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Christmas Gift Guide - Boyfriend

'What do you buy a boy???!' this is a question that I always think whenever it comes to an occasion where I have to buy my boyfriend a present, and it always seems that my friends are exactly the same. However, this year, it seems that I have managed to formulate quite a good mix of things for my boyfriend that are both affordable, but he will use. So here we are, my first Christmas gift guide of this year...


1) Touch screen gloves... to be honest who doesn't need these? Your outside in the cold, waiting for a train, or meeting a friend, all wrapped up and then you hear it... the vibrate and 'PING' indicating you have a message. First you try to unlock your phone with your gloves on, no such luck. You then reluctantly take your gloves off and feel the cold completely numbing your hands. Too much of a palaver. I found these ones on Amazon for £4.69, but I believe that they can be found in local markets quite inexpensively too.

 

 

2) A couple of months ago, my boyfriend and I went to see 'The Maze Runner' at the cinema. For about 2 weeks afterwards he just kept saying 'That was such a cool film!!!!' I then realise that the film was an adaptation of a book franchise, and as he is an avid reader, I thought that this would make an excellent present. The one I picked up was from Waterstones for £6.39

 

 

3) So this one, I probably wont buy until the day before I actually give presents to my boyfriend. The both of us have a little tradition where we like to buy a big box of Dunkin Donuts for ourselves every so often. I found out that they now have Christmas edition donuts, that look adorable. A box of 12 is just £9.99.

 

 

Hope these ideas have helped you for a boyfriends or even any one else! Is there anything you've picked up that you're super proud of?

Mamma Mia!

So for years and years now (possibly even longer than that?!), I have been nagging everyone in my life about how much I want to see the West End stage production of Mamma Mia! I have always had a (not so) secret addiction to Abba and a few years ago I went to see a tribute band at my local theatre with my mum which was absolutely amazing, and it I'm 99% sure that the film adaptation of Mamma Mia is my all time most watched DVD.

For my birthday, my two best friends took me up to London, and I had no idea. Right from the train journey, to getting out in Covent Garden and then having a Pizza Express dinner, I was completely oblivious to what my surprise would be. Might I add that Covent Garden around this festive season is gorgeous.

 

The performance was absolutely amazing, and completely lived up to and exceeded my expectations. I was particularly impressed with the performance of the actresses who played Tanya and Rosie, as they were absolutely hilarious. My favourite number was definitely 'Lay all your love on me' and 'Voulez Vous'. 

 

This was definitely one of the best West End shows I've seen, but I definitely want to see more! What are your favourites?

How I keep organised

It's that time of year again... no not Christmas, 'the most wonderful time of the year' but 'the most busiest time of the year'.
Don't get me wrong I am in love with Christmas as much as the next person, yet for some reason, the work load and commitments in my life seem to just go overboard, like everything needs to be done by the end of the year. And so for someone like me, who finds it easy for things to get on top of them, I realise that in order for me to not only keep my head above water, but keep swimming right until the finish line, I need to get organised, so here are a few of the things I find really help

1) Write everything down! Get a beautiful notebook and a good quality pen and make sure that anything and everything you need to remember, you write it down. No matter how insignificant it might seem and how easily you think you will remember it!

 



 

2) Tidy space, tidy mind. Make sure your work space is tidy, so that when you sit down to complete a piece of work, you know exactly where all of the things you need are. I tend to find if I make sure my room is tidy when I go to bed, I can wake up in the morning, I can find exactly what I am looking for and get straight on with my tasks.

 



With these little things, I manage to get through everything I need to, and to the standard that I would like. How do you keep organised?

Zoella and Ghost writers - bad idea or innocent mistake?

Unless you've been living under a rock for the  last 18 months, you will be highly aware of one of the most famous bloggers and YouTubers possibly, well, ever. That's right, it's Zoe Sugg a.k.a, Zoella.

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Her debut book Girl Online has become the fastest selling debut book since records began,, surpassing the likes of J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown. Obviously, a great achievement for any first time writer, for anyone, let alone someone who is not known for being 'a writer', however, what are you to do when the whole of the media is accusing it of not being your work?

 

"My dream has been to write a book, and I can't believe it's come true. Girl Online is my first novel, and I'm so excited for you to read it." is what Zoe has labelled on the back of her book and I remember watching her daily vlog back in june when she announced that she would be writing a book with penguin, she had made it exlplicitly clear that she had always loved to write stories as a young girl and I have to admit that as a dedicated viewer of Zoe for the past few years, I saw this as legitimate and never thought anything other than she would be writing the book on her own.

 

However when speculation in the past week emerged about the fact that tht this novel was not her own work and spokesmen from Penguin released the quote "To be factually accurate, you would need to say Zoe Sugg did not write the book Girl Online on her own" to The Sunday Times, I can hardly say that I was overly surprised about it. It isn't uncommon for someone in the public eye, who isn't trained as a writer to use the aid of a ghost writer, such as Katie Price or David Beckham.

 

You may even question why there has been such a large hype and bashing toward the teen idol, when so many others do it? As the independent suggested, it was not the fact that she had a ghost writer, it was the fact that her 6 million subscribers thought that she was legitimately writing this book on her own and were so proud of her.

 

As a viewer of Zoe for almost two years, I will admit that I am quite a large fan of her and it was, in all honesty, very strange to see speculation in a negative way, when you feel like she is in a way, an online friend, which many girls my age and a lot younger also geel like.

 

In my opinion, I do see why Zoe decided to take a few days off of the internet and do believe that on Zoe's part, it may not have been made clear by the publishers just how much having a ghost writer could have caused her issues if it got out.

 

 

 

 

We are still waiting for a response from Zoe that includes more detail and more justification than the short message she gave to but I have no doubt that any explanarion we do get is honest and just.

What are your thoughts on ghost writers? And do you think that it's right that so many YouTubers are getting book deals?

 

Taylor Swift - The RED Tour!

Reunited with my one true love!

Ever since I was 11 years old, there has been one constant love throughout the years. Friends, boyfriends and fads have come and gone, but Taylor Swift has been one beautiful person getting me through the awkward teenage years. 

Six years later, I am now 17 and the love affair continues. On Saturday 1st February, I was lucky enough to go, along with my two best friends, to the O2 arena to see this marvellous woman for the second time! 

A few days before the concert, we bought plain white t-shirts from primark, a pack of sharpies and decorated them with our favourite Swift lyrics along with the album art. The amount of time we spent trying to get it exactly matching to eachothers was ridiculous but so worth it!

 

 

We decided to arrive at the O2 arena quite a few hours before the actual concert started, because we knew that there would be a lot going on.  One of which was the Taylor Swift tour exhibit that would be displayed in the British Music Experience museum at the O2 arena. On this day, as well as the journey through the most iconic music artists that you can ordinarily take, exclusive pictures as well as Taylor's previous tour costumes were on display.

 

 

 Through out the day we met so many other lovely fellow Swifties, as well as getting to see their very inventive costumes (one girl came as the fridge from All Too Well?!?!) Our seats were phenomenal once we got into the actual arena and some of the highlights for me were her secret song (Fearless, one of my absolute favourite songs that she doesn't perform live anymore) and the guest performance from the wonderful Ed Sheeran!