Stripes, paws and claws - Photo Heavy

Yesterday I went to West Midland's Safari Park with my family and had a fantastic day feeding the giraffes, the red deer and the blackbuck antelope. We saw sea-lions swimming around and staring intently at my mascarpone ice-cream, baby meerkat's cuddling up to their Mum and sitting in the sunshine, a rhino running home for his food, two African wild dog's trying to escape their home by running into the separating partition's, barbary sheep and reindeer wandering about on the road's, posing cheetahs, North American wolves running about and white tigers and white lions looking graceful and regal.

I was also amazed at the giant cricket, bird-eating spider, giant stick-insect, crocodiles, cayman and the sheer size of the boa constrictors. There was even a snake swallowing a mouse - whole! It never fails to cheer me up seeing these amazing creatures, all the different colours and patterns on their coats and skin and getting up close and personal with some animals that normally you'd never have the chance to. The camels were friendly, the hippos were happily lazing about, the ostriches were watching us people like we'd watch them and the red deer were dainty and sweet. All in all, a wonderful day.

Enjoy the photos and click for a larger view.

I hope everyone's enjoyed their weekend and your week gets off to a good start.

xxx

This cute baby camel was calling out for his Mum while we were driving past. 

Today is my birthday...

So Wednesday was my birthday and I went to see Harry Potter at the cinema. I really enjoyed it and two of my friends turned up to see exactly the same showing as my parents and I so they came and sat with me, which was really nice. Weird how some things turn out! Today I went to the safari park as well, and photos will follow in a later post.

I wanted to thank Sophie from Country Girl Does Norfolk for sending me a parcel that had a scarf, lip-gloss and a necklace inside as well as a card. Thank you for that Sophie, it was a surprise but nice. My close friend Megan also came round and dropped another present off for me which had a bookmark, a bag and a mobile phone sock and charm inside. The mobile phone sock has my name on it! My Mum also got me a little gift cake with butterflies on and a scented candle that smells of cotton, as well as some flowers!

A couple of photos are missing (flowers and the mobile phone sock) so this will come some other time.

The scarf Sophie sent me

Wearing the necklace Sophie got me

The necklace

The bag Megan got me

My birthday cake

The bookmark Megan got me

The scented candle Mum got me

And the lip-gloss Sophie got me

I hope everyone's having a good weekend!

xxx

Up and Down Week

This week's been tinged with sadness, first with the realisation that over 10 million people in Somalia and surrounding areas are desperate for food and water after a state of famine was declared last Wednesday after the drought which has swept across Africa; second with the tragic events which have occurred in Norway where 91people were killed both due to shootings and a bomb; and third the death of Amy Winehouse. 

All of these events are extremely shocking, but I was so disappointed with the number of people comparing which incidents were more important. Any death is a sad and terrible loss and time for the friends and family of the victims and those involved, and seeing some of the downright cruel and nasty things being posted on Twitter and Facebook, I was shocked and disgusted with the way people are treating this. All I have to say on the matter is; that my thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the victims of both the drought in Africa and the massacre in Norway, and my thoughts and prayers are also with the friends and family of Amy Winehouse too.

So to lighten the mood, I have some photos from my stay with Nana this past week.

I hope you enjoy them and as always, click the photo for a larger view!

xxx

One of the 3 squirrels we saw eating the nuts in the tree right outside my Nana's house

See you all in a few days!

I'm off to stay with my Nan for a few days so I won't be blogging until I get back so take care everyone and enjoy the rest of your weekend and the following week!

See you soon

xxx

The sunshine at the Ruislip Lido the last time I stayed at Nana's.

The end of an era...

Photo from Pinterest

With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II out at the cinema now it marks the end of an era, whether you're a potter fan or not. I loved the books and enjoyed the films and thought what better way to say goodbye to the trio than do a themed Potter post. If you're on tumblr you will have noticed the challenges which are flying around from certain bands to personal challenges, so of course there had to be a Harry Potter one! If you want to go ahead and do this yourself there's no need to link back to me as this came from the Heck Yeah! Tumblr Challenges tumblr.

I've put a cut here as there are spoilers ahead so if you've never read the books and are planning to, then it's probably best to stay away from this post.

She walks in beauty...

I hope you're all enjoying your Sunday evenings. I wanted to share this beautiful poem with you all by Lord Byron today. I first heard this poem in a song by Nicholas Dodd and Sissel, which was used on a fan video for one of Dracula's brides, Lucy Westenra. You can watch the fan video here if you're interested. I think the music is beautiful and I've always loved vampires as a horror/supernatural character in films and stories alike so matching the music with the film was brilliant, I thought.

She walks in beauty like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
meets in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
had half impair'd the nameless grace
which waves in every raven tress,
or softly lightens o'er her face -
where thoughts serenely sweet express
how pure, how dear their dwelling - place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
so soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
the smiles that win, the tints that glow,
but tells in days of goodness spent,
a mind at peace with all below,a heart whose love is innocent.

I was inspired to post about this after seeing these adorable shoes on Etsy a few weeks back, but never got round to posting it until today. These are from Em and Sprout's shop which you can find here.

 

How cute?!

Take care guys!

xxx

Last Friday night...

Today I was up at 6 in the morning to travel down to Fleet in Hampshire to help the lovely Julia from the NAGC deliver a workshop for Gifted and Talented children. The topic was political debate, and the two arguments finally chosen, were whether or not mobile phones should be banned from the classroom and whether or not the death penalty should be brought back, so a pretty diverse range. I loved the little brain teaser that Julia closed with though - What if the House of Commons was full of monkeys? I'll leave the other UK readers to decide whether or not they'd make a better set of MP's, haha.

Fleet was really nice and the school where the workshop was, Courts Moor School, was lovely too. They even had a cat wandering around the halls! I didn't have my camera on me so I didn't get any photos, but the day was brilliant, the kids were fantastic and I was so happy to be out and about and actually doing something that I almost forgot I was out until half eleven the previous night, dancing on the chairs at Bistro Live, haha! If there's a Bistro Live near you, book a table, you won't be disappointed.

The sky this week has been amazing and tonight, rather than just go outside and look at it, I took some more photos.

Click for a larger view if you want to and I hope everyone's enjoying their Saturday!

xxx

Fuchsia Flowers

I've been busy this week sorting out my student finance and my passport, so apologies if it's taken me some time to reply to comments etc. Sorting everything out for university is not as straight forward as I'd thought at first. I've been in the garden a lot lately but Mum's fuchsia plants seem to be wilting now we're in July (my birthday month - ee!) But the rockery plants have finally bloomed and as I'm typing this I can see the sweet pea flowers outside too, so photos of those will follow shortly!

I know this one's quite gritty, but I was trying to capture the reflection of the sky a few days ago on the windows. Very happy to get this in the end!

I love it when the sky turns this colour. The mix of pink, orange and blue is amazing, I think.

Next door's cat loves to play with these long tufts of grass. I just pull them up and it's hours of fun for me and him, haha! Sadly, the grass is all short now as it's just been mowed. The poor guinea-pig's are having to cope with little nibbles now.

^

The rockery plant flowers! This is the first time they've ever flowered so me being the big nerd I am, got all excited and took a photo.

^

Mum's fuchsia flowers! There were so many of them too, and they were all lovely and pink. It was really nice to stand in the sunshine as well for this photo. Hopefully next summer these flowers will be as bright and pink.

Does anybody else enjoy gardening or photographing flowers? I know it's probably the most common thing in photography to talk about but I always find each little detail on every plant and flower mesmerizing, especially when you get a really good up close and personal photo.

I hope you're all having a good week guys!

xxx

Lakes and Charity Gifts

Hi everyone!

Today I spent the day with my two good friends Sarah and Alison down at Willen Lake, feeding the ducks, swans and geese. I was walking home from the library when Sarah drove past me and quickly stopping, hopped out and asked me to jump in. It was a quick stop off at my house to put my book bag away before picking up Alison and driving up to Willen Lake (after a cheeky pit-stop at McDonalds where my lovely Sarah got me a fizzy Fanta) and Jollies, the pet store, for some duck food.

It was so nice to do something spontaneous and fun and Alison and I pretty much fed all the birds at the lake whilst Sarah took some amazing photos with her camera. She has a proper SLR but when I asked her the cost I knew I wouldn't be even considering buying one until I have a proper job. Plus my little digital camera's not bad and everyone seems to really like the photos I post on here anyway. It was really sweet watching the geese, swans and ducks dabble in the water and come right up close for the food. However, I'm now warier of swans after seeing them biting each other for the pellets we were throwing them. What lies beneath!

I didn't take my camera with me as I met Sarah very swiftly so apologies but the next time I'm there I'll make sure to take my camera.

I just wanted to post about two other things. The first being a website called My Tiger Bag, which is selling four sweet shopping/tote bags with a graphic print of a tiger face on with 50p of proceeds going towards the WWF's Save the Tiger Campaign, which began in 2010 and you can find out more about here. The bags are £5.00 each with postage and packing on top.

Tous have also released a new perfume H20 Ecochic fragrance, which is £26 available from Boots this summer, with 15 litres of water being provided to one person via Oxfam, living in an LEDC, with each bottle sold. 15 litres is roughly the amount one person will use in a single day, so it really does make a huge difference for those living in an area where water is sparse. At A-level my geo class briefly studied this and already some countries, such as Brazil, are struggling during hot seasons, having to ration water. The Tous perfume website is here.

Hope you're all having a good Friday night!

xxx

All photos are from Google and do not belong to me.