These Are The Days

Hi all! I'm finally on the mend and feeling a lot better now. I have to say, the very worst thing about having a cold / being ill, is not being able to taste anything at all. Seriously, my taste buds were terminally depressed for about a week. It always makes me realise how much I love food. At least now, I get to compensate for the lack of taste by eating as much as I can! :-)

Just wanted to show you a few photos from a week ago when I was in London! Most of the pictures I took were of me with family and friends, so I omitted those and wanted to share a couple of scenery ones!

Beautiful summer's night in St. Albans

Nothing beats Scrabble


Swelteringly hot day

Also, some more good news is in order. I got my GCSE results on Thursday and I got all A*s (in Maths, English, Chemistry, Physics, Biology and R.S.)! I'm only in Year 10 (about to be Year 11, yikes!), but I've now completed my Maths and English GCSE as we do them early at my school. The other 4 subjects were modular, but I managed to somehow get 100% in Chemistry, Physics and Biology?! Have no idea how that happened - but I'm certainly not complaining :-)

Anyway, hope you're all having a lovely week. I can't believe I'm back to school on the 1st, where has the summer gone?! At least I'm going to see Taking Back Sunday on Thursday too, I can't wait! :-) How has everyone's summer been? Good, I hope.

Happy blogging!
Chloe xxx

P.S. Love the song in the title of my post, These Are The Days. Had it on repeat all summer. Van Morrison will forever sing the soundtrack to my life.

Moleskine

Just a quick one today! Got back from London / St. Albans yesterday, but I just wanted to show you the first two pages of my Moleskine sketchbook, after harping on about getting one for so long! I've done quite a bit more since this was taken, but just wanted to show you the first two pages. :-) The other two photos are some random ones that were taken at the start of the holidays when I went out for the day.


First two pages of my Moleskine sketchbook!


Top - Gap (Hand-me-down)
Blazer - Marc by Marc Jacobs (Gift)
Shorts - Levi's (Hand-me-down)
Shoes - Doc Martens (Gift)
Bag - Gucci (Hand-me-down)


Just realise that the outfit I'm wearing was entirely free of charge, I am so lucky to have such fashionable family members (mostly my mum and my aunties)!

Anyway, like I said earlier, yesterday I got back from a lovely few days in London / St. Albans with family and visiting friends. Unfortunately, I've had a cold which has spanned from the start of the trip up until the present day, which means that I was indeed ill for the duration of my visit. I'm still feeling under-the-weather now, but slowly recuperating (I hope!). I tried to not let my poor immune system get me down and I really did enjoy my time away. Now to try and not think about the impending doom and gloom of SCHOOL on September 1st. But for now, I've got to think about motivating myself to check off the many things on my To Do List before my time is up. Also, GCSE results on Thursday to worry about too. Wish me luck!

Hope you're all well. Happy blogging!

Chloe xxx

Faith

Hi all! Just come back from a lovely time in Manchester. I didn't really take many photos, so I don't really have any to share with you. It was nice to just relax though. :-) I had a great time with my family and our family friends, especially the cutest 4-year-old girl, Sofia, and a little 21-month-old boy, Raefe. They were a handful though! Anyway, just had a really nice few days, we went climbing on Monday and went out to eat and walked around Manchester, which is a lovely city.

Anyway, this is just a photo of me in the dress I got in the Topshop sale recently - I love it! I remember seeing Alexa Chung wear it at Glasto in the magazines and I'd been looking for a nice white summer dress for a while, so it was just perfect. It's a size too big, but it was the last one in the sale and still looked lovely, so I loved it immediately :-)




Love the flower detail!

A little sunflower clip that my sister made for me out of some spare material and a little clip on the back of it :-)


Aaaand, I don't know if this has ever been conveyed over my blog, but I used to be - and sort of still am! - a massive Twilight fan. When I was in my huge obsessive phase of Twilight about two and a half years ago, I sent a fan letter to Rob Pattinson. Nowadays, I'm a lot less into Twilight and I had completely forgot about the letter until a few days ago when I got this signed picture in the post :-) I really do admire him as an actor, whether that be in Twilight, How To Be, Remember Me, Water For Elephants or any of his other films. :-)

Anyway, wore my new dress when I was out for breakfast last week with my sister and two friends, Anisha (visit her blog here!) and Oriana :-) In between going out with friends and being in Manchester, I've had literally no time to do anything constructive! And I'm off to London tomorrow, so blogging may be a bit irregular / sparse. Thanks again for all the kind words about the UK riots, it seems like things are slowly getting back to normality (or as normal as possible).

I don't want to go back to school on September 1st. Gonna try and enjoy the fleeting freedom of summer while I can! Hope your week is going well. Happy blogging!

Chloe xxx

London Calling (Pt. II)

Hi all! Thank you for your kind messages about the riots in the UK at the moment. Fortunately, neither my family or I have been hurt or hugely affected by the riots. Most of the major cities have been affected: London, Manchester, Liverpool, as well as Birmingham (where I live). My heart goes out to businesses who will find it difficult to ever recover, as well as the three men who were killed in the hit-and-run incident when trying to protect their neighbourhood.

I just find it so sad - and angry - that there are things like tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters occurring, which we have absolutely no control over, yet there are still groups of people who are so determined to harm, abuse, vandalise, steal and ruin a great country. Hope everyone else in the UK has been keeping safe and that the worst of the riots are behind us. Thanks for the kind words from everyone else abroad!

I just wanted to show you some photos of the second part of my trip to London a few weeks ago. I stayed in St. Albans for the remainder of the trip, a really lovely and quaint town/small city just outside of London. We spent a couple of days exploring the centre of St. Albans, visiting the cathedral and generally enjoying the lovely summer days. Hope you like the photos!


Top - Gap (Hand-me-down)
Skirt - Portobello Market (£4.50)
Shoes - ? (Borrowed)
Belt - Moschino (Hand-me-down)
Bag - Gucci (Hand-me-down)

Beautiful flowers at a local florist

Cathedral in St. Albans


At the Cote Brasserie for dinner

Beautiful orchids





I'll be going to Manchester and London to visit family and friends over the next week or so. Hopefully, everything has calmed down in those cities too and I can enjoy the last few weeks before I go back to school - it has gone by far too quickly! I go back on the 1st of September and I am dreading it already. :-( Hope you're all enjoying your week! Happy blogging.

Chloe xxx

London Calling (Pt. I)

I've been rather busy this week, but I just wanted to share some of the photos from my trip to London recently. To prevent my blog from photo overload, I'm gonna do it in two or three parts. Like I already mentioned in my last post, I really had the best time with my sister, my aunty and her boyfriend. I just love the diversity and the fast-paced vibrancy that comes with living in such a multi-cultural capital city.


Top - Levi's (My sister's, hand-me-down)
Skirt - Urban Outfitters in Chicago ($15, sale)
Shoes - Doc Martens (hand-me-down, gift)
Bag - Marimekko (gift)

Beautiful houses near Portobello Market

Portobello Market!

Covent Garden - one of my favourite places in London!

My aunty and my sister! (They look like sisters, don't they?! :-D)

Covent Garden (again)

My sister and my aunty again

Covent Garden (again!)

The loveliest little furniture store on Portobello Road

Hope you like the photos! All of these places are now fast becoming my favourite haunts whilst visiting London. I can always rely on the stalls and shops at Portobello Market to provide me with loads of good bargains (as already seen in my last post!). We also ventured into Spitalfields Market too, which was really lovely and had a nice vibe to the place. However, my favourite place in London is, and always will be, Covent Garden. I love the chilled out atmosphere from all the street performers, lovely cafes and shops, even despite the fact that it is always so busy as it's obviously a major tourist attraction.

Pt. II of the London adventure will be coming along very soon. I spent the day out in town with some friends and I had such a lovely time, eating and shopping. I managed to get SUCH a lovely dress from Topshop for £15. I don't normally like to shop in Topshop as you will undoubtedly see someone wearing the same thing as you (which I hate!), but it was too good an opportunity to pass up! I'll be sure to get a photo of it later and post it up on here. Hope your week has been swell - have a lovely weekend too! Happy blogging. :-)

Chloe xxx

P.S. I have been sleeping late and waking up late, hence the time that this is being posted... Oh well, it's an opportunity to say HI to all my overseas readers. :-) Thanks for reading, as always!

Parfait

I got back from London on Saturday and I had such an good time with my sister, my aunty and her boyfriend. Being in London has really made me realise just how much I want to live there in the future. Being in London makes me feel alive -- as cliched as that may seem. I spent four lovely days in London / St. Albans and I can't think of a better way to start off my summer holiday. There's just something about the capital city and the way that everything is on your doorstep, waiting to be explored, that makes it such a special place. I love the endless possibilities that being somewhere new and exciting brings. I can't wait for the future chapters in my life to be written: in a new city, in an actual profession, with new acquaintances (and old too, of course).

I'll be posting more photos from my trip later, but I just wanted to quickly show you my buys that I got whilst I was there.


(Clockwise, starting with top-left)
The Family Way - Tony Parsons (£1.25, Oxfam)
Moleskine sketchbook, finally! (£14.99, Waterstones)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (£1.25, Oxfam)
Amelie DVD (£2, Scope charity shop)
Cream maxi-skirt (£4.50, Portobello Market)

I was so chuffed with these buys, most of them were real bargains and whilst the Moleskine is pretty pricey, I really had been lusting after it for an inordinate amount of time and purchased it with the book vouchers that I won. As for the two books, I've been meaning to read them both so it was such good luck that they happened to be in Oxfam and on offer for buy one get one free! :-) I've seen Amelie before, but didn't own it on DVD so I thought it'd be a good opp. to brush up on my French. Plus, Audrey Tautou is just the perfect, quintessentially gamine, French fille (it means girl). :-) Last of all, the skirt is a silky, cream, sort-of-pleated concoction which can only be described as 'parfait' -- perfect! I sense that I'll be wearing it all summer (and possibly for the rest of my life).


Also, got these two magazines this month: Harper's Bazaar with the beautiful Emma Watson. And another Audrey Tautou appearance, this time on the cover of Marie Claire. Two of my favourite celebrity icons. So beautiful!

Anyway, I'll be sure to come back and inform you of my London adventure soon enough. I hope that your summer / your week is going well. Mine certainly is, currently being filled with: sleeping late, waking up late, drawing, listening to music, eating mindlessly, watching television and... doing very little summer work (which is slowly becoming the bane of my life - surely it should be restricted to term time?!). Still, trying to enjoy these care-free times whilst I can -- hope you are too. Happy blogging.

Chloe xxx