Food diary #01.

There is no other way to start this blog post without stating the obvious - I love food. Or more specifically, to cook food. I just love to plan meals, do the shopping and make food for my family. Some people see it as a chore but I really enjoy just taking time to pick out interesting and nutritious food. My Mum owns her own business and before that, she was often too tired when she got back from work to cook, so I just tried to help out where I could and now I just cook everyday without even thinking about it (my Dad shouldn't be allowed near the kitchen!)... I guess it's kind of odd for an 18 year old to do majority of the family cooking haha.

It can be tricky cooking for everyone; in my family, there are three gluten intolerant people (myself being one of them) so all of our meals need to be free from gluten and they also need to be healthy. As well as being gluten intolerant, I also suffer from an illness called M.E and a couple of years ago, after taking some steroid based tablets to help manage my symptoms, I gained a whopping 3-4st in a couple of months. So after writing my 19 Things Before I'm 19 post, I took it upon myself to refine my eating and try to improve my health. 

Phew, that was a lot of info - now for today's food diary!

I hate faffing around with complicated breakfasts so I usually keep it simple, for today I just had a couple of poached eggs on some brown Genius bread. After I make breakfast I usually prepare some fruit or crudites to nibble on throughout the day. For lunch I just reheated some homemade spicy butternut squash soup and then fancied some bacon (tut tut, Jess!) so I added one rasher. By dinnertime I was shattered from work so needed something quick - I chucked some turkey, more bacon (ha) and mixed peppers into a pan and cooked them with some Nando's BBQ Peri-Peri seasoning. I prepared more veg and some oven chips (a bit naughty but I really couldn't be bothered to make anything else) - hey presto, a slightly mismatched dinner haha!

I hope you guys liked this post, it's slightly different from the usual beauty/makeup related stuff so I wasn't sure whether to put it up or not :)!

Bloglovin' - Twitter - Instagram - Pinterest

Goodbye 2012!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Yeah... I guess I'm a bit late to the party but I hope you all had a great Christmas and start to 2013 anyway! This post is going to be a catch up chat so grab a cup of tea and get comfy :).

I hate to start off my first post of 2013 with a moan but it is kind of an explanation to why I haven't posted since September. I have been really struggling with sixth form and especially the art course I'm taking - when I say struggling, I mean I HATE it. I tried to leave sixth form but that didn't work out so at the moment I'm just plodding along. A large factor of this art problem is that my illness (which you can read about here) has been really playing up with all the stress so that's a bit poo! Another health change is that I'm now a gluten free girl! Pretty much the whole of my Mum's family is allergic to gluten (and my boyfriend too which is handy!) so when I started feeling ill, we had a good idea what could be causing it. So expect some gluten free cooking posts from now on :).

In October, my boyfriend and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. It was so lovely, we just chilled out and went to the cinema and had a gluten free domino's! So many people find it strange that we've been together for so long due to our age but it's just so normal to us, we've been best friends since we were 13.

I celebrated my 18th birthday in late November, it was great fun and I had a party with all my friends and we danced the night away. I got a tonne of lovely presents, everyone went so overboard! I felt super spoiled but this means I need to save up like crazy so I can repay the favour! My boyfriend and
his parents joined forces and took me to the Cologne Christmas markets as my birthday present (TOTALLY AMAZING BOYFRIEND ALERT) and it was so magical. I got lots of beautiful hand crafted gifts and it was just lovely seeing all the lights, Christmas trees and beautifully decorated gingerbread.

Christmas this year was really lovely, I spent half the day with my family, then half the day at my boyfriend's with his family. As usual, we ate way too much and just spent the day just enjoying everyone's company. Christmas is my favourite time of year, it just so lovely to just stay home, get all dressed up and just be with the people you love the most.

Now that 2012 is over, I have began to think about my New Years resolutions. I have a few cliche ones like - get fit and healthy, get organised and don't procrastinate. But my main one is just to enjoy life more :).

What are your resolutions and have you stuck to them so far?

On a side note, I've just painted my nails with Essie's Leading Lady after seeing it on my friend Emily's post, the colour is so gorgeous. If you have a spare moment, please go and check out Emily's blog as she's so lovely and has nail skills which put mine to utter shame.

Phew - that was a long one! If you managed to get this far then give yourself a big pat on the back, you deserve it :).

PS - Thank you so much to the lovely girl, Chloe who emailed me, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply. I love it when I get emails from you guys, otherwise I just feel like I'm talking to myself over the internet haha!

Lacock Abbey.

Last Wednesday I visited Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire to celebrate my Grandma's 70th birthday. The village was so cute and so typically British! We had such a lovely day, the weather stayed dry and was reasonably sunny. We all scoffed my homemade cupcakes and toasted my Grandma a happy 70th, it was so nice to see my Grandparents. They live about 200 miles away from me, in Norfolk and I hardly get to see them anymore, which is thoroughly crap to be honest.

On a cheerier note, since visiting Lacock Abbey I have been doing a fair bit of day dreaming about living in a quintessentially English village. I'm such a sucker for the old school British way of life, I love the idea of village shops and bakeries instead of huge chain stores. If I could live off of cream teas and apple crumble for the rest of my life - I would. I'm the most patriotic person I know, I love the UK, I don't think I could ever move away. 

Has anyone else visited Lacock Abbey, what did you think of it?