I guess most girls do stereotypically love jewellery, I wasn't much of a girl  until about two years ago so this is reasonably new to me. As it is quite a fresh appreciation I don't own many amazing pieces, actually, I only own one, a beautiful bracelet that Dixon bought me (it's waiting to be repaired!). I particularly love rings at the moment, and have gotten through so many Topshop, ASOS and Primark rings that I'm pretty sure my fingers have a permanent green tinge. And because of that greeny tinge, I have promised myself a jeweled treat.


5. Firstly, the only silver ring to make it into my Top 5! This Turtuoise Ring is carefully made by Orit Naar in Israel. I love the mottled look of the gem stone, it reminds me of a planet, and the hammered recycled look of the metal is amazing. Orit Naar takes custom orders so you can make the ring truly yours. I'm really not much of a silver fan but I love this.


4. Kate Szabone makes these delicate little rings in Canada. They are sold separately so you can build your own unique stack collection, not only that, but each individual ring will also be completely unique as they are made for you, by your request from a selection of options from the metal used (white, rose, yellow gold) to the diamond colour! I think I'd go for a stack of 3 with these ones. Kate doesn't just make rings, and has very kindly offered you guys a FREE PAIR OF 4MM SATIN STUDS WITH ANY ORDER, in your choice of silver or gold filled, just mention my blog in your order notes, and they'll be sent out for you. How kind! You can find Kates store here on etsy.

"Omg, vegan? I bet all you eat is like, salad!". Actually, yes! Well not always, but recently I have been eating looooads of salads.

I was planning on sharing with you a super tasty recipe for a salad dressing, and ideas on what to have it with, but you know what? I think the best thing about salads is everyone has their own favourite combinations, its all about building your own creations. If you're the kind of person who thinks salads are a boring meal, you're doing it wrong. Try something new!

My favourite additions are pine nuts! I love the extra texture. I'm not one for fruit in savory dishes, but pomegranate is SO good in a salad too. Balsamic vinegar is my must have dressing too, that or just plain lemon juice mmmmm.... and griddled sweet pepper is my new favorite addition (as you can probably tell they're in every photo on here). I almost forgot to mention fresh basil!
Dixon loves cherry tomato in his with griddled halloumi and asparagus. Honey Mustard is his favourite dressing (although he doesn't get to have it very often), and he always adds sprinkle of smoked paprika on. Here is one of Dixons recent creations, looks tasty huh?




Salads are a real summery meal, easy as hell to make, so tasty and so healthy. You really can'y go wrong. What're your favourite combinations?
Have a good Friday!

What could be more fun than making your very own pickles!? I made these yesterday, and they have been getting their pickle on in the fridge ever since. There are almost two full HUGE cucumbers in there, half an onion, a little garlic, distilled vinegar, mustard seeds, chili flakes, turmeric, salt, sugar and pepper.


I just broke them open to have with my salad, and they are GREAT (maybe a little vinegary, I should have watered it down). The best part, the longer I leave them, the better they're going to get, you can't say that about many foods huh? I'm definitely going to make some other varieties soon, experimental pickling!! I'll share the highs and lows of that one with you in the coming weeks.

The salad I had them with was sweet pea and baby sweetcorn, garlic rubbed griddle bread, bit of houmous and chargrilled peppers. So many flavours, and SO good.

I am trying to put together a list of things I want to achieve before I turn 25. One that quickly made it onto my rough list was 'Read more' and just as quickly as I wrote it down I scribbled it out again, because its something I want to do, always.

The problem is I'm quite narrow-genred when it comes to books, if it isn't about a alcoholic misogynistic, or contain multiple vivid brutal murders, I'm generally not interested...

Sooooooo I thought it would be a good idea do to a weekly book for you guys, where I recommend something I have read in the past, or I am reading, with the idea being you guys leave me a comment and recommend me your favourites too!

So here is my first one, one of my all time favourites;




The Beach is the story of Richard, a traveler looking for adventure, and stumbling across a map that promises to lead him to a utopian eden. The book is a captivating read, where you end up there living on the beach, you become involved in the insanity. It's so fast pace you'll find it difficult to put down, and by the end you'll be wishing it went on forever.


The film probably means the majority of you know the basic story line, but don't let it put you off getting a copy. As with all book based movies major parts of the story line are left out and replaced with soppy romantic ...well, crap! The ending is one part that is completely different to the film, and the ending WOWA!

Whats your favourite book?

I'm going to my parents straight after work today for my Mums birthday (and to party!), I also haven't seen my Dad since Fathers day, so I'll be taking a few gifts along with me. I decided to make them their own cups as little extra prezzy, inspired by this A Beautiful Mess blog post (have a read for full directions). Its soooooooo easy.




All you need, is some cheap cups, a marker pen (or acrylic paint) and an oven! I sketched my design with pencil first before going over it in the marker, then sticking in the oven. I was SO scared that the cups were going to shatter and make a mess impossible to clean inside the oven, but it worked great.

I'm pretty impressed with how these turned out, and will definitely be making more, less rushed versions in the future. I don't think anything beats a home made gift, I don't do it enough

Today is Dixon and mines 2 and a half year anniversary, okay okay we don't really celebrate half years but I just wanted to take a second out to share some mushy photo. Dixon is the funniest person I've ever met, and most handsome guy on the planet. I don't know what I'd do without him. ♥

I realised today that I eat SO MUCH PIZZA, and I dont even care. Here's my pizza gallery, impressive huh?

We got aphids! Has anyone ever tackled these before? It makes me itch thinking about them. I've read up loads about them, and I'm going to try and exterminate them tomorrow with a washing up liquid spray. I feel bad killing a harmless bug, but I want my chillis and tomatoes to do well.

Over the weekend we planted 3 of the strongest tomatoes out into a huge tub, and 3 of the strongest chillis too, and tomorrow 'we're cutting the apron strings' (as Dixon said) and they're going outside. Aphids have loads of natural predictors, like ladybirds, so hopefully being outside those guys will come have a feast.

If anyone has any tips, please share!

The guys down at WaterAid have asked me to share with you their big summer plans!

Yesterday, The Big Dig started. Through this appeal they're aiming to bring clean, safe water to 134,000 people in some of the poorest communities in rural Malawi. And the race is really on, November is when the rains come, the rain means dirt is washed into clean water sources resulting in more disease, and making it impossible to continue the dig.

Probably a little more ambitious than anything you or I are planning this summer, and I want you all to get involved; by sharing the Big Dig Blog, writing a few words on your own blog, or digging deep and donating yourselves.

WaterAid are going to be live blogging using their smartphones so we have a completely unique insight into exactly whats going on in the villages of Kaniche and Bokola where they're working and through Twitter, Instagram and youTube we can see exactly how our money is being used.

There are loads of ways to join WaterAid, you can share the Tweet (click here), like the Facebook page (click here), finally, and most importantly, you can donate.

WaterAid have always been my charity of choice, you might have seen that I ran a 10k for them last month to help raise money and awareness for the amazing work they do, so I'm really excited to be able to help them out again, and I hope you will too.

Are you off to a festival this year? Home or abroad? I'm interested in knowing where it is you're going. There are so many festivals, give me some tips!

I have always had a pretty weird (shit) relationship with my Dad, but today, I thought I would try and write something nice about him, and it turns out it wasn't as hard as I thought. I don't actually have any pictures of him on my computer, I just searched thinking that I would have at least one, but I don't.

I have photos of parts of him, which will have to do; The first is me! When I was really young, I'd slipped and fallen into a stream on one of our walks, the shorts I'm wearing are my Dads, the hand is Dad holding my soaking wet shoes. The one below is him cooling off my dog (who died last year :c) on a hot day.

My Dad is the one that taught me all about nature when I was younger, he used to take me on walks and tell me all these amazing things about different animals and plants, he's the reason I know so much about and love birds now. All the music I was into as a kid, that was because of him, he spared me liking the Spice Girls and all that wet crap. I remember staying up late so I could listen to his Smiths vinyl. I love to read because of him, he taught me Pythagoras theorem when I was 9, he made me want to and do well at school. He showed me how to draw well, and taught me all about art.

Every interest I've ever had, was him. My Dad is the soul reason that I want to know so much about everything, and everything I already know is because of him. Its weird that I never realised it before.

I really give my Dad a hard time, and I'm always hard on myself when I see his traits in myself. He is actually amazing, and I should make the most of him. Sure, he's done some shitty things in the past, but who hasn't? Maybe its time for me to grow up and finally forgive him.

Whist we were away I panicked a lot about how the plants would be doing, we gave them a lot of water and a feed before we left, and they have done great!

The chilies and tomatoes have shot up, they're over a 1ft tall now, the beetroots and carrots outside have gotten huge too. We pulled out one of each to see how they're going below the surface and you can see they're just starting to get fat! Teeny tiny carrot, teeny tiny beetroot. Amazing.


Most exciting of all, the avocado stone we planted almost 3 months ago, and almost gave up has finally got a root!! I was so close to throwing it away through frustration but I am so excited for this tiny root! I just wish a shoot would break out now, I guess I'll have to keep waiting. Ahhhhh....

Hello!  I'm back, I have a lot to share.

We got back from Portugal late on Tuesday, it was a rough, long day of travel. We left the hotel at 8am and didn't put the key in our own door until about 10pm. Flying to Porto is awkward from where we are, which meant a stop over in Faro, 3 hours on the way there, and 5 hours on the way back. It was definitely worth it.

I had the best time in Porto. I have never been to Portugal before, and didn't really know what to expect because of their current economical situation. Porto did seem to have the two extremes of wealth, crumbling buildings on one street and huge beautiful towers, churches, bridges or tile murals on the next. They had the most up to date Metro system I've ever seen, and then these cute rickety trams down most streets. It is an amazing but weird city.


On our first night there we were all bought a glass of port by a small group of locals (one of which was 84!!). We hardly speak Portuguese and they hardly spoke English, but they loved that we were from England, and kept putting the Beatles on the jukebox and singing along, they also refused to let us buy them a drink back. Everyone in Porto was just as friendly, and helpful. Its strange being in such a huge city and people being so lovely.




When it came to us being vegetarian, and me being vegan everyone was super understanding. We found some amazing restaurants thanks to Happy Cow. My favourite was on the 4th floor of a car park called Maus Habitos. It had a set daily menu of an entrade, then 3 courses, juice and coffee that was only €9 (€7.50 without the dessert) and it was so fresh and so tasty. I'm going to write some little reviews on them all for Happy Cow Dixon and me use this site every time we go away to find places we can eat, I've never written a review for them, but we really owe them now.

And oh my god THE HILLS, I have calves of steel now. Porto is on the Douro river, which makes the city in to sort of a valley, with a lot of up and downs along the way. A few nights we went for drinks on a little river side cafe and the walk home killed us all. All the roads were made up on these tiny stone slabs, it must have taken years to lay it all.


The main reason for the holiday, was for the festival Optimus Primavera, but i'll save that for another post. Oh, and after all that hassle with the swimsuit, we didn't even end up going in the sea!