Holiday Rhodes 2014 - unpublished

The plane ride was a little bumpy but generally pretty boring had an average cup of tea, Matt had a much more interesting cup of coffee with a filter in the lid. Easily impressed to say the least. 

Sitting apart with the isle separating was annoying but next to each other non the less!

And almost 4 hours later and 1 time zone change we're in Greece, Rhodes!

Off the plane you feel the heat hit you from stepping out the plane, oh we're not in England any more! 

On the bus short drive to the terminal and what it felt like we ran through passport control the inspector hardly batted an eyelid and just nodded at everyone that went through, I thought I'd be stopped as I have a Norwegian passport but nope, did not care! So through to the baggage claim, I had held in a pee for over 5 hours, so I found the toilet asap, and well as one could possibly expect from a country which has recently become bankrupt they were not at a high standard, but a toilets a toilet!

Waiting for baggage its like waiting to win the lottery with much, much better odds, Everyone's a winner.

So finding our transfer was painless enough we were put on bus number 7 and we were on our way, to Lindos Imperial!

The coach went to some pretty shabby looking hotels which were in the middle of no where. As it stopped we sniggered, hopping that ours would be much better, I worried each time that it would be ours and it was going to be just my luck!

As each hotel went by there was little towns and shops all looked lovely it was nice to see the area on the way.

The drive up to our hotel was well ... Eggy .. I could smell just egg I think it comes from the sewage treatment or something, but the reception of the hotel was amazing! Marble everywhere not a spot of dust! And everyone looked old quite and respectable! (No kids).
The receptionist was a very smiley and lovely woman, who spoke great English (all be it with an american accent)

We were given a man to take our luggage and escort us to the room. In a golf cart this is probably the 2nd time I've ever had that service, it made me very excited.

We took the service route up behind the hotel saw some rooms with the private pools they looked lovely.

We drove past the activity pool where our room was next to. Which for an activity pool was adequately quite. He let us in to the room and then we put our bags down had a nosey around the room, which was impeccable couldn't fault a thing there was a large double bed, a single bed and a balcony looking out to the sea.

I unpacked as Matt decided to go to sleep!

Asian themed dinner, could have been much better was rather manic but food was good enough, large selection of deserts which of course matt didn't want. But he got more food so we were both happy.

Day 1 Sunday
Went to breakfast 10 am, such a big selection just as big as dinner! The tea wasn't quite gold but it was tea! :)

After breakfast we applied copious amounts of sun cream and headed out to the adventure pool, with just towels and room key in hand. The adventure pool is right out side our door, which makes it perfect for us, we find some sun loungers and lay down, there was music playing on the other side by the bar, pound enough we can hear but loud enough we can chat happily.

The pool isn't that busy, just a couple of people splashing around. One of the animation team members offers us to join to play water polo, we politely decline.
Instead we head to the pool for a swim and then on to the slides! There were four tall slides and two further smaller slides, the largest slides have two that go straight down, and two that do loops.

We test out each of the slides, Matt's favourite is the orange it loops twice and is fully enclosed and has see though sections which are coloured creating a rainbow effect, my favourite is the green slide which has two loops and is open at the top much slower than the rest but more relaxing, funny how sliding down a plastic slide can be so much fun!

So we chill out in the sun get some drinks and have a jolly old time :) we decided to head to lunch but that was too late but there was lunch also being served at the bar so we ate there, we had spaghetti bolognese, quite greasy, but it was a little lunch buffet up near our room. Perfect!

After lunch we went to check out the other pools and the beach!
The other two pools were shallow and were dubbed 'relax pools' which was lovely but couldn't really swim talk or do much else other that sun bath, which isn't really our thing.

So we checked out the beach, where the water was much warmer than any of the pools.

The pools are quite chilled which is good in the midday sun.

We head back to the room as all the walking made me very hot! We had a mini siesta and then try and play a little tennis which was free! I was apauling at it! So we gave up after half an hour! But it was fun none the less

Had a secondary siesta, before dinner got ready and headed down to our second meal, we even got our picture take before dinner! :) not sure what theme it was but it was good, much better than the Asian food! 

Desert was lovely creme, cakes, and profiteroles!  And then we went for a little walk down the road where we found it was too dark and headed back! Headed to the room and fell asleep!

Day 2 Monday
Not you typical Monday morning, let's say I did not hate this Monday. 

Wake up open the curtains let the light and the heat pour in. We get our selves ready and head down to breakfast, we enjoy our cooked food and some cold, the yoghurt was different but tasty, there wasn't any tea, so we tired the coffee, tasted like instant, but I like instant.

We headed to the activity pool and had our, now, usual swim and slide! The life guard said he liked us because we were safe and the Israeli children making him upset, as he had to keep an eye on them much more than the others.

We spent quite a bit of time people watching and we also discovered a coffee slushee which was creamy and sweet.

After a while of this we realised we had missed lunch again and needed to head to the bar for food again, I think we just ate breakfast to late this means were not hungry till later but the bar serves basically the same food anyway!  

After food we headed down the main road to see what we could find.

Hot air, no shade and that the supermarket was 800m away, is all we found so back we went!

I was boiling all I wanted was a cold dip! 

So back up to the pool and we had a cold dip and a slide but that does get a little boring, so we decided to see what the spa had to offer, we had already scoped out the place, so we found some lockers to put the bag in and laid towels out on sun loungers. 

There were three different pools one large one smaller with jets and one smaller than that which was shallow. 

The largest was cold you had to keep swimming to keep warm, the medium sized one felt warmer from the jets, and the smallest was freezing we presumed about 10C. 

So to warm up we headed to the steam room, by golly it was hot, felt so good. 

There was also a sauna, they give such a dry heat but it did feel good! Jumping back in the largest pool was quite a shock and Matt didn't dare, so I thought I'd be more daring and head into the smallest pool to cool down even more, and going back to the largest pool it felt even warmer! Matt liked the idea of the pool feeling warm so he followed me and we went back and forth from steam room cold pool then warm pool, felt like a proper spa afternoon :) we headed back to the room for a siesta then dinner.

Before dinner one of our neighbours with a private pool gave us a private show... He stopped off and swam, he was rather inebriated, and German so that probably had something to do with it but he was very loud and show off about it! We did not enjoy the show.

So off to dinner, it was Greek night! Yay! Traditional food was one of the most tasty meals we had so far, and too right it should have been! We headed to the car rental place to get some prices, €35 for a fiat panda for a day, wow that was great, we decided we'd get one later in the week, you can't get far walking here in this heat!

We headed to the bar for the first time for a couple of drinks I had a cocktail and a belini, Matt had two half pints, he's ever so adventurous. Back to the room for sleep.

Breakfast drama
Beach
Lunch at beach
Swim pool slide drama
Chill dinner

Breakfast
Beach snorkel
Jet ski

To the north and back!

I had an amazing time in Norway, I went up to visit my darling old grandmother and also explore Norway a little as well!

With our flight being mid day we didn't have to get up stupidly early, and as I like to be early we defiantly had time for a coffee before the off!

Arriving in Norway I always feel the burst of fresh pollution free air, that seems to have disappeared from England these days. 

We had booked a car hire so after promptly picking up our exactly 15kg bag (that's what i call good packing) we headed to pick up the car ... after having a 'winerpolse i lompe'

Finding the car was a surprising difficulty, we knew it was black and it was a Citroen and as I had only paied for the economy car, we were all expecting to find a tiny compact car!

Little did we know we had been upgraded to a beastly 4x4, it was huge! We unlocked it and threw the baggage in the boot and we then had to figure out the Norwegian driving logistics, for starters the driver getting in on the opposite side, many tiny hurdles to cross! 

Then as we set off we all had to try and put us in the mindset of driving on the right side of the road, which is easy enough if you have cars to avoid or follow in the road. After a fairly simple two hour drive with only one pit stop to get crisps and chocolate. We were at my grandmothers house, we weren't greeted by the same enthusiasm this is because she's gotten older and more tired but she was still happy to see us and dinner was ready.     

I attempted to get a square pano shot of the view from my grandmothers window, came out a little weird but you get the gist!

The house is always the same, the few extra pictures that we've sent to her from the past year, but there is always a comforting familiarity that I get from being there.

We were there for five days and two of which were mainly travelling but in the short time we were there because of the car it meant that we could see so much more!  

Saturday: Arrived ate dinner, unpacked gave gifts, took a little walk down to the cabin then made our beds and went to sleep.

Sunday: Walked up Hanto Valen and looked out at the view, drove to the cabin to see what work was being done to it. 

Then we took my grandmother down to the jetty (brygge) as she hadn't been down there in years!

Later on Sunday we went to some world war II trenches which my father used to play in when he was a child and me and Matt found it so fun to go through little tunnels to discover all sorts of massive under ground rooms and one turret room!

After all that exploring we went to dinner with some old friends from down the road, who are some of the loveliest people I know in Norway Kari and Erling were so welcoming and so happy to have us we ate elk drank wine and beer and had altogether had a delightful evening!

Monday: The next day we rose early as you always do in Norway when the weather is good, had our typical breakfast of open top sandwiches with cold meats. 

We took my grandmother in the car and we drove down to Langvann, Matt had borrowed a rod from Erling and used that to fish in the lake then Matt and me found the little red boat and took that out across the lake we went arriving back at where my father and grandmother were sitting, patiently waiting for us to fall in the water with the poor use of the ores, lets just say our rowing skills are bellow par and our combined efforts did keep us dry and get us back to land!

After this adventure on the high seas lake, we thought we'd get back to some civilisation with a trip into town, we went to the big shopping centre for some coffee, sausages, chips, and cake! and of course as we women do we did a spot of shopping and then headed to the super market to pick up a few bits which included, almost, one of everything in the shop, when we had gotten half way through the shop which at my grandmothers pace, is a good hour to hour and a half trip, my father had decided he had had enough and we'd bought enough so time it was to pay and leave!

When we got back we had found that my cousin had found some rods which would work much better for fishing in the lake, and with the right rods and some proper spinners we were sure to catch something! 

so after dinner which was a tasty ... something and before desert we went out to do a little evening fishing.

We ended up all three of us getting in the boat and sitting silently in the middle of the lake with two rods and one keeping us in one place. This was pretty tedious until, at around 9pm we caught a Trout, of a lets say less than large size. we tried for more for another half an hour but our efforts were fruitless/fishless and so we went back home with our one and only catch. 

At a little after 9.30pm we arrived home to find my grandmother still up and waiting to have coffee and ice cream with us, as we had promised earlier to have with her. So cute. 

Tuesday: Upon us came our last day! and at like 8am we were awoken by my father who said my cousen needed a lift into town he had a meeting that he had to get to, so we rushed off out of bed and made our way to Arndal.

We'd found a parking space with a very large sea view, and we headed to Jorgensen for breakfast!

Two lattes, one coffee, two school breads and one ham and cheese sandwich. perfect!

After this we took a little walk into the shopping centre took a typical trip to clas olson, and bought a little berry picker for my mother. Then it was back to Tvedestand to take my cousin to work, and then we headed off to Risøy to meet Erling.

When we met Erling we learnt that we we're going to be pulling up some fish nets to see what species were in them, we found so many varities of fish one of which was a female plaice which is bright red! Then Matt and me got out some kayaks and went round Taterholmen.

Then it was back to Tvedestrand  where we needed to park the little red boat in Langvann back where we found it, then Erling came home and we went on his old boat Flink for a drive down to Kvastadkilen, very relaxing and a lovely way to end a lovely trip! 

Oh, but after dinner of meatballs and potato Matt and I decided we couldn't just sit here we had to do something, so out we went on a last ditch attempt to catch more fish! 

Back to Langvann we went with both rods, we started on land but that didnt seem like a great spot the best spot is on the other side, so out in the boat we went on out fishing expedition.

after half an hour of being in the middle of the water no catches no bites (from fish, the mosquitoes were plentiful) we decided to move back on land but on the other side of the lake just so we werent to disrupt the fish as much, Matt on one side of the rock and me on the other.

 An hour passes almost time to get back, all I hear is Matt on the other side of the rock, "erm TAT!"

Perplexed thinking he's probably just cold or something, "I've caught a fish!"

I run over, catching my rod in a tree, then getting it loose and catching it in another tree, I ditched the rod and ran, finding Matt standing with one fish in one hand, now I guess you wouldn't win an award for it but a fish is a fish! It was a small perch with orange fins!

We gave it another 15 minutes and then we left to go home for some fish and coffee. 

when we got home with our massive catch we were ready to eat! gutted beheaded and detailed both fish and threw them in the frying pan with some good old butter, and a few minutes later they were ready to eat, i spent some time de-boning the fish, I only ate the trout and it was a good fish I recommend if your not much of a fish eater trout is great! not many bones I pulled out the spine and along came the other bones, perfect!

Then on Wednesday we took a looong drive back, or the scenic route, to the airport as our flight wasn't until the evening. Popped in to a shop on the way to get supply of chocolate coffee and sausages! 

and even more chocolate in duty free! 

and just as our flight was boarding we bumped into my aunt and uncle from the other side of my family! getting on the same plane as us! What a coincidence! 

flight was fine, baggage took over half an hour! not fun! greeted Mother at mid-stay and head home back on the left!

Norway 2014

Getting fit.. a fit routine!

Me and my friends are fairly jobless at the moment so we've become ladies who lunch,

but that's started to become tedious and expensive so we're now starting a work out routine!

(and it helps that we have a friend who is training to be a personal trainer :)

So on Mondays we go out to a field and do running and circuits

Circuits included squats, boxing, sit ups, lunges i think we were working out for less than an hour but the running tired us out ... a lot! but we'll get better! 

and on Tuesdays we're doing badminton just hitting the shuttlecock around and having a few games!

Its all just a bit of healthy fun! 

and making it routine will be good for us otherwise we'll just get lazy! >.<

xxx

Simple things in life..

So I found this mug in my brothers room, it is the greatest...

Strike that I've decided not to write a blog post about a mug but ill just show a picture and that will be it but its a damn great mug. 

So there. 

The hunt continues...

My job hunting has been long and seems frugal,

so I've taken to being cook, 

cleaner and holiday booker for the family!

I've booked two trips one to Norway and the other to Rhodes, Greece.

We're also renting a car in Norway, so we can drive around it was a lot cheaper than we thought, but hopefully it will be a good short trip to see my grandest mother! 

Going to Rhodes will be a romantic ten day get away with Matt, in a 'hopefully' beautiful 5-star hotel.

but for now I need to keep back to reality and keep applying for jobs, damn I just want to do some admin, filing or receptionist work, but due to lack of experience... I cannot.

damn it.

I guess a meaning less, unskilled job is all a university graduate can get.

well back to the job search I go.

^But a girl will dream!

xx

Bracelets and a necklace

My home-made bracelets and a necklace.

I made a loom bracelet, i guess its quite childish, but its kind of cute brings a spot of colour, makes me feel young. I went for purples and pinks with orange  and two random green bands because I just love green. I found a tutorial how to make this fish tale loom with just your fingers and loom bands, pretty simple.  

I made this very simple infinity bracelet, I bought a dozen of these cute metal infinity symbols from a cute boutique in Manchester in Afflecks palace, but I know you can also get them from eBay!

This necklace is generally the same as the bracelet, the anchors are also from Afflecks. 

If I make more I'm sure to update y'all! ^.^

Thanks

My after shower routine

This is my long after shower routine, about once a week I have a long shower to shave my legs and have a good lather and chill.

I start by moisturising my legs any old cream that I got from Christmas, so many gift boxes! 

Whilst I let my legs dry, I apply a non oily moisturiser to my cheeks and corners of my eyes, just to hold back on getting any crows feet.   

Then I apply an anti blemish balm on the greasy parts of my skin mainly my nose forehead and chin, well anywhere I didn't moisturise :P

I let this set in and dry and I spray a tea tree spray over my face, mainly because it feels nice. 

For my hair I apply an argon oil, and de-tangling spray, to the ends of my hair. My hair is so dry, fine and damaged and using these makes it feel less damaged!

Obviously deodorant and that's all I do, simple but I felt I should share! 

Thanks x x  ^.^