Knitted skater dress

Biker ankle boots

Fleece lined checked shirt

Rib trim fleck jumper

High waisted jeans

Checked scarf

Strappy camisole

Online shopping is one of my biggest procrastinations so expect many of these now my uni work has started again! Tesco is a shop that I like to check back to every so often because I find that they have some on trend pieces at a fraction of the price of high street stores. And, since we are hitting A/W, I am loving the green blue red and grey tones inspired by my earlier mood board.

I haven't owned a checked shirt for quite a while but think that they are a great item to throw on with some jeans. Especially this fleece lined one, nice and cosy for the colder months! I think these jeggings (really don't like that word) seem very similar to Topshops joni jeans that I have been thinking about buying for a while. 

I can't get enough of of ankle boots at the moment either. I seem to spot them everytime I start shopping. I bought a black pair last season from asos that I still wear all the time but love the more detailed style of these. I also would love a pair in a different colour and these oxblood cutout boots from asos tick all the boxes!

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Starting University

I have just finished my first week back at university and, although I know most people will have already begun this academic year, I thought I would write a little post about starting university for the first time.
For most people it is the first time you will have lived away from home, the first time you will have to cook for yourself, the first time in a new city, the first time meeting such a huge group of new people and the first time studying on a university course. That is a lot of firsts and it can be really daunting, but also incredibly exciting! So here are a few tips:

1. Enjoy your first week. It may sound obvious but everyone is in the same boat. Don't be afraid to speak to people and make friends. There will be people in that you meet in the first week who you will be friends with for the rest of uni, and others who you may never really talk to again. Go out, experience what the city/town you're in has to offer because this is one of the few times you have absolutely no work to do!

Try and avoid sticking your tongue out in photos, it's not a good look..

2. Join sports clubs and societies. Try out new things. Go and sign up for that sport you've never heard of before! You never know until you try it out. Usually during freshers most clubs offer free or cheap taster sessions so there really is no reason not too. It's also another great way to meet people in different years and on different course and provides some of the best social nights of the year!

3. Don't go crazy on your first supermarket shop. I can promise that you won't need 6 different types of spices and there is not enough room in the cupboards for 5 packets of pasta! The temptation is there when you do your first own shop but my best advice is write a list when you go shopping and stick to it.

4. Actually attend your lectures and workshops. Self motivation is key at university. And it is so easy to not go to things if you're feeling a bit hungover or sleepy. But they really are valuable and the best way to learn what you need for your course. If you do go, try not to sleep through them..

5. Make use of your library and uni working spaces. I didn't do this until the end of my first year and wish I had done it earlier! There is space to work all over most uni campuses and you will soon find somewhere that suits you. Being away from your desk in your room means that there are fewer distractions. You can't get up and make some toast in the middle of writing that essay!

6. Find your nearest Nandos. They do great bean burgers and rice! And it makes a great place to meet up with friends and course mates outside of doing work.

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My Own Space

I moved back to uni about 2 weeks ago to start my second year. I still can't believe that I am already in 2nd year, feels two minutes since I moved into halls as a fresher!
This year I am living in a house with 4 of my friends from first year. We have spent most of our first weeks going out, sleeping of hangovers, eating and being mentors to freshers. I love being in a house now though and having a shared space and a big kitchen. Even if it does mean we have to take out our own bins and hoover the floors!
I have definitely made my room into my own little space. Having a double bed again is heaven and I am starfishing to the max. I am also slowly building a hoard of cushions to adorn my bed with. The only thing thats missing is some cute bunting or fairy lights to go round my walls.

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Autumn Fashion Inspiration

Autumn is one of my favourite seasons. I love being able to put layers on and buy a new big warm coat. And, as much as a I love the pastels and brights of S/S, the more warm red, blue and yellow tones of autumn never fail to make me feel cosy.

I've got a thing for smock dresses lately have my eye on this one from topshop. Planning ahead, but they will be perfect to hide a food baby after christmas dinner! I think I will also invest in a huge material scarf, preferably in tartan. Then there are oversized jumpers, don't even get me started. I have so many jumpers that I couldn't even bring them all to university with me because there wasn't enough space. But I always seem to end up buying a new one.  I love the yellow of the knitted jumper in the pictures.

I can't wait for autumn to really start. Although looking out of my window now I think I had best go buy a new umbrella! I appear to have misplaced mine..

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My Life In Photos #1

1. On the way to watch my local football team, Bradford City!

2. Finally found this screensaver for my mac.

3. My mums pasta bake.

4. Cricket club outing to the pub.

5. Moved into my new house in Manchester.

6. Cooked a green veg risotto for my housemates.

7. Pineapple and wine with my best friend.

8 + 9. Our first night out of 2nd year.

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Copenhagen

The last big part of my holiday was a family city break to Copenhagen. Denmark is a country I had never been to before, so thats another ticked off my list! It really is such a beautiful city with great architecture. We spent our time visiting museums, taking boats tours, wandering through parks, shopping, eating out and at Tivoli gardens.

We had a great apartment near to the city centre, although 5 flights of stairs is a heck of a long way up! There was a lovely little cafe across the street where we ate breakfast and had afternoon drinks. The Danish do have quite a strange combination of foods for breakfast though; bread, cheese, jam, museli, yoghurt, egg and juice. The houses along the canals were like something off a postcard and it was made even more pretty because of the sunny weather we had.

We climbed to the top of this tower, which had a spiral staircase around the outside of the building! It gave some great views over the city. You could also see Sweden and the huge bridge that lead across to it.

My beautiful sister and brother.

I was rather excited when I realised that there was a Monki store (there were actually 2 in the city centre!) in Copenhagen. I absolutely love the brand and often shop in the online store but find myself put off with having to pay postage because I am never sure if it will fit me properly or look right on me. So I tried on so many things and came away with a few items. Think I might do a little post on those too.

One of the stranger experiences whilst there was visiting Christiania. This is a really unique neighbourhood with its own way of living. It started off as a military area and then people began to squat there. Fairly recently the government has allowed people to begin to buy and rent the properties. It was certainly very interesting but I'm not sure I would like to walk down Pusher Street again where people were freely selling drugs..

This sign did make me laugh though.

A final thing I loved about this city was the number of people that rode bikes! The whole place is designed to make it easier to get around by bike which I think is such a great incentive and something that needs to be done in more UK cities.
Being able to travel to places like this only makes me want to visit even more European cities. Next on the list are Venice, Berlin and Rome.

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Leeds Festival

This is the second time I have been to Leeds festival, but this time I did it a bit differently. I volunteered with my 2 best friends. And I had the most amazing few days!

We got theee best shift pattern and so got to see every day of music.

Day 1

Arrived in sunny weather and spent the afternoon putting our tent up and registering at the office. Then in the evening we cracked open the cans and got to know the people in the tents around us. And what a lovely bunch they were too.

Day 2

This was our first shift from 10-5 and it was simply just manual labour! If you've ever been to a festival before then you know how hard it is to carry bags across the fields to where you want to camp. Especially with the weight of about 3 crates in the bottom. Well we were just carrying everyones heaviest bags, and then putting their tents up when they found somewhere to camp. However we were often rewarded with some tasty snacks or a cheeky can or two which made the afternoon go faster!

The best tent was one where 3 of the poles had snapped, yet we still managed to put it up for them and it stayed up all weekend!

Day 3

After a relaxing morning we went for an afternoon shift, 5-1am. It was a fairly long and uneventful shift because most people were at the DJ parties. That was until the heavens opened at about 10pm and everything (literally through to my underwear!) was soaked. After that the typical 'festival mud' started.

Day 4

This was the first day of music and luckily our tent had managed to hold our through all the rain. So we set off first to see AlunaGeorge. On the way I got stopped by a modelling agency. This is the 3rd time in 3 months it has happened! Next we saw the Editors, which was the only time we managed to sit on the floor before the whole place turned to mud! We followed up with Frankie and the Heartstring (a band I had been meaning to see for quite a while), Haim, Disclosure and Fall Out Boy. We topped it all off with Biffy Clyro who were a-m-a-zing. I managed to find myself on top of a three person tower which was literally the highlight of my festival!

Day 5

There was less music I wanted to see on this day so it was all fairly relaxed. I ate some weird mac and cheese with mustard in for lunch, not recommended. Then we went and watched Bastille in the NME tent who is near perfect in my opinion. And later on saw the full set of Greenday, just so we could sing along to American Idiot. It was totally worth it. This day was memorable for Piccadilly party in 3ft of watery mud (which i dropped my phone in, found, and it still worked. Hallelujah!) until 4:30am and then red camp dj until 6am and then a looong trek back to our campsite. Had such a good night, at least compared to the girl we met whilst walking back who seem to have had a series of bad luck. Oh and I forgot to mention - it rained all day.

Day 6

This was my favourite day (apart from Biffy) by far! We saw the 1975 - who I wasn't hugely impressed by - before going to see Foals on the main stage. I have wanted to see Foals for so long that I may have weed myself a little when they came on. They were awesome. And it wasn't raining! We stayed to watch Chase and Status who were pretty epic. I was surprised by how many of their songs I knew, bonus points to me. Then, controversially to some, I chose Alt-J over Eminem (although I stayed for the very start of his set). Alt-J were incredible. I became a little entranced by their music it was that good.

We were then straight onto a 1-9am shift which was like living through the apocalypse. The number of fires we had to put out, thefts we had to report and more generally miles we had to walk through rubbish and mud I think I deserve a bloomin' medal! Strawberry and nutella waffles at 6am cheered me up slightly though.

One of the best weekends of my summer by far.

I am thinking about creating a post more specifically about my time volunteering. Its positives and negatives, how I got into it and whether I would do it again if anyone would be interested?

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Outer Hebrides

I'm going to do a small series of posts showing a few things I have done over the summer holidays. For our family holiday this year we went to 3 islands in the Outer Hebrides. I've been there once before when I was much younger and it really is such a beautiful part of the world. We travelled up at the end of July when there was a heatwave across England, expecting to be greeted with rain and fog. Instead we had glorious sun for 2 weeks!

We visited a beach almost every day and because the islands are fairly small there was usually never anyone else on the beaches. The only thing that would have made it better is if the sea was warm!

The family friends that we were staying with had collected buoys for many years and assembled them in the back yard. The younger generation had great fun playing out on them right up until sunset.

Also a few of us went to the islands annual music festival whilst we were there. There was some great traditional bagpipes as well as bands playing covers of songs. One band played Mr Brightside and I may have turned 14 again..

Later in the holiday we also did some walks up some beautiful hills which left us with views for miles and miles. For me this is holiday was the perfect way to relax and spend time with my family. If only it was closer to home!

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The End Of Summer, A New Start To Blogging

This is me and my five housemates at our end of year ball in May. I managed to finish and pass all of first year! It actually feels like such a long time ago now since we've had all of summer in between.
I said in my last post, which was so long ago that I would be surprised it anyone actually remembers my existence, that I was hoping to start blogging again over summer when I had more time. In the end I was just enjoying summer too much that I never got round to writing it all down. But lately I have been looking at some of the blogs I used to read religiously and I began to really miss it. So here I am. Writing a new post.
I am starting university again later this month so I know I won't have huge amounts of time but I want to blog when I can. I have lots of ideas and love being able to look back at my blog in the future as an online diary. I have made a few changes to the layout and am hoping to make a few more as I learn how to code html better (or just make it up as I go along!). So hopefully you guys will stick around.

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