From A Forbidden View

I have to admit, I've gotten into a very comfortable yet lazy ERASMUS routine. It involves sleeping and lots of sitting in the sun now that it's beginning to warm up again here in Granada. And that is the best explanation I can offer as to where I've been really. Although, I then considered what better way to show you what I've been up to than with a few picture of a recent walk we all did last weekend.

We went on a walk last sunny Sunday to a spot my friend had discovered. Granada's a great place to take a walk around. If the sun is shining, there's always something go on somewhere, be it bubble blowers or impromptu musicians. As for the walk, it was pretty steep and I was wearing the worst possible shoes (sandals...) but even though I had muddy, slightly sore feet (yes, I did it bare foot eventually, it was a lot less hassle), the view from the top makes it all the worth while. It was great to see Granada from a different angle, just bathing in the sunlight. We had a bottle of red wine and biscuits from a convent we had bought on the way. They were quickly renamed nun cookies. 

It later turned out that we were on private property that we weren't aware of so we quickly relocated back down the hill for the last moments of sunshine before heading home. I washed my feet the moment I got back and made a mental note to always wear trainers in future if my friend says we're going for a 'walk'...

Hope you're all well

xx

Life Lately 007

L-R, Top- Bottom- 1. Tempestade. Storm in Portuguese, one of our cats. 2. Sunny day out. 3. Beautiful architecture on Gran Vía. 4. Albacín by night. 5. View from uni in the evening. 6. Entrance wall to Calle Elvira. 7. Plaza Triunfo. 8. Ice cream at La Cala, best coffee ever. 9. Our new adoptee.

Apologies all around for not having updated in so long. I thought I would share some of my Instagram snaps to show you what I've been up to. I've actually started uni lessons now and, a whole month later, am finally enrolled. Spanish administration is not the fastest or most efficient.However, I don't have classes on a Friday and therefore have a 3 day weekend, so I can't complain. We've also acquired a new cat, the little white kitten in the bottom corner, which was found abandoned, so we now have three. How anyone could abandon such a cutie is beyond me.

I have to admit I'm in a bit of a rut with blogging simply because I haven't been buying that much. I'm waiting on some ERASMUS grant money at the moment, which, with any luck, I should have by next week. And then maybe I'll celebrate by going shopping of course... I can't really post much about winter trends either because it's still boiling hot here- a high twenty on a sunny day and I'm beginning to get impatient for the day I can wrap myself up in my coat and scarf. However, my boyfriend is coming out in a few weeks time so I will get a chance to be a real tourist and my parents are sending me out some stuff including my tripod so keep an eye out. Otherwise, apologies for a slow slow month.

Besos

x

Life Lately 006

I haven't done a lifestyle post in a while so I though I would share with you some picture of what I've been up to recently and slightly explain why I've been a bit AWOL recently. The first couple of picture are from a vintage car and motorbike show that came to my town which gave me a good chance to drool over them. There is something about vintage cars that instantly makes you lust over them.

The second bunch are from Woburn Safari Park. I headed up to my boyfriend's house about a week which is why I haven't been around much. You get to drive through all the animal enclosures, windows up of course. Unfortunately, it was a pretty hot and humid day so the animals weren't really up to much especially the lions who were jamming under a tree the whole time. My favourites were the monkeys because they're so cute yet such little monsters. We watched in horror as a monkey determinedly chewed through and destroyed the car in front of us antennae and they were completely clueless.

And the last three pictures are just from a country park that we walked to. My boyfriend has the black labrador but was also looking after the beagle. It was around a 7 mile walk so by the time we got back, all of us were worn out!

So that's where I've been recently! Here there and everywhere but I'm back home now and have another review waiting in the aisles so look out for that being posted in the next few days!

Hope you are all well!

xx

Lately: Where Have You Been?

Oh I know I've been a bad blogger recently... I hang my head in shame. But I thought I would let you in on the reason as to why I've been so absent. Every year my university holds a dance show with all the dance societies and you get all the usuals like ballet, tap, street etc etc yadda yadda but this is the first time bellydance has been in the show. We're a relatively small society and still in the baby phase but hopefully we will be getting more interest. So the last couple of weeks has been the run up to it and I've had rehearsals coming out of my ears on top of the usual uni work. I just out of the house to long to ever get a decent OOTD and I haven't been buying much either. So yes, above you have a video of all of us doing the Harlem Shake as a promo for it! I'm pretty much in the middle to the right slightly if you can spot me. But once the show is over, I should get some more free time!

In other news, me and James had a fairly chill Valentines day. We both went to Circuits at the gym which everyone found a bit weird but we went home afterwards and made a lovely dinner with ginger and lime sea bass which was lovely even if filleting a fish with a not very sharp knife was a challenge and a half. We also went out for a proper pub lunch at the weekend. I don't know whether I've mentioned it yet or not but we're also jetting off to Barcelona for a mini break at the start of the Easter holidays- so about in a months time- so you can expect a few posts on that. Annoyingly we're only taking hand luggage so anything I buy has to be within the 100ml limit. I was considering doing a vlog until I found out I have no editing software on my computer whatsoever so if you can reccommend any video editing software for Windows, please let me know :)

Anyway I just thought I'd let you know what's been going on my end recently. I hope to be back to full blogging capacity soon and I'll keep you all updated. If you like to see photos from the dance show, let me know or follow me on Instagram: LeaDee9

Hope you've all been keeping well!

xx

Lately 006- London

*Warning- Picture heavy*

Me and the boyf dashed up to London for a night on Friday and these are the results! We stayed in the Crowne Plaza hotel in Shoreditch at at absolute bargain price and we were very impressed with the quality. We were initially going to stay in a Travelodge/ Premier Inn but this ended up being cheaper! We were just round the corner from Brick Lane and although I really wanted to go, we simply ran out of time to do everything we wanted. We aslo got the National Express coach up there as, despite both having railcards, the coach was much cheaper and only half an hour longer than the train!

Our main aim of the visit was the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park and to visit the Natural History Museum. While London was feeling very festive with all its pretty Christmas lights down Oxford Street etc, it was heaving (to be expected really) and I wasn't overly impressed with the Winter Wonderland. The same stalls were just repeated over and over again and it was no different, if not more generic, than the one we have running through the centre of Southampton at the moment. It just felt a bit cheap to me and maybe it was me, thinking that as it was London, it might be a bit more... chic maybe?

The Natural History Museum however was fantastic. Like all museums, it was free to get in and is huggggge. There's so much to see and take in, I'd definately recommend dedicating a few hours to it. It's also right net the V&A museum, which I stupidly didn't realise, so that's next on my to do list the next time I go to London. Over the years, I'm slowly doing all the 'touristy' thing in London like the museums and galleries etc. There's just so much to do, you run out of time v quickly.

I had a little bit of time to do some shopping but as you can imagine, Oxford Street, Carnaby Street etc on a weekend before Christmas was insane and I have to be in the right mood to be battling with crowds, mainly if I know exactly what I want. If not, it kinda sucks the fun out of having a good browse around. I will do a super mini haul with some stuff from Zara, Topshop and my MAC birthday presents from my boyfriend.

And that's been my weekend! 

Coming back to Southampton has been a bit of a crash landing into all the work I have left to do. It's the last week and I still have to finish off a few bits before I slip into holiday mode and head home for Christmas!

I hope you guys have had a great weekend!

xx

Lately 005. Special Edition.

 

As I said in the post before, my boyfriend came down to visit for just under a week and these are a collection of photos we took. I should have taken more really but we were too busy enjoying ourselves. We went to a boating lake and around a town in the countryside, plenty of pub lunches, a trip to the Sea Life Centre and some amazing Thai food.

And eventually looking very tired after a busy week

Lately 004

1. Granola 2. Amazing veg 3. Chickpea and spinach

4. Quick sketches 5. Our adopted cat 6.  Catching some rays, finally

7. After a long day 8. Highly recommend this book (Shadow of the Wind) 9. And another of our frequent visitors

Just a few snaps from my instagram over the last couple of weeks. I haven't been instagramming that much because, honestly, life isn't all that interesting at the moment. My boyfriend comes to visit next week so I'll be out and about a bit more. Until then, I'm just killing time.
I would highly highly reccommend the book that I'm reading however. It's called Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I had read it in English and thought I would give reading it in the original Spanish a go. I was stuck into it from day one and it's part one of a series of 4 books. It's mystery, it's romance and it's beautifully written.

Hope you guys are having a nice weekend!

Try the book if you get bored!
P.S. If you're interested in following me on Instagram, my usernames is leadee9 :)

xx