Where has the time gone??

July has gone SO quickly and so much has happened since I last posted! I had a great time at home and it was so lovely to spend time with my family again. I have finally taken the plunge and I've moved out of my childhood home. I say "moved out" but I still have a lot of my belongings there so I suppose I've not properly moved out yet... I'm now living with my boyfriend, Mario, in Nottingham and so far it's going really well! I was naturally a little nervous about it all but that's expected.

I suppose the next big thing I need to share is this:

I graduated! I now have a BA Joint Hons in German with French from Nottingham Trent University! It was stupidly hot that day and I had a proper sweat on for most of the day! Delightful... It was lovely to have the support of my family there and they all seemed so proud! My sister even stayed with us for a few days after graduation which was so wonderful!

I've been doing a lot of baking lately! In case you don't know, my dream is to open my own tea room so I need to perfect the art of delicious cakes! Mario and my housemate, Matt, don't mind sampling them for me!

Vanilla cupcakes - my auntie's recipe. They're so tasty!

Earl Grey Cupcakes - the icing was incredible but the tea flavour in the cake wasn't strong enough for me at all!

Coconut cupcakes with lime and coconut icing - these went down a storm with my friends and my grandma loved them too!

Banana and chocolate cupcakes with Nutella icing - I thought these cakes were going to be a disaster. I over-filled the cases and the icing was too wet... Turned out they were delicious!!

Vanilla cupcakes with chocolate sprinkles - these didn't last very long either! Yum yum!

Banana and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla and chocolate icing - these weren't was banana-tasting as the last batch I made but were still tasty. Mario bought me a piping bag that allows two icings to be used! Grandma said that they looked very professional; what a compliment! :D

We went to Nottingham Pride on Saturday! I went with the intention to sell my friendship bracelets (Banana Bracelets) but we won't discuss how that went... *cough* I had a great time anyway and the atmosphere was great! I even did rainbow makeup to commemorate the occasion and to get into the spirit of things! I received a lot of compliments on it :)

SO MANY COLOURS!!

The job hunt continues but I do have an interview next week so hopefully my luck will be changing soon! *fingers crossed*

Exploring the South West!

So some of you may know that I went to visit my boyfriend last week who's currently studying in Exeter, Devon. I got back yesterday after a wonderful week to find my house here in disarray so I'm writing this blog post to put off facing the mess the boys were kind enough to create while I was gone!

Anyway, you didn't come to this blog post to read my complaints, so let's get on with the week in pictures! Naturally I didn't take photos every day because I fail, but I got a lot of photos on one day so hopefully that'll do.

On Sunday we went to Dartington Food and Drink festival, which was a lot of fun. Had a delicious steak pasty for lunch (while in Devon...) and looked around all the different types of food Dartington had to offer. There were also animals there, which was just too cute! (Some of these photos are stolen from one of my friend's Facebook page.)

These were truly delicious. My pasty was warm too! Yum! Yeah, you can see that Mario and I appreciated them in the photo below, although my facial expression says otherwise...

The name of this tea made me laugh just a little too much probably! I wish I'd have bought it but it was hibiscus tea and I'm not such a fan :(

We had a barbecue that evening that the boyfriend was kind enough to cook for us. It was delicious! I won't include photos otherwise this post will be far too photo-heavy... But Mario's housemate did make a delicious Nutella cheesecake (recipe can be found here, good ol' Nigella) and I have to include a photo of that!!

(I'm clearly no food photographer...)

 We were blessed with gorgeous weather all week and I'm so grateful for that. We explored the coast a little on Monday and we went to Branscombe and Seaton, which are gorgeous seaside towns.

Seaton

Tuesday and Wednesday were quiet days. We went into town for a spot on Shopping on Tuesday and then went to a place called Trago Mills on Wednesday. Trago Mills is like a giant warehouse with literally everything in it and most of it is quite reduced in price! Mario was in his element.

Thursday was a very busy day. Mario originally wanted to go camping, but changed his mind halfway through the day. We did explore a lot of Cornwall though! First stop was Land's End. It was on Mario's list of things to do before he dies, so it was nice to tick one of them off! It's such a beautiful place and I may be spamming with pictures, but it is worth it; I think it is anyway!

Panoramic!

We then drove on a little way to the Minack Theatre. We did want to look round but after paying £5 to park at Land's End (!!!), we didn't really want to spend too much more money! We did walk down a little way and found a gorgeous cove that I have usefully forgotten the name of. Sorry :/ The sea was such a beautiful colour and the beach looked so sandy!

Cheeky shot of me, thanks Mario!

We then had lunch in Penzance. Delicious fish and chips on the seafront. It felt like I was truly on holiday! After a bit more driving around, we went to Hayle, which was another pretty town. In case you hadn't guessed it, there are many pretty towns in Cornwall. Definitely worth a visit if you have the opportunity!

We then went home after an exhausting day. Mario was worn out after driving all day so the next two days were lazy days. We stayed around Exeter and it was wonderful. Mario made biscotti and I attempted to make honeycomb, but I'm pretty sure the boyfriend ruined it :P We also made icecream, orange flavoured, but I left before I had a chance to try it. Hopefully it's tasty though!!

( recipe can be found here :) )

Yesterday I just spent the day travelling back to Nottingham and here I shall stay for the next 10 days or so until I go home. I'm going job hunting this afternoon, but the weather's nice so it shouldn't be too bad!

Sorry for spamming you with so many photos, but thank you for sticking it out until the end. Until next time!