Author: Charlotte's Scrapbook

Hello! Thought this would be a good way to sum up 2022 by sharing with you the books I have read throughout the year! I set a challenge on my Goodreads to at least read 12 books by the end of this year and I am so happy that I have achieved this goal! I am not the quickest reader, but I thought by setting myself the goal of reading one book each month it could easily be achieved! Next year I might up the challenge and see how many books I can read then. This will be like a mini book review type of blog so I hope you enjoy!

1) Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins

The first book I read this year was part of my book club with my uni girls that we created back in 2020 when the first lockdown was happening, a great way to get reading and have discussions with friends about the same book you are reading. Since we all lead busy lives and we live quite far away from each other it was a great way to connect with each other. It’s quite interesting to see the different opinions of your friends. This book was picked by my friend Alice as I believe she got this book for Christmas. Looking back on my Goodreads which I will link on here so you can have a look if you wish, I gave this book 2 stars. Looking back it feels a bit harsh, but it took a while for me to get going on this book. I won’t reveal all about what these books are about, but I will give a lil snippet just in case you do want to read these books I don’t want to spoil it all!

This book was basically about a Nanny who lived in Oxford and started looking after a little girl called Felicity who was mute. The family was a weird dynamic and they were quite a well off family. There was the father who didn’t really have much time for the daughter and a Step mum that also thought the daughter was weird and didn’t have time for her either as she had a new baby on the way. The Nanny however managed to form a bond with Felicity and the nanny was the only one the girl would talk too. I actually don’t know why I scored it 2 stars, because there was some more depth and secrets revealed in it, but maybe I thought it wasn’t my type of book at the time and some of the interests the girl had were quite harrowing. Nevertheless, if you like dark books it’s not horrendous, but it’s not the most riveting either. I will give my honest opinion in this blog!

2) Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

The next book I read was Girl in Snow. One year, I think it was either for Christmas or birthday my friend Alice (she seems to be a common denominator in the books I’ve read as she is a massive bookworm and has turned me into one too!) she brought like a surprise book parcel which contained books that the author may not have been well known or titles that you might have not seen before. There are many of these type of things about and they make great gifts for people as you may not have even discovered these books otherwise. This book I gave 3 stars on Goodreads so a little bit better than the previous book. This book is about a murdered popular school girl called Lucinda. It was one of those books where it changed direction of who you thought had done it. I was actually surprised by the ending of this book as the obvious suspect it was not and it was someone that wasn’t mentioned much in the story but turned out to be the main part. I thought the writing was quite clever as it was written by different views of the characters and each one was connected in some way to the murder.

3) This Much is True by Miriam Margolyes

This next book I could really write home about! Miriam Margolyes is one of my favourite people (not that I’ve ever met her as much as I would love to!) I just had to read her book as I know it would not disappoint. If ever I’m sad and need cheering up I’ll watch YouTube clips of Miriam on the Graham Norton show and it instantly puts me in a better mood. I was giggling to myself so much whilst reading her book and of course I gave this 5 stars, This book is just all about Miriam, its fun, it’s witty and she has a lot of weird situations to talk about. My motto in life is to be more Miriam, the world would be more brighter with more people like her. This was the most heart warming book I have ever read and I love her even more now!

4) Bad Twins by Rebecca Chance

I read this book in Cornwall on my 30th birthday hence the gold chocolate bunny as it was April and that meant easter! This book was again from Alice’s box of stories she had given me, so I had no idea what this book was about. Looking back at my Goodreads I gave this book 4 stars which is a pretty generous rating. I actual quite enjoyed this book it was full of drama and unexpected situations. This one was about 4 children (Two boys and two twin girls) who are about to inherit their father’s business of this big hotel chain. The father pits them against each other as it can only be one of them that inherits the fortunes. Like I said there is lots of drama along the way, an enjoyable juicy read I would say!

5) F*ck No!: How to Stop Saying Yes When You Can’t, You Shouldn’t or You Just Don’t Want To by Sarah Knight

This book was a little different from the rest as not a fiction book. I picked this up randomly when I was in town and I had a look in Oliver Bonas, this caught my eye not only does it have a beautiful pink cover, but it also spoke to me because of the title. I have always been bad at saying no to things. This was a great book as it gave you advice on how to say no, but in a good way so that it wouldn’t offend the other person and it made me feel that I should feel guilt-free for saying no. Whether I have practiced this in real life is another question. Think I need more practice and I might re-read this book again if I go down a tunnel of saying yes to things that I don’t want to do again. I loved this though and I love Sarah Knight’s frank way of writing!

6) Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

This book I read through June going into July. This book is about a girl called Kya and her family who live in the marsh. A very poor and deprived family, when all her family seem to abandon her then she has to survive on her own in the marsh. A very sad story, one where the young girl is a victim in this story, however when a murder occurs near to where Kya lives she is blamed for murder. I loved this book although very sad it kept me guessing as to who the murderer was and there was a twist at the end. Although very sad I may add I was very invested in the love story of Kya and Tate. This book also was made into a film which was also a great adaptation of the book and Taylor Swift also released a song for this film, so you know I had to love it!

7) So Lucky by Dawn O’ Porter

Got this book in a charity shop which I featured in one of my previous blog posts. This book was an easy read I flew through it because of it’s humour. This book is a about 3 different woman each that have some sort of problems with their lives, but then at the end they all see what good is in their lives. There is also some twists and turns in this book that make for a good book! I love a juicy twist to books, ones that you don’t expect! I really liked how easy this was to read so I will definitely be purchasing in future more of Dawn O’ Porter’s books.

8) The No-Show by Beth O’Leary

I absolutely adore Beth O’ Leary’s books thanks to my friend Alice who recommended her. I saw she had this new one which popped up as an ad on Instagram, I went straight to amazon to purchase. Again, I flew through this book as it was such an easy read. The story goes that this guy called Carter is dating 3 girls at the same time. I automatically thought oh my god I hate this guy Carter, but again there is a very good twist that happens, which I thought was very clever! All is not what it seems and you actually see Carter in a different light afterwards.

9) The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

This book was gifted to me by my fellow book lover my good friend Alice who I’ve featured quite a bit in this blog haha but she is my book lover buddy! I always love a good who did it murder mystery book so I had high hopes for this. I’ll be honest I got a bit bored of this writer talking about himself as in the book he has put himself as one of the characters. It gets a bit tedious with him saying all his work he has done and who he’s met. I just want to know about the murder not the authors life. However, saying that getting past those bits the storyline is good whereby a lady arranges her own funeral and I have to say it ended with a good twist at the end. So if you love a murder mystery and can see past the author’s love for himself this one is for you! I rated this 4 stars in the end which I think is generous, looking back I would have given it 3 stars as I really struggled reading through the author’s tales of his life! Sorry to Alice just being honest but I think you agree with me on this!

10) How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

I was intrigued to read this as I’d seen many people say that it was good and lots of people had picked it up. I did enjoy it but I struggled at times with this, as I am a girl that likes to have short snappy chapters. I like to go to bed read a chapter and then the next day start on the next chapter as I feel I get lost in between the story and have to re read because I’m in the middle of the chapter. So this book was one that had long chapters which is not my fave. This book was very dark and is basically what it says on the cover. I gave this book 3 stars, I think again as struggled getting through it with the long chapters and don’t think the humour was my type of humour.

11) The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

I heard mix reviews about this book before I read it, some people really didn’t enjoy it and some people absolutely loved it! I was in the love club for sure! This was passed onto me by my good friend Ujal who loved it too! We did a kinda of book swap/pass on which is a great idea to read more books and discover books your friends like. I loved the concept of this book and it’s very cleverly written. However, I do feel you need to be in the right frame of mind when reading this book as it’s about a girl who attempts to take her own life. The meaning behind this book is so simple but brilliant. So Nora goes into the library and each book she chooses she has a different way that her life pans out. I gave this book 5 stars, because I loved it so much! I will definitely be giving another one of Matt Haig’s books a try, this was also an easy read with no long chapters!

12) It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

My last book of 2022 was one that I’d seen everywhere and was very much hyped up about. This book was not what I expected but then at the same time I didn’t actually know what to expect. The basic concept is there is a girl called Lily that moves to Boston after her father has passed away. She sets up a new florist her own business there and meets a neurosurgeon called Ryle who she starts dating, everything seems perfect until something happens that sees her reliving her past. I did really enjoy this book, but like Midnight Library read this with caution as it does have domestic violence in it. I gave this one 4 stars not a bad book to end with!

So that’s a wrap that’s all the books I have read in 2022! I have set a challenge on my Goodreads this year to read 24 books in 2023 which is double the challenge to last year! So far I have finished one book and I am half way through my second book which isn’t too bad for me considering it’s only mid January!

What books have you read recently? Is there any books you are wanting to read and would recommend? Any book recommendations you have let me know I am all ears 🙂 If you would like to follow me on my reading journey I will link my Goodreads down below:

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/106625749-charlotte-heather

Thank you for visiting my scrapbook! Join me again when I will post another new blogpost soon! I hope you enjoyed this book lovers blog post!

L o t s o f L o v e

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I’ll start by apologising as I have been away for so long, but I will explain where I’ve been in this blog post hence the title. My last blog post was all about my favourite things at the start of this year, does anyone else feel like this year has been the fastest so far since 2020!? I guess the start of the pandemic taught us all how to slow down, now two years on the world has become more fast pace again!? Doesn’t my title remind you of the scene in Harry Potter where it’s Molly Weasley exclaiming “Where have you been? Beds empty, no note, car gone you could have died! ” I know a certain person that will know this reference. Anyways lets get into the blogpost.. it will be full of random rambling a bit like a catch up with a friend you haven’t seen for so long and I’ll throw in a few favourite things of mine too as they’ve changed a bit since my last post! Hope you enjoy!

The main reason I have been away for so long is a really boring reason. So I’ve been on an extra course for work at the moment and it has been ALOT! Don’t get me wrong I have learnt a lot and parts of it I have enjoyed, but it has taken a lot of my spare time up and comes with its stresses of doing work on top of full-time working as a nurse! I don’t normally talk about my job on here, but I can finally say that I am 8 years a nurse and the last 2 years in Cancer Care I’ve finally found where I am supposed to be! This course has given me so much insight into the area that I work in now, that I am excited to try and progress in this area of nursing! Who knew that I’d stop having cold feet and be comfortable in where I work. I have the patients and colleagues that I work with to thank for that. People close to me know this was not the path I would have imagined myself down as I sadly lost my loving stepdad to pancreatic cancer in 2014 just before I qualified as a nurse. In 2018 my mum also was dealt with breast cancer, but through this experience I’ve grown into the cancer care nurse that I aspire to be! I’ve almost finish this course now extremely proud of the work ethic I’ve managed to have, just an essay to go now that will give me some credits towards a uni course going towards my goal as a CNS. Throwing it out into the universe, as I hope to then progress to becoming a Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS for short) within cancer care! I’ve said it now so watch this space… Thank you to all my friends that have encouraged me and supported me and are my cheerleaders you know who you are!

Whilst doing this work, I’ve also been working on myself. This leads me to my first favourite I want to talk about and that is drum roll….. THE GYM! Can’t believe I am saying this, but I have been really enjoying the gym and specifically going to gym classes! I have really changed my mindset, I joined the gym in May after we moved to our house back in April (which our house is my fave thing that’s come out of 2022). If I book a class, then that’s it it’s on my calendar and I must go! Some days I may not be feeling it, but I have gone and then felt amazing after. I’ve done a mix of classes so far which have been pump, legs bums and tums (LBT), body tone and bootcamp which is a mix of whole body workouts. I’ve really felt the benefit of going and I have been incorporating going to park run on Saturdays too! I have also changed my mindset with food too and have been tracking my calories with my fitness pal app! All these things combined have helped me to lose weight and I’m getting more and more confident in myself! I’m loving the way I am feeling at the moment, although I have come to a bit of a stand still as I’ve injured my back whether it was the gym or work I’m unsure. This has set me back a bit, but I’m determined to get back to it and I have still been exercising to what my back will allow me to do. I have an appointment booked with physio so hopefully my back will be better again. This has made me slightly nervous as I do have a 10 mile run called the Great South Run in October, which I am still determined to do as I am raising money for cancer research! Still love running, but no where near where I want to be with it at present, but I will get there and I will make sure I cross that finish line. If you would like to support and sponsor me I will leave my just giving page linked below:

http:www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Charlotte-Heathergsr2022

I will eventually write a blog post on my fitness journey! Not quite there with where I want to be yet, but I’m happy with my progress so far! Still been enjoying riding my Pendleton bike as well and Liam my boyfriend has been helping me feel more confident riding on roads.

Other things I have been up to when I can is enjoying time with friends and quality time with Liam. I went to The Cotswolds recently with my girl friends from uni and it was such a laugh like old uni times! Getting happily drunk and just having the best time together. We booked a little hut for 4 of us in pretty much the middle of nowhere and was just a nice little getaway best part was the hot tub! I’ve also met up with a couple of work colleagues who I rarely see outside work which has been lovely to have catch ups with people! And when I have more time I will continue to meet up with my lovely friends that I miss so much! I’ve also loved trying new things! My best friend Ujal suggested a double date punting (me and Ujal were not the greatest at this, the boys were definitely better!) but it was so nice to do something a little bit different.

Another thing my friend Ujal wanted me to mention is an app called Vinted. If you’ve not heard of it, it’s basically a great app for selling things you don’t want and you can buy things others don’t want. I have managed to sell a few things that I no longer wear anymore and have sold a book that I have read which was ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ by Delia Owens which has been made into a film, the best adaptation of a book I’ve seen. I cried throughout highly recommend the book and film. It’s so easy to sell on the app, just have to take a few photos, decide on price and upload. I’ve never been into Ebay and this just seems so much easier and also great for the environment.

The last thing I have been up to is getting back into playing piano! I found a piano teacher just down the road from me and it has been so nice just to be in walking distance. I have been fitting in piano lessons every alternate Sunday. So I haven’t had many, but each time I see progress and getting better with it. Trying to get into the routine of practicing 20 mins each day/evening before bed. I have also been enjoying listening to a piano playlist on Spotify they update it with different songs and the piano playing is so lovely it inspires me to how I want to be! My aim is to keep on practicing and having lessons and for Christmas I may treat myself to an upstanding white weighted keyboard that I have got my eye on!

I leave you with this picture of my number one fan…

So I don’t really know what this blog is but just wanted a bit of a catch up! I hope you enjoyed reading this ramblely blog post! I will try my best to upload more content more regularly, but thank you for sticking with me and being patient! Thank you again for joining me in my scrapbook!

L o t s o f L o v e

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Hi there it’s been a hot minute on my blog. Sorry for being away life has just gotten away with me! Busy with working mainly and still trying to get through this thing called life! Whilst I’ve been away though I’ve been thinking about writing a post about all the things that I have enjoyed over the past 3 months of this year. I felt at the beginning of this year I started to get my mojo back in certain aspects of my life and as we move through spring I can feel myself getting more towards a happier version of myself. Some of these things may sound a bit random, but some have also been a game changer (don’t roll your eyes at me when you read what it is because it is magic!) tried and tested by my besties and they love it too! So let’s get on by telling you then….

1) This Works (and it really does!) deep sleep pillow spray!

Now first things first, I must tell you about thisworks deep sleep pillow spray aka the magic spray as I call it! Being a nurse with dodgy sleep patterns I’ve never really slept well anyways and I am a very light sleeper. I find it hard to get to sleep my mind wanders and I also wake several times a night (still battling this issue). However, I was desperate to find something to help me at least settle to sleep. I have a diffuser that is lovely, but didn’t help and I have also tried other sleep pillow sprays. I’ve always wanted to try the deep sleep pillow spray, but never got round to buying it and thought maybe it’s another fad! Not this time! If you have trouble sleeping run, don’t walk YOU MUST GET THIS PRODUCT! If you’re not a fan of lavender smells maybe not for you as it’s quite strong, but this maybe why it works so well. I spritz quite a lot myself (definitely need to repurchase soon and I most definitely will!) but it’s made me drift off so much quicker and I feel like I have had a better night sleep because of it. I’ve raved about this to my best friends also that are nurses and struggle to sleep and brought them each one. They both agree that I’ve given them in some degree the gift of sleep and that it really does work! Also my evening routine goes hand in hand with the next favourite I’m about to mention…

2) Between the pages of a book is a lovely place to be!

I have become a proper bookworm lately and think I have a serious addiction to buying books! But hey it’s not drugs (as my best friend Alice would say!) I’ve got into the routine now where I get into bed and read whatever book I’m on at that time. Then I spritz my magical spray on my pillow and I am in for a good sleep! If I don’t do both of these things at night I really feel the effects of not having a good sleep! I really enjoy logging my progress into Goodreads as well, so I can sort of tell how far away I am from finishing. I am one of those people if I’ve started a book I really have to finish it even if I’m not enjoying it soo much. I think only once I’ve given up on a book. I have so many books to read and want to read that I feel a sense of accomplishment when another has been read. I am really loving buying actual paperbacks or hardback books as sadly my kindle died :(. Only problem with that is having the space to store them! Though I am dreaming about having a nice reading nook in my house (moving this April! AHH!) with a nice bookcase. So I need to be really selective with which books I keep and the ones that can go to charity which I love doing! Although going to charity shops also means I’m tempted to look at more books! It’s a problem! You’ll actually find some books in charity shops that are much cheaper if you were to buy them new so it’s worth looking! I love though once you’ve read a book you can give it to charity (and in turn buy more books) but feels like you are doing a good deed and then someone else will pick up that book and love it! I would like to start doing book reviews on here and will do this soon! I love how Goodreads also allows you to do reviews on books and you can give them a star rating too. I will try and link my Goodreads on here if I can so you can have a look what I’m reading and what I want to read (there is a lot of books on there).

3) Function of Beauty Shampoo and Conditioner!

This make of shampoo and conditioner I actually discovered back in December 2021 and ordered, but it comes all the way from the USA so only started to use it in January. I was having the trouble with my hair getting greasy very quickly, which I’ve never had this problem before. I put it down to going a bit darker recently, as before when my hair was dyed a very light blonde I never had the problem of it going greasy. The good thing about function of beauty is that you can tailor it to your needs and your hair type. They also have a range of different scents (first one I choose was Strike a Rose and omg it was divine) you can pick how strong you have the scent as well, which I always pick strong! You can also pick the colours too and the bottles are 100% recyclable which is great! It also comes with cute little stickers you can decorate the bottles with! I’ve noticed a massive difference in my hair, it’s a lot softer and feels a lot fresher for longer. No more grease!

4) Park runs in the sun!

Just completed my 25th Parkrun last weekend (2nd April) super proud of myself for achieving this. If you remember from 2 of my previous blogs I mentioned I wanted to achieve 50 parkruns in total this year! I am halfway to my goal and I am very much motivated to getting to 50 now! They have changed the milestone t shirts now so you can now get a T shirt if you complete 25 park runs! I can now wear this with pride and have a collection when I meet the next milestone. I am fully loving getting up early on a Saturday morning and putting on my running trainers (especially in this lovely sunny weather). It gives me such a boost and I look forward to going each time. There is such a lovely atmosphere and everyone supports each other. It’s great to meet new people and everyone is really friendly and cheers everyone on!

5) Doc Martens

My very generous boyfriend got me a pair of Doc Martens for Christmas 2021. Since then they have been my favourite shoe to wear! I had been going on about them for a couple of years now and Liam had always said to me I’ll get you some for Christmas. They aren’t cheap either. I was afraid I wouldn’t get the wear out of them as people say they are hard to break in (I’m talking a couple of years to break in. I mean what!?). For me they have been really comfy and all I do is pair them with a thick pair of socks (above in the picture I’m just wearing tights and they were fine so I don’t get what people are on with this 2 year breaking in period! Haha). As January to March was still pretty cold I could still wear them and they pretty much go with everything too! I still may even wear them going into spring with some midi dresses. A great pair of boots to invest in, in my opinion!

5) Quote books!

Now this might seem like I’m writing the same point as point number 2 but I’m not. I have a few quote books that often have a flick through in the morning on a day off or if I’m off work. I flick and then stop on the page and it gives me the positivity I need throughout the day. I also send them to my friends to help keep them positive too. My favourites are Charlotte Freeman – Everything You’ll Ever Need you can Find Within Yourself and currently I am flicking my way through Nikki Banas – Along The Way. I have also written quotes myself in the past and paired it with pictures I’ve taken on my instagram and maybe I will do this again soon. I follow both of these writers on instagram too for some positive quote inspiration! It honestly puts you in a good mood for the day!

6) Charlotte… Queen baker pending!

I’m still loving baking at the moment! I really want to do some more bakes and I am trying out new things that I’ve never baked before. My most recent being Mini Egg NYC cookies and I have baked some scones! The recipes that I have tried so far have been from the book that I have which is Jane Patisserie if you don’t follow this lady on instagram where have you been!? Whatever she bakes looks amazing and I find they are so easy to follow it makes baking for amateur bakers like me look easy!

7) I like to ride my Pendleton I like to ride my bike

I am so pleased to say that recently I got out on my Pendleton and fully loved it! I recently brought a Pendleton bike that I have wanted for years and years! My boyfriend found me one off I think either eBay/Facebook marketplace the lady selling it hadn’t ridden the bike at all so it was in such good condition and for a good price too! I was thrilled to bits when I got it. I am a bit wobbly at the moment as I haven’t ridden a bike for years! I just rode up and down my street for a bit of practice, but I’m hoping to get more practice in when I move house with my boyfriend who also has a classic Raleigh bike that he did up! Where we are moving is a little village in the countryside so I’m hoping for rides to little local pubs/cafes and also farmer markets I cannot wait!

8) Chai Lattes!

I don’t why but at the moment my fave coffee shop order is a chai latte! I am obsessed! Its just nicer than getting a regular latte and has a bit of spiced to it! I’m sure I will switch to iced coffees again when it comes to the summer , but otherwise this was my favourite coffee to drink throughout these months.

9) Photography dates!

Recently me and my boyfriend Liam went to Hengistbury Head where we went and took our cameras for a photography date. We love doing this and I have done this before at Hengistbury Head where you can take nice photos of all the different coloured beach huts. These photos are all on my phone, however I hope to do a photography blog post where I can upload all my photos from my camera as they are better quality and I can show off my skills that I have probably learnt most from Liam. He is very into cameras and is constantly on the lookout for a new lens or camera. He has both a film camera and a DSLR camera. I have a Canon 1300D DSLR camera and I recently brought a Canon Powershot G7x Mark ii as I would like to have a go at taking videos. Who knows what these videos may be, but would just like to look back on them for memories. I may have a go at putting them on a vlogging channel if any one would be interested… watch this space!

10) Charity Shops

I absolutely love having a nose through charity shops! You can find some right bargains! I find looking at books is a dangerous game in there as there are so many and even some are brand new and super cheap! Got this book for a pound which I have seen before and I think is fairly new its sadly still in my to be read pile so can’t give my opinion on it yet. Also got this cat mug which I think also was a £1. I also like a good sort out myself so I can take stuff to charity a great way to get rid of stuff you don’t want, but I’m sure someone else out there would want!

That is all of my favourites from Jan- Mar this year! Sorry this post has been very late, I’ve been super busy! One other favourite that I should mention is a massive favourite for April which is that I have moved into my first house with my bf Liam! I am loving being in my new home so far and hope to share some house content soon! It was also my 30th birthday in April so there will be a birthday post coming soon too!

Hope you enjoyed reading all about my favourites for the first part of this year! Is there anything that you’ve been loving lately? I would love to hear! Whatever they are the weirder the better in my opinion! If you enjoyed this blog post please let me know and I can write another favourites post soon 🙂

Thanks for coming to my scrapbook!

L o t s o f L o v e

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So Valentine’s Day was just a week ago now and I just wanted to share with you what I got up to for it. Me and my boyfriend Liam actually celebrated on the 13th February as the 14th was on a Monday and we were both working. So we decided to do an afternoon out in Winchester as we had a reservation booked for later at a French restaurant there (more on that later). It was a miserable rainy day to say the least, but we still had a lovely afternoon and evening. There is something about Winchester that just feels magical whatever the weather. We set off in Liam’s car and got to Winchester about 12ish we stopped off for coffee and tea at Coffee Lab which was Liam’s suggestion I’d never been there before but it was a cool collective coffee place that had black accents everywhere. They started playing some old school songs and the likes of Artic Monkeys. We sheltered from the rain and brought our books to read. I’m currently reading Miriam Margoyles book, I absolutely adore her and I am enjoying reading her stories of her life (she has many stories to tell and I’m awe of her honesty and well she’s just hilarious!) Me and Liam have recently got into reading and quite enjoyed going to a cafe to read with a nice coffee. We also often enjoy reading with a nice alcoholic beverage as well such as a wine for me and a rum for Liam it makes it such an enjoyable experience and time away from social media (If you read my previous post “I don’t know about you but I’m feeling ’22” you’ll know my intentions for this year is to try and read more and get away from looking at my phone). I’m so far achieving this goal of mine although I do have my days when I lax, but otherwise I’ve become a right old bookworm lately and I’m loving it! Let me know if you would like me to do some book reviews in future!

After we had finished off in the coffee shop it still hadn’t stopped raining still and we were still a couple of hours early for our reservation at the French restaurant. So we decided to seek shelter in a pub this time! We were looking on google in the coffee shop trying to see where we could go just for a nice drink and we ended up in The William Walker pub. This was a nice little cosy pub that had aspects of diving in it that felt quite cool. There was paintings on the walls of Krakens and the toilets felt like you were on a submarine with its piping and lights. The pub is named after the famous diver William Walker, he also did work on Winchester Cathedral saving it from collapsing. I had an Old Mout cider which I don’t normally opt for now, but thought I needed something refreshing and Liam opted for a non alcoholic beer as he was driving.

Our last stop of the day/evening was our restaurant reservation at the French restaurant Brasserie Blanc which serves a classically French menu devised by celebrity chef Raymond Blanc. We always walked past this whenever we were in Winchester and really wanted to go ever since (probably Liam more than me but we are both equally foodies). The restaurant has a really nice vibe to it. We are that couple that looks at the menu beforehand and normally know exactly what we want, but it all looked so good we were still deciding when we sat down. We already decided that we wanted to try the escargots, because when are you ever going to do that apart from if you’re in a French restaurant or in France. So we shared them for starters and had mussels for starters too accompanied by a glass of Merlot for me! I’m very much a red wine or white wine girl now and hardly reach for rose which is what I always used to drink. I think I like red wine in winter and white/rose for summer now. I decided on pork belly in the end and Liam had the Coq Au Vin (which is chicken in a red wine sauce). Both beautifully presented and absolutely delicious highly recommend if you go to Winchester.

Thanks for joining me on this part of my scrapbook and learning what I got up to for Valentine’s Day 2022! Did you get up to anything special this year? What is your favourite thing to do for a romantic evening? Please leave me any comments below and any suggestions what you would like me to write about next are more than welcome!

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I am going to try my best at putting together a series of blogs dedicated to my trip to Australia back in 2017! I’ve wanted to write a blog since then, but never felt I had the time or courage to write until now so here we are and now I can finally have something to show for my biggest trip I’ve made so far in my life! I’ll start off by saying how I would have not ever been brave enough to go on this trip without my best friend Ujal. It must have been back in 2016 that we decided we should book a month long trip to Australia. We’d never been travelling for this long, so the thought made us excited but also nerve wrecking at the same time. We went to STA travel in Southampton to organise booking our trip which was a fantastic service! Although we thought about booking it all ourselves which people can do, but this was less stress and less hassle! Super easy and stress free someone sorting out everything for you! Sadly you can’t book through STA anymore as it no longer exists 😦 but I’m sure there is more travel companies like this around still. We decided with the travelling advisor that we were going to spend a week in Melbourne and then we would get a flight from there and join our Contiki group in Sydney and travel up the east coast! Thing is about Australia if you want to travel to different places you have to have in mind that it may take you hours to get somewhere else in Australia. I think we definitely take for granted here that actually to get anywhere in the UK it is much quicker and easier than in Australia!

We were off on the 25th May 2017 at Heathrow airport. Not without some dramas along the way! If it weren’t for the kindness of strangers I may not have been able to take some nice photos of this trip! I’d left my camera on the floor of Heathrow airport not my best moment, I had so much stuff to carry that I think I was trying to find my passport and in true Charlotte fashion (I am a forgetful person at times) left my camera in the middle of arrivals. Long story short Ujal reassured me that hopefully someone would find it and hand it in and luckily they did! Phew! Drama over! When we finally relaxed on the plane it was a long journey! We stopped off in Hong Kong and had to hang around for 3 hours in the airport for our connecting flight. Once we got on that flight they were plenty of spare seats so they let us lie down for a sleep which if you’re that tired 3 economy seats to sleep on is counted as luxury!

When we arrived in Melbourne it was early hours of the morning maybe 1/2 am I think! It was pitch black, me and Ujal had to somehow make our way to the hostel. Again there were dramas on the way! We got the tram at first and had asked a man on there if he knew where we had to get off at Flinders street (as that’s where our hostel was) and he said sure and would tell us when to get off. Nope this guy decided he wasn’t going to tell us and just got off at his stop! So we got off at the next stop and had no idea where we were. I forgot to mention we weren’t in the greatest attire for this trip as for some reason I think we both decided to wear sandals, bear in mind we knew it was Australia’s winter and it was pouring with rain in Melbourne. The weather in Melbourne was actually much like British weather unpredictable and actually pretty cold! We also had to lug our travel bags around which were super heavy as we had to pack for a month long trip! Anyways, by the time we got to our hostel ( which we didn’t get the warmest of welcomes either, we got told number one rule “Don’t be a dick” I mean do we look like dicks! Haha) we were ready for bed. I think this hostel we stayed at first had 3 bunk beds in one room so it was pretty crowded, but we made do I think for a couple of days. This was the main hostel people chose as I think it was just the most convenient and had a club downstairs. Me and Ujal had already got to the point where we were no longer interested in clubs and drinking all night and we just got a very weird vibe from this hostel. We decided to go to a different hostel nearby and it had a much more friendlier atmosphere and you shared a room with other women rather than mixed which we also found to be better.

We explored Melbourne that week, best part being the Melbourne Eureka Skydeck which you could see views of Melbourne for miles and miles. I felt like Melbourne was like New York (not that I’ve ever been!) with its tall buildings and they call it Australia’s most lively city! We took walks around Melbourne mainly ones near to the Yarra river which you can take a little boat ride across it and its surrounded by lovely bars and restaurants. We also took a few little trips here, we went to Phillip Island where we went to a zoo there and also saw the penguin parade where at sunset you get to watch little penguins come ashore in groups. However, I don’t have any photos of this as you’re not allowed to take photos of the penguins as they’ve had a few issues with tourists blinding the penguins with the flashes of cameras. I did however take some photos on Phillip Island of The Twelve Apostles and The Great Ocean Road. Got to feed the kangaroos at a zoo there too!

After we had finished our week in Melbourne it was time to set off on a plane again a shorter distance this time to Sydney! We would meet our Contiki group there and start our journey from Sydney up through different parts of the east coast and eventually finishing in Cairns!

I hope you enjoyed this part of my Aussie Adventure! Join me again in the next part of my journey! I hope you enjoyed this page of my scrapbook!

Have you ever visited Australia? What has been your biggest adventure? Where would be the number one place you want to travel to? Please leave me a comment down below I would appreciate feedback and leave me a comment if you enjoyed 🙂

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Yes I may have stolen that line from a Taylor Swift song… but the title is just perfect for this post. I wanted to tell you about the walks I’ve been going on recently, especially the beautiful autumnal walks that have inspired me to write this blogpost. I think we all got that cabin fever whilst in lockdown (how ever many lockdowns there were!?) me personally that was what I looked forward to was getting outside and going on walks. Me and my boyfriend live separately at the moment and the only way Covid would allow us to see each other was outside, this became a routine thing where we would plan to go somewhere different each time for a walk and often we would take our cameras and make a date out of it. This was a great way to discover new places (one thing we thank Covid for!), I think by far our favourite place to visit now is Dibden Inclosure which is situated in the beautiful New Forest! If you are ever down Hampshire way I have a few recommendations that I will share, but if you haven’t been to the New Forest it’s a must! Not only for beautiful walks, but it’s renown for camping, wedding venues, little towns surrounding that have independent shops and cafes and horse riding there is stunning!

I think it’s really important to get out on a walk and it can be really beneficial to lightening up your mood especially in these colder, darker months. Here are a few of my top tips for having an enjoyable walk…

• Go with good company such as a friend or a partner. It’s something nice that you can do together and explore new places together or take the other person to somewhere you know and love but they haven’t been before.
• If you’re not going with someone pop in some earphones and pop on your favourite podcast or favourite music. Make a routine out of it and go in the later mornings when it isn’t dark.
• Bring a hot drink with you say a coffee or hot chocolate or if there is somewhere nearby that you can treat yourself. We normally carry a flask and have some nice warm coffee with us.
• Make it fun! Me and my boyfriend like to bring our cameras with us so we can look back on photos and are normally competitive with each other with creative photo ideas! In previous lockdowns we’ve also brought an open tent which is quite nice in the summer on the beach or can shield from windy cold days and have brought a picnic blanket with lots of yummy food and if you haven’t driven to the place you could always have a cheeky can of something or if you’re feeling fancy those little bottles of Prosecco!
• If you’re not going to prepare food and drink there’s always the option of exploring the area around your walks where you can find independent cafes and restaurants maybe where you haven’t been before. This would also be supporting local and small businesses! I love discovering cute little cafes and restaurants.

Just going to share with you my top places to go to for walks if you are ever in the Hampshire area…

• Dibden inclosure – Just on the outskirts of the new forest a really lovely forest walk to explore! I think they even do a pop up caravan where they sell cakes and coffees there but nearby is a town called Lyndhurst where there is little shops for nick nacks and cute little cafes and restaurants if you are feeling peckish.
• Riverside Park, Southampton – I often go for a run down here as they have a pathway back and forth down the river. If your going for an evening walk there is even a nice pub down the end called The Swan for dinner and drinks.
• Southampton Common- Again I often go running down here and they do park runs every Saturday which I try to attend to (more on that in my running post coming soon!). They also have a cafe called The Hawthorns and a lovely pub called The Cowherds which is so nice and cosy at the moment with its log fire burning!
• Weston shore/Royal Victoria Country Park – If you’re looking for a short walk you can head down to Weston Shore which is a stoney beach looking across Southampton waters. It is at its best in the summer but also can be nice for winter too! If you want a longer walk you can head down further into Royal Victoria Country park where this has many wooded areas. Before you get there, there is also Netley Ruins which dates back to the war which is interesting to see which parts of the castle are left behind. What is also interesting is that when you get to Royal Victoria country park there is the Royal Victoria Hospital museum that you can go inside and discover more about the history of the hospital that was there again dating back to the war. Many things to look at in there if you are a fan of history. There also is a lovely cafe where you can get hot drinks from and in summer they normally have the ice cream vans there! Yum!
• Forest of Bere/ Hundred Acre Wood, Wickham – This is a forest walk near the little village of Wickham. Has many paths to go down exploring different parts of the wooded area. Many little villages surrounding this including Wickham, Swanmore and Bishop’s Waltham.
• Portchester Castle – This is an historical place to go visit. Lovely castle surrounded by its own little moat and you can walk along the beach with stunning views of the Spinnaker Tower, especially at night time is really lovely for sunset views! Also the walk down from Portchester castle has lovely little houses all down which personally I’m a sucker for looking at people’s houses especially when they are cute little cottages.

I’ve lived where I’ve lived for many years now and I don’t think I would have discovered all these places if Covid hadn’t forced me to go outside! I want to carry on in future going on these walks it really boosts my mood and I feel great afterwards. Exercise, fresh air and beautiful scenery what more could you want! So if I haven’t influenced you to go on walks, I don’t know what will! Give it a try you won’t regret it I assure you and it’s great discovering all these new places!

Thank you for taking the time to read my new post from my scrapbook I hope you enjoyed it!

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Where are your favourite places to explore? Will you be doing more walks now?

Leave a comment down below and let me know what you think of the first post of my scrapbook! Thanks 🙂

Thought I’d kickstart the year with a little travelling blogpost! I’ve been waiting to write this since July last year thinking I wanted to share about my Cornwall trip with my boyfriend Liam. It was a little spontaneous trip we decided to do since travel restrictions back then we’re still a lil iffy, we decided it would be nice to take a trip to Cornwall since none of us had really been before. It was the perfect time too as it was July, height of the summer perfect weather for exploring the beautiful beaches of Cornwall! (However English weather did mean we endured some rain too!) We decided to book an Air BnB for our trip and our host couldn’t have been more helpful! We stayed in a little village near to Penzance called Crowlas! Our Air Bnb host had a lovely Town House and would make us breakfast each morning then we would set off for the day making plans of where to go and what to see and do! She gave us many ideas of what to do whilst we were here and at the end of our trip we had explored and enjoyed so much we gave back some recommendations to her!

Other days we visited various different places a couple of rainy days we still enjoyed, one which was at the Minack Theatre, Penzance. This had a lot of history behind it where several years ago a lady called Rowena Cade pretty much built and created the theatre by herself. They unfortunately didn’t have any shows on when we went but had people practicing for future plays. It’s an outside theatre basically built out of the rocks that Rowena would carry herself and then build. A different place to go and experience.

On another wet and windy day of our trip we also took a trip to Land’s end which probably wasn’t the best day to go as we could literally see nothing! But we can now say we’ve been there and got that iconic picture with the sign to prove it!

On another day we took a trip to St Michael’s Mount which you can walk across to when the tide’s out from Marazion. When the tide is in there is a little boat that goes across. We decided to walk there and then we got the boat back when we’d finished exploring the little island. There is a little population that live on St Michael’s mount, but mostly it’s a place where tourists go to visit the castle and the gardens surrounding it. This was a good weather day so it was a good place to go and take some nice photos with our cameras (my front page photo is one that Liam took there).

I also just wanted to share a few of the restaurants and pubs we visited whilst we were there. We mainly visited Marazion as it was close enough for us to get to from our air BnB and we managed to get in the end some reservations to places that turned out better than expected. First up we visited a lovely friendly pub which was called The Fire Station. With lovely views of St Michael’s Mount. We were the last one’s in there chatting to one of the ladies serving us as people were more interested staying inside watching the footie (let’s just say we aren’t really football fans but it worked in our favour as it was nice and quiet). We also visited in Marazion The Goldolphin which is a hotel, but you can visit their restaurant too which we were most impressed with! If you are a massive fan of seafood you will love it here. It feels also very classy in there and had a range of different wines to choose from and the waiters/waitresses would also come round and offer their expertise on how to use the instruments to get into the seafood ( we had no clue we were worried that we may end up flingy shells at another table by accident!).

The last place we decided to take a visit was a lovely fishing village called Mousehole which is near to Penzance. This was quite a quirky place to visit and was full of little shops that had artsy things to look at and we also looked at a little craft fair there. A nice seaside town just to stroll around for the afternoon. We had a look around here before we left to go home 😦

Once again, I hope you enjoyed this part of my scrapbook! Have you ever visited Cornwall? Where would you like to travel this year if you can? Thought I’d write this as the weather has been horrible lately, so thought would write this just to give you a bit of sunshine! Let me know if you have any travel plans and any comments you have down below 🙂

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What are looking forward to achieving in 2022? What are your plans? Let me know in the comments section I would love to hear! Thanks 🙂

I wanted to start writing this post as I have been in a bit of a slump recently. The past two years I’m sure you can agree have been more than hard and I always feel like near the start of the new year it’s nice to have a fresh start and press the reset button. I’ll be honest I haven’t been happy with myself recently and I have lost all my confidence, but I am determined to get it back! I am actually one of those weird people that enjoys writing goals for the new year. I’m not a new year new me sort of person as I can never not be myself, but if I’m feeling a bit unhappy I like to do a few changes to tweak my mindset and put me in a better mood. I am really determined to up my fitness again in 2022 as I have a massive goal to achieve (if I get in!) I crazily entered the London Marathon for 2022! If I don’t get a place I am still going to enter myself in another event which I really feel helps me focus on getting motivated if I have something to train for.

L-R Me and Soph at our very first park run, Me and Soph after some training for the Great South Run, With our medals at the Great South Run 2018, Feeling good before a swim, In my Southampton Hospital Charity vest for my 1st Half Marathon, Me and Liam at Southampton Half, Me and Laura from my children’s ward at Southampton half, Me Laura and Amanda my colleagues I worked with to raise money for our ward, My 2nd Half marathon along Bournemouth Pier, Me and my best friend Ujal at my 3rd most recent half marathon in Oxford 2021.

In no way am I a professional runner, but I like to say I’ve come to learn some things since running from 2018. I would like to get myself back to where I was in 2018 and I know that will take time. I hope that any person reading this who wants to take up running will enjoy reading this post. My next post will be about my 2022 intentions not just involving fitness, but other things I would like to achieve in 2022.

I hope once again you’ve enjoyed this post from my scrapbook!

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Are you thinking of running? Are you just starting out and don’t know where to start? Hope this blogpost will give you some tips on how to get started 🙂 Please leave a comment below and tell me what you think 🙂 Thank you!