negatives I've spoke about already, there are huge cons to having your own place. I don't think I'd go back to sharing again if given the choice!

There have been so many other exciting things that have happened, but I think trying to fit anything else in at the moment might be information overload! Right now I feel like I'm in a much better place than I was last year, and that's why I felt I could talk about it openly on here. This blog was always an outlet for me in the past, and as previously stated in another post, I'm really looking forward to having that again.
Hence post galore! and perhaps an overuse of the word post in this post.

I had an adventure of my own on Friday which was a new experience for me and something I'm planning to write about soon, but for now enjoy my foody day out from yesterday and my tiny little bald patch in the picture above! I bought that jumper yesterday and I think I'm in love with it already.
AUTUMN IS HERE.

Simple Sunday. (I'm back?)

I left Blogger a while ago to post elsewhere and focus on work in my final year of Uni, and since then have kind of forgotten to keep this space updated.

'IndigoTeacup' is a name I've left behind. I feel a bit sad about this as it's where I used to go speak my thoughts.
Thats not to say I haven't been active on the internet though, and I'll link in another post to some of the other places I frequent to update.

I'm going to try posting on here again. I use my other blog for work related/design posts, but I'd like my old space back to talk about day to day life. I used to find a great amount of joy in blogging, and I can't quite put my finger on why I lost that love. I think it's still there, buried away.

I'm going to start off with my weekend and see how it goes from there!

Yes I'm going to write about yoghurt. I bought this stuff on a whim the other day and it was honestly the highlight of my day. So thick, so creamy and ridiculously tasty. I'm aware I sound like an advert, but it just that good.
I'm not a huge yoghurt person, but over the last few weeks it's been my go to choice for breakfast. I usually just buy some plain natural yoghurt and add some cut up banana and honey. I swear by this combo.

I'll be on the look out for other flavours of The Collective Dairy, their russian fudge and luscious lemon looks fab.
Can't believe I've just given you a yoghurt review. Stay Tuned folks!

 I also just found these today. This was a gift from my mum from a while back. I never really use cases for my glasses because they pretty much stay on my face all the time! But I can't deny that this is cute.

Another new experience from this past few weeks has been trying out various Lush products. They're so popular already and I think everyone is pretty much in the loop about what their products are like, but I had never tried their bath bombs before and was pleasantly surprised. After getting over my initial fear that my skin would turn a vivid purple after looking at the colour of the water, I think they're pretty fun. The one pictured below is called Space Girl. This was actually the least exciting of the three I bought, the best being the Big Blue. My bath has been some amazing different shades of blue and purple! Will continue to experiment. 

I went shopping today and got me some new dresses! I love autumn because all my favourite types of prints come in. Lots of woodland creatures and fall colours. Autumn has always been my favourite season for clothes, so I'm really looking forward to next month when all the shops will start to really get all their autumn stock in.

For now here's a wee teaser, will post better pictures at a later date.

Check out those racoons!

I'm going to finish up there! I think thats enough yoghurt and bath bomb chat. Here's a picture of my miserable looking face, incase anyone is curious. I also just love the collar on this top!

Life Lately.

I haven't done any blogging this year mainly because my time is split over so many things that personal blogging can seem like I'm procrastinating. Which as we all know is baaaaad.

 2013 has been great for me so far. I can't remember everything that has been happening so I'm going to talk a bit about easter and what I've been up to in April.

I went home for a few days at the beginning of the holidays for a much needed break. Uni work can get very stressful and sometimes it's nice to visit home and escape your responsibilities for a while. There's nothing better than mums home cooking and a cosy fire, especially with the horrible cold weather Scotland's been experiencing. Snow in March? You're kidding me Scotland!

Whilst I was home my mum and I went for a walk at Prestwick. When I think of Prestwick my mind immediately says 'airport', so it was nice to see a different side to the place.
We went a walk along the promenade first which was really windy. I don't know if it's just me, but walking in colder conditions makes me feel like I'm doing more exercise. I think it might be because I'm battling against the wind. We picked up some nice driftwood for the fire and carried them along on the way back.

Afterwards we headed to a place called Elliots for some lunch. We drove past this place on the way in and it looked really good so we made a mental note to go there for some food. And food we had! It was really lovely inside, because it has a kind of conservatory as the main dining area. The sun was out that day too so it was lovely and bright.
I had sizzling garlic butter and chilli oil king prawns and my mum had something called 'Cullen Skink' which is basically a really thick creamy fish soup. It arrived in a pan!
Both are meals were gorgeous so I really recommend the place.

There's also this place down the road which was called Costley's, and it sold amazing looking ice cream. Everything about the place screamed eat me. So we went in and got some ice cream to eat in the car. No regrets. This place had meringues the size of my face.

All in all, it was an excellent day out and some quality time spent with my mum.

I also had a day in Edinburgh, which I spent with my friend Fiona. She's getting married in October and she has chose me to be her bridesmaid! This day was spent going from bride shop to bride shop with her two mums (present and future step mum) looking for the perfect dress. I think we pretty much found it in the first one we visited, which is very typical! I can't really post pictures of the day unfortunately as that would come under the category 'spoilers'!
however, we did visit Pizza Express, which was a new experience for me.

Man, that place does some tasty pizza.

Everything else over easter has mainly been about my university problems, and if you're at all interested in that side of me I have another blog here, which is regularly updated with my latest dilemmas.

Hopefully I'll be able to update you on upcoming adventures but till then it's back to work.

Life Update

So recently I've been a bored out of my mind. 

I really wish I could take something away from this summer because I haven't been working or snowed under with things to do, however all I seem to want to do is watch meaningless TV programs, produce pretty pictures on photoshop and plan little walks into town.
It's a shame because next week I'm going to be back at university and starting a part time job, so my free time will be limited. 
My motivation has left me this summer. 
I guess it has been nice not doing anything and catching up on sleep, but I'm really looking forward to getting back into a routine. I miss that feeling of constantly having a due date in the back of my mind and it slowly pushing me to do something.


My other news includes: 

• My dad decided to buy me a macbook pro! - I was originally going to start saving up for one and asked a few of my relatives to donate money instead of presents for my birthday this year, so that I could get started. One of those people was my my dad, who asks me every year what I would like. After hearing that I was saving up he very kindly offered to buy the entire thing for me! A generous gift indeed! 
• Remember those lovely boots I got? - well I had to take them back.. They keep scuffing and flaking away far too easily and after my second pair I gave up on them. It makes me sad because they were so comfortable and went with nearly everything in my wardrobe. 
• I'm in love with this song - Turn and Turn Again by All Thieves
• I've started to paint again - I don't know how long this will last but for now it's going smoothly. 
• A few of my flatmates move home soon - One moved back today and the others will be joining us next week along with Michael. This makes me happy. 
• I start my job tomorrow! - I'm a bit nervous about this one because I haven't had a job since I worked in the chemist in 2009. Luckily I'll only be working 1-2 times a week so it shouldn't be stressful juggling it with university at all! 

That's all I can think of for now.  Now back to Greys anatomy and my new favourite, Private Practice!


xcx 

I know I'm 4 days late in saying this, but hoorah for August!

August is one of my favourite months of the year, mainly because my birthday is in August.
My birthday is today actually!
Hence the inspiration and random August love. I would also like to apologize for the amount of times I've said August so far..

A quick internet search has lead me to believe that it's International Beer Day, how cool is that? I don't think I've ever celebrated the holiday because I'm not much of a beer fan, which really makes me wish that I did drink it. How handy is it to have your birthday on an international drinking holiday, it's the perfect excuse!

Birthday plans for today include a quick trip into town to find a nice pair of black heels, because I foolishly forgot to bring mine up with me to the new flat, and some lovely friends from back home are coming up for a visit!
Tomorrow night we're also having a party at the flat with drink being served in teacups! I went into town on Thursday to try and find a cheap tea set that we could use to create a tea party type atmosphere and came back with a teapot and set of 8 cups and saucers for £12! Sure they look like a set your grandmother would have, but hey! I think that adds to the charm!

Here's a rundown on some the lovely gifts I have received..

My mum got me this purse from Wales and I love it, it's so so soft!
The boots I asked for, I saw them in Next and just loved how comfy they looked. I'm all about the comfort ;)
The perfume is called Deisel Plus Plus. My Aunt got it for me a few years ago and I recently ran out so I asked if she would get me some again! 

So I'm going to go enjoy my day now and have some Nutella on toast, YUM.

I would also like to say happy birthday to everyone else who's birthday is in August!

xcx

Flats and Festivals

Moving day has finally been and gone! I mentioned in previous posts that my flatmates and I would be moving into a new home come July for our 3rd year at university and we're finally here! It feels good to be in a new home and this house definitely fits all 9 of us. (9 people, what were we thinking..)
We all selected what room we wanted prior to moving in, and I think everyone is quite happy with what they ended up with. With 9 people in a house you'd expect it to be quite cramped and small but it's actually a pretty huge house.
The room I got is a lot bigger than what I'm used to and I already feel lost in it. The ceiling is just so high!

I've been looking through my photos from the last few weeks in an attempt to find news and remember what I've been up to, but I think the only exciting thing would be T in the Park.
For those who aren't aware, T is a festival in Scotland and this year was my first time at a festival!
I went with my mum on the Saturday, and met up with my flatmate and fellow blogger Fiona and her fiance Tom, and then again with my mum, Steve and Michael on the Sunday.
It was also my opportunity to see one of my favourite bands, Foofighters. Who I greeted to the stage most enthusiastically. They did not disappoint!
Check out the horrible grey sky in the background! Scottish weather is terrible, so glad I opted for wellies.

Hope everyone's summer is going well!