a lil update and some faves

23 Aug 2021

Well, this has been a bit of a long time coming. You may have noticed – or not – that I’ve been a bit absent as of late. I uploaded a post about going to visit the Glenfinnan Viaduct and a graduation post earlier this month, but before that my last post was back in June. It’s not just my blog that I’ve been neglecting though, I’ve fallen a little bit out of love with creating content and regularly posting on Instagram, I have barely finished a book and just generally my productivity has taken a bit of a nosedive. I haven’t even been binging any series as an excuse either I’ve just been existing with not a whole lot to show for it. I wish I could be here writing a life update post and be able to tell you that I’ve been slacking because I got married, moved house, or something more exciting but that’s not the case and I’m still just single and living with my parents and working from home.
I’ve still been doing and loving some things though, so I thought I’d catch you all up with a little favourites post. Similar to my last one, there’s not really much structure to this and it’s just a bit of a brain dump of some things that I’ve been loving but it was so fun last time I thought I’d bring it back – and I’m not sure I have the mental capacity right now to come up with a structured list!
Firstly, I mentioned that I haven’t really read very much – I was in a bit of a rut of only reading books so that I could post a monthly wrap up and after half a year of reading 30 books, that just really wasn’t working for me anymore so I took a step back to revaluating why I was actually reading, was it for me or was it just to create content. That being said though, I have actually read a few books recently, one being Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I’m a massive Taylor Jenkins Reid fan and have been ever since I read Daisy Jones and The Six last year – it was my favourite book of the year and I’ve loved delving deeper into her fictional celebrity world that she’s built up. She crafts such believable characters and you’re truly always left wondering if these people didn’t really exist. This book follows the four children of pop star Mick Riva (who is a recurring character in all the books) as they throw a big party at the end of the summer and it is just as perfectly executed as Daisy Jones and Evelyn Hugo before her. I loved that none of these characters were perfect, they all had flaws but you were rooting for them all. They’re also all in their early twenties which is something I love in literature but don’t see all that often. I listened to the audiobook while we were on a road trip around Scotland and it was just the perfect accompaniment.
I’ve been shopping a lot lately on Thrift+ (the shirt I’m wearing in these photos is an & Other Stories beauty that I got from Thrift+). Thift+ is an online thrift store where you can buy and sell clothes through their platform with money also going to charity. I’m not really a shopper and I literally wear clothes for YEARS but every so often I have the urge to buy some new stuff and Thrift+ is always my first port of call! It's so easy to navigate and you're always guaranteed quality items. I’ve been using Thrift+ for over about two years now and during that time I’ve gotten pieces from & Other Stories (obviously), Sézane, Oliver Bonas, Zara and Jack Wills among others. There is such a huge range of brands from high street to high end designer brands and all for a great price. You can even get £5 off your first order here*! Let me know if you’d be interested in seeing all the stuff I’ve bought from Thrift+ over the years because I have quite a few items to talk about!
Maisie Peters has her debut album coming out! I feel like I talk about Maisie in literally every favourites post I do but she’s my favourite for a reason. She’s released a few tracks from the album so far and they’re all so so good I can’t wait to hear the whole thing. If you’re a fan of sad girl pop (Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo etc) I think you’d love Maisie Peters and I think she’s the next big thing in pop. I’ve loved Maisie for years and she’s always number one in my Spotify wrapped and once You Signed Up For This is released I’m sure this year will be no different.
I’ve not really been watching a lot of Netflix lately, I’m just gearing myself up for whenever Money Heist comes back because I am ever so hyped for that! I’ve been on a bit of a foreign language show binge of late which is very much not out of character for me. I’ve been catching up on the latest seasons of Biohackers and How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast) but I think my absolute favourite watch recently was Young Royals! The second I saw the teaser for this show when I opened Netflix I immediately knew it would be a new favourite. Young Royals follows Swedish prince Wilhelm as he heads off to a super fancy boarding school where he strikes up a relationship with scholarship student Simon. It’s got the chill and comforting drama vibe of SKAM but the posh school setting of Elite both of which are also some of my favourite shows so naturally Young Royals was a big hit for me!
My skincare hero at the minute is my Oleus set from Holland and Barret (formerly gifted). Starting with an oil free moisturiser base you create your own blend using different oils and serums so that it’s perfectly targeted towards your skin. I love using the Niacinamide and Zinc serum along with the Jojoba Oil for rejuvenating and balancing my skin. I had stopped using these for a while but since I’ve started again I’ve seen such a great improvement in my skin condition that I couldn’t not give them a little shout out here!

I hope you enjoyed this chill little post! I think I've got my writing mojo back finally so hopefully the updates will be a tad more regular from now on. Let me now what things you've been loving down below and if there's anything you think I need to check out!

five things i've learned since graduating

11 Aug 2021

I graduated a year ago, well I finished my degree and recieved a classification a year ago, I am still yet to have a graduation. However, that means that I've now had a whole year out of university and student life and am actually now supposed to be a fully functioning adult with a job and real responsibilities. My university finally arranged for us to get graduation photos last week and so naturally it got me thinking about what this first year out of university has taught me. Also how cute are my graduation photos! I knew I didn't want traditional shots so we roped my sister's boyfriend in to take some fun cottagecore ones for us and I love how they turned out!
It's obviously been a bit of a funny year, I turned twenty-two just before the pandemic hit and I’m now going to be twenty-four in six months which is pretty damn scary. I still remember starting university so vividly back in 2016. I remember turning up to my flat excited to discover just who I was going to be and five years later I guess I’m still discovering that. I wrote a post last year all about what I learned while I was at uni so I guess this one will pick up where that one left off.

1) Your degree does not define you

I currently work in social media management and general online content along with some admin for two different organisations so it may come as a shock that my degree is actually in biomedical science. I think the most important thing about life after university is that you’re doing something that you enjoy. When I was eighteen and applying for uni I loved science, but I also had a passion for social media. I opted to study biomed because I enjoyed it, I loved learning new things about how the body works (you could definitely say that it set me up well for this past year anyway) and to stay away studying anything creative as I felt studying it would take the joy away from it for me. Now that I’m out of education and actually working in the social media field I can very much say that it does take the joy out of it a little bit, but it’s definitely also helped me find new interests because previously I would always have called Instagram a hobby but when it’s also your job it’s not really a hobby anymore. Having a job that I enjoy enough to also do in my free time (since I also create content for myself and brands on Instagram) is such a privilege and I’m so lucky that I landed in full time permanent employment straight out of school in my field of choice because I know how rare that can be.

2) I’m much more confident in myself

Prior to my current job I’d never once had a successful job interview. I literally got scouted for a position at a pharmaceutical company for my placement year and still somehow managed to bomb the interview. I’m very much not the person to come to for employment advice, I’m just incredible lucky that everything fell into place for me. I’ve always hated the whole interview process so I think being able to have an interview on Zoom was actually beneficial because I wasn’t quite as nervous as I would be in real life and was able to actually talk about how I would be good at the job – The interview lasted for an hour and I was offered the job later the same day so clearly I was able to impress, which is something that I’ve never been good at before. I’ve also noticed in general that since university my confidence in general has improved and I’ve become much less nervous about things. I’m still an enneagram nine and I still get anxiety about talking on the phone and turning up to people’s houses early but on the whole, I think I’m a lot more confident I think I can thank my uni experience for that.

3) Friendships fade and that’s okay

I still see some of my university friends but a majority of them I only see on social media and that’s okay, especially with how this year has been it’s been harder than ever to keep in touch. When you’re not seeing each other at class every day and you’re all working it’s much harder to schedule coffee dates and catch-ups. All my uni friends are still my friends though and if I bumped into them while out, I could definitely have a great conversation with them, but I just don’t find myself with the same desire to be in group chats and catch up all the time, but I guess that’s growing older and growing apart. The friendships that you built that were meant to last will and others will just have been there for a specific moment in your life. I don’t even talk to my best friend all the time but whenever we’re together it’s like we’ve never been apart, and some friendships are just like that. Every friendship is different, and everyone’s friend group is different so try to stay away from comparing your university friend experience to other people’s.

4) It’s okay to still not have it figured out

I’m literally only one year out of education. I’m only twenty-three years old. It’s still okay for me not to know what I want to do with my life. The average person will have six jobs in their lifetime. That gives me plenty of time to figure out if this is really what I want to do. I read Garden City by John Mark Comer earlier this year which is a book all about work and rest and is supposed to get twenty and thirty somethings excited about work, which it did, but it also talks about how sometimes you won’t know what the right job for you is until you do it or until you leave the one that you thought it was. Right now though, as a twenty-three year old graduate, I’m very happy where I am and I’m not stressing too much about my future because there’s still plenty of time for that further down the line and right now, although I’m not a student anymore, I can still enjoy my youth and the freedoms that come with it.

5) Don’t lose your youth

I think there’s such a misconception that once you’re a graduate that it’s time to grow up. And yes, you’re becoming financially independent, working with professionals, and are officially out of education but at the end of the day, you’re still only in your early twenties. I’m the youngest person employed in my work by about 30 years, and it can be hard not to compare yourself to your older colleagues and where they’re at in life but they were also your age too at one point. A lot of my friends aren’t even twenty yet and while we’re technically at different stages of life I still find that I relate a lot to them, and I don’t shy away from that just because they’re younger than me. Obviously, it’s good to be mature but if your favourite song comes on it is okay to yell the lyrics and dance about in public, you’re allowed to still get obsessed with shows and celebrities, that’s not something that dies with your teenage years. Embrace that. There’s still time to become a stuffy business type but just don’t rush into it.
So those are just a few things that I’ve learned this past year and a bit. It still seems a little weird that I’m not a student anymore, Waterstones have just expended my student plus membership so I guess I can keep the guise up a little while longer but I’m also excited for what the rest of my post-grad life looks like and I can’t wait for the journey.

How To See The Hogwarts Express at Glenfinnan Viaduct

3 Aug 2021

I knew that when we decided to go to the Scottish Highlands on holiday this summer that the one thing I definitely wanted to see was the Hogwarts Express cross the Harry Potter bridge, or the Jacobite Express cross the Glenfinnan Viaduct if you want to be a muggle about it! This is a very familiar and iconic scene within the franchise and is definitely a must-see for any fellow lifelong Potterheads out there. Luckily the Glenfinnan Viaduct is very easily accessible so if you were to find yourself in the area, it's one hundred per cent worth a visit.
a photo of the hogwarts express from harry potter or the jacobite express steam train crossing glenfinnan viaduxt in the highlands of scotland