Monthly Favourites || April

Hello and once again another month has passed us by so welcome to my April Favourites! Every month I talk to you about the things I've been loving from Books to Beauty and TV and Film. So here they are!

Books
Recipe for Life – Mary Berry
When God was a Rabbit – Sarah Winman
I've already spoken about these two in my 'What I've Been Reading' I won't bore you by saying the same things again, but out of the books I've finished this month these stood out. 

TV
Treehouse Masters
If you haven't seen this show, it's an American show where people pay to have their dream treehouse built. Pete is just so passionate about what he does it's incredible. At times yes he does seem a little nuts, especially when he speaks to the trees, but he's just like an excitable child and its great to see someone who loves their work so much. I definitely need a treehouse like one of his when I have my own home someday.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt 

I'm often guilty of binging on Netflix, if a show is good I will sit and watch episode after episode. As this show is oh-too-conveniently around the 20-25 minute mark I managed to finish the whole series in one day. If you somehow haven't given in and watched this show its about Kimmy who for – years was locked underground with a group of women by a local priest who 'believed' the apocolyse was coming and after her release starts her new life in New York adjusting to 'the future' as she insists on calling it. If you needed any more convincing I'll just throw in the fact it was created by Tina Fey. (The theme song is pretty awesome too #Femalesarestrongashell)

Films
Theory of Everything
I've been wanting to watch this film for ages and finally got round to it. It was great to find out more about Stephen Hawking.

Music
James Bay – Chaos and the Calm
I already featured James Bay in my January favourites back when he only had an EP out and Hold Back the River was on the radio constantly. His album was finally released in late March and this month I have been listening to it ALL.THE.TIME it's just a beautiful mix of songs (I'm not an expert on how to talk about music other than I LOVE this album and you should buy it!) 

Mcbusted/Busted/Mcfly
Obviously they had to feature on my favourites list this month after seeing them perform live. The gig reminded me of my youthful love of Busted and some of their songs that I'd managed to forget over all these years, it was great to listen to the classics and dig out my CD's again after all this time. 

Food and Drink
Malteaster Bunnies
I have definitely chomped my way through far too many of these this month (Damn Easter!) and now am waiting til the shops start selling Christmas chocolates so I can start enjoying the Reindeers – we definitely need a mid-year substitute please Malteaser. 

Picnics and BBQs
So now the weather has started to warm up it's the time for dining outside, who doesn't love a good picnic or BBQ I'm hoping for plenty more to come filled with sunshine, cakes and burgers.

Beauty
Collection Eyes Uncovered: Nude Palette
As I said in my everyday make-up haul, this is just the perfect palette for an everyday look and being able to give your look that little something extra.

Miscellaneous
Sporcle
I'd almost forgotten about this quiz site until a Friday afternoon challenge during work experience and since I've been finding this dominating my free time, there's so many quizzes on the site there's most certainly something for everyone (and it can be a great confidence boost). 

Books || April Book Haul / What I've been reading

 
This month I've tried to reign in my book spending and as my to be read list is piling up pretty high now I thought now might be time to stop. I'm also in the process of planning another trip to the Warner Bros Studios and want to re-read all the Harry Potter books before then, so at the moment May is dedicated to the series.



Purchases:

All I Know Now – Carrie Hope Fletcher

How to Build a Girl – Caitlin Moran

Peter Pan and Wendy – J. M. Barrie (I have a collection of 'old' books – or as my sister calls them 'dirty books' and I couldn't resist adding this beauty to my collection)

The Cat's Quizzer -Dr Seuss (I also collect Seuss books) 

Kindle: The Time In Between – Nancy Tucker

What I've Been Reading:

The Girl on Train – Paula Hawkins
This book was on my to be read list for quite a while and I have to say I was a little disappointed. After being dubbed 'the next Gone Girl' of course the hype for this book was pretty big. I have to say that I didn't think it was worth the hype that has surrounded it. I found it hard to engage with any of the characters and found I had little sympathy for any of them, on the whole they just got on my nerves because most of them just had no motivation to change their situations. What I did admire however was the writing style and division of chapters in the repetitive cycle of the morning and evening journey mimicking the commute and the stop start motion of the train in the narrative style. 

Recipe for Life - Mary Berry
I'm not usually one to read autobiographies but Mary Berry is an idol of mine so I'd been putting off reading this one for a while. I managed to get through this book pretty quickly due to a number of train journeys primarily, but also because Mary's voice guiding you through the events. I obviously don't want to give away any details (and if you too are a Mary fan you'll probably know a lot) but my love for her grew so much after reading this. Her work ethic especially is just so inspirational. 

When God was a Rabbit – Sarah Winman
I initially found out about this book as it was one of this years World Book Night titles and therefore a book that could inspire those who don't normally read for pleasure to do so. It was definitely very fitting for this, the book was so easy to read. There's always something I love about books written from a child's viewpoint, its probably just the naïvety of the narrative and being able to see something from an innocent viewpoint once again. This book transitions throughout so you see the character growing older and how perspectives change as you get older and how relationships grow. 

All I Know – Carrie Hope Fletcher
I've only just started reading this one, but I will definitely finish it by the end of April as I've got plenty of travelling going on this week. I'm only 50 pages in so far, but I'm enjoying it, it is the warm hug in book form it promises to be. 

Music || Mcbusted

     

     

     

     

     

                                    

Saturday  4th  April  is  a  day  that  would've  made  9/10 year old me  scream  with  delight  seeing Mcbusted.  When I  was  that  age  Busted were  the  'best  band eva', I  wasn't  a  massive  Mcfly  fan at  that age  but  as  I  got  older I  started to love  them  more, especially  after it  was  clear Busted  would  not  be returning, until  I  was  double  that  age  and they  returned as  supergroup Mcbusted. Last  year I  debated going  to  the  Hyde  Park show  but  never got  round to booking  the  tickets, so when their album  and tour was  announced in  late  2014 I  knew  I  HAD  to be  there.  As  a  special  treat  I decided to  book a  ticket  for my  younger sister too  knowing  she  had begun to love  Mcbusted and knew  a  few  of the  classics  I  thought  it  would be  great  as  a  first  concert  experience  for her especially as  it  was  almost  all  seated.

It  had been a  long time  since  I'd  been to a  gig, especially  since  my  last  seated one  since  I  always  opt for standing and I've  never been to  the  O2  so I  honestly  didn't  know  what  to expect. Our seats  were pretty  ideal, although we  were  high up and far from  the  action  our seats  were  right  in the  centre  so we  had the  perfect  view  of everything that  was  going  on (well  done  for me  panicking and getting tickets  in the  presale  and so I  wouldn't  have  to  get  up early  on a  Friday).  As  the  usual  case  with gigs there  were  two support  bands  the  first  was  Symmetry  who my  sister described as  'the  American 5 Seconds  of Summer'  (so stereotypical  pop-punk) and were  pretty  enjoyable.  The  second was  New City  Kings, who we  didn't  enjoy  as  much,  the  music  just  wasn't  as  lively  and sounded the  same  after a  few  songs  in  as  my  sister turned to me  and genuinely  asked 'aren't  they  just  playing  the  second song again?'. 

     

     

This  all  lead to  the  main event  MCBUSTED!!!  This  was  honestly  like  no other live  band I've  ever seen before  (I'm  not  just  saying that  because  it  was  about  10 years  of waiting). It  wasn't  just  the simple  playing of songs  with stops  for talking to  the  audience  that  you usually  get, it  was  a  whole planned out  show  that  was  carefully  planned out  and pieced together around the  worlds  largest working arcade  machine.  The  game  began as  each member of the  band/player was  selected and they popped out  on stage  before  beginning with  Air Guitar with a  Guitar Hero simulation  in the background.  

Of  course  much  to my  delight  they  played all  of the  Busted classics  from  Air Hostess  to 3AM  and obviously  ending the  show  on  Year 3000, there  were  even a  few  I'd  forgotten about  such as  'You Said  No'  but  it  was  amazing how  I  still  remembered all  the  words  despite  not  having listened to  it for all  these  years  (I  have  dug  out  my  old Busted  CDs  since  and listened).

The set list included these classics as well as mixtrue  of new  songs  and some Mcfly too -although I wasn't a big Mcfly fan back in the day, I was too busy mourning the loss of Busted. The boyish banter in between of dick jokes, a kisscam and wedding dresses for Crashed the Wedding made for an entertaining show and somewhat  reminiscent of Blink 182 (who were my favourite band during my teens).

   

   

   

   

If  you didn't  get  the  chance  to see  Mcbusted  this  time  round, I'd  definitely  recommend  it  whether if like  me  its  for the  nostalgia, or like  my  sister you're  a  newer fan it's  equally  as  enjoyable  and a  great experience. If  you did get  the  chance  to  go let  me  know  what  your favourite  part  of the  show  was  in the  comments.

- Cloee  xoxo

My Bucketlist || Travel

 

         

   Here's part two of my bucket list post, featuring all things travel:

My Bucketlist || Top Ten

       

I've seen quite a few Bucketlist video's/posts recently so thought why not share my own since until now I've never actually written things down in a list. There are hundreds of things I want to do and hope to achieve during my life and each year I like to sit down and give myself a list of goals I'd like to achieve throughout the year (as you may have seen I posted in January) just because I constantly like to try and learn new things. A lot of things I'd like to do are travel related (as this is something I definitely need to do more of) so I've divided this into two posts one for things I'd like to achieve and learn and coming up on Monday will be my travel list.



1 Learn to play an instrument
There's been a part of me that has always been envious of people who can play an instrument and since my early teen's when I listened to a lot more indie music and singer song writers specifically I have wanted to play guitar. I've tried in the past to give it a go but since I don't own my own it made it hard to remember everything a friend was trying to teach me. One day I'll take the plunge and buy an acoustic guitar and teach myself somehow. 

2 Learn to surf/ski/skateboard
When I was a younger I desperately wanted a skateboard, but my mum wouldn't allow it since I am extremely accident prone (she was probably doing me a massive favour) but that still hasn't stopped me wanting one. If you grew up in the late 90's/00's you probably remember Tony Hawk and the games – which I loved so much I had it on the gameboy and playstation.
Surfing was something I thought of more when I got older, especially when I was thinking of going to uni I had this weird fantasy of studying at Exeter Uni living in Cornwall learning to surf, eating plenty of scones with clotted cream and drinking cider all the time. However after a reality check of how far the Cornwall campus was from home the dream faded (which was probably good for my health, no amount of surfing could've made up for a diet of scones and cider)
Ski-ing is definitely a more recent one, just because I get so envious watching videos/seeing photos of people who have gone. 

3 Learn another language/sign language
I get so envious of people who can switch between languages quickly and speak another fluently. I did French GCSE but since we sat it two years early in year 9 so I've forgotten most of it by now except the most basic phrases (and how to describe myself – which is unlikely to get me by). I highly doubt I will ever be fluent but I'd like to not be an ignorant tourist when I travel who assumes everyone everywhere I go will speak English too. I've recently started on Duolingo so hopefully at some point I can go test it out. 

4 Run a marathon
Running is something I have tried to take up as a cheap and easy to try and keep fit and something I intend to start again now its getting warmer and I'm finally able to run comfortably again. One day I would love to be able to run for that long, its highly unlikely but I'd still love to give it ago. 

5 Climb a mountain
Once again I'm probably pushing my limits physically, because this would take a lot of work, but I just want to feel the sense of achievement after reaching the top and being able to see the beauty of the landscape from that height.

 6 Knit my own 'Weasley Jumper'
I've always been a huge fan of Harry Potter, and there's probably always been a small part of me that has wanted a Weasley jumper, more so since I've been older. Both times I've been to the Warner Bros Studio Tour I've been so tempted by them, but I just can't justify spending that much money on a jumper. Plus there's this part of me that has always weirdly wanted to know how to knit so it would be great one day to make my own custom one.

7 Have my own library in my house
If you've ever read anything on this blog you'll know I'm a book lover. For a long time I've had this dream of having a room in my house completely filled with books, a few giant comfy arm chairs, with blankets and a fireplace. It would definitely need a secret stash of wine and tea also just for the perfect reading experience. 

8 Own a VW Campervan
They're just cool, simple as (and it would be perfect for trips to the beach with my guitar and surf board). 

9 Open my own tea room
If you've ever looked at either my instagram or twitter feeds you'll probably know that I love to bake, mainly cakes. In the past few years after visiting tea rooms and especially after I read Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher I've fallen in love with the idea of doing nothing but baking every day and serving tea and cake to people. 

10 Write and illustrate my own children's book
This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and its something I've thought of doing more when I have children so I can make it especially for them. I don't necessarily want it to be published (although that would obviously be a bonus) I just want someone I care about to enjoy it. I'm not exactly an artist but I'd like to think I'm pretty good with cartoons so could do my own illustrations too. 
-Cloee xoxo

Weekend Adventures || Hall Place and Gardens - Butterfly Jungle

Month in Photos || March

 

Every month I like to look back at all the pictures I've taken or been tagged in and put them together like scrapbook, only not as fancy I'm not as good at the online design as I am with the actual crafts. This month has been fairly laid back, I celebrated world book day by buying more books and wearing my 'read more books' tshirt and time turner necklace (it's not as good when you can't properly dress up). Had the smallest hot chocolate with the largest amount of cream during a lunch break from work experience. Caught a cold and took all measures to defend myself. Then just spending my weekends relaxing with friends so nothing too exciting to report on or take pictures of.

-Cloee xoxo

Monthly Favourites || March