Lighting the cracks in the road

image: Pinterest

This afternoon I went to the funeral of a 15 year old cancer patient I've known for most of the time I've worked in the world of teenage cancer. It was incredibly sad to be at a funeral for someone so young, but I think every person took away a really positive message from the day. He'd always been a massive inspiration, and will forever stick out in my mind out of all the kids I've had the chance to work with as I'd never met anyone with as much spark and love of life. 

Since being told he wasn't going to get better around this time last year, he had set about pursuing a bucket list, with everything from swimming with sharks to going to his prom being on there. With the help of his friends and family he managed to complete an incredible amount and had some brilliant adventures out of it. Top of his bucket list was to go to America and visit New York, which amazingly he managed to do just a few weeks ago despite being so ill by this point. As a celebration of his enthusiasm to grab life by both hands and achieve everything he could in the time he had, his family arranged for a bucket to be placed at the front of the crematorium. They then proceeded to hand out post it notes to everybody so we could all pledge to start our own bucket lists and make a promise to him to do something new or aim for a particular goal. The post it notes were then going to be put into the coffin with him so we'd all be sure to keep our promises. 

For any curious people out there, my promise was that one day soon I'd make it to America too. Partly for him, but also for my Uncle Stuart who also visited New York before he died back in April. Since both people absolutely fell in love with the place, I feel like its only right I go and see what all the fuss is about someday!

Even at his own funeral he managed to be a huge inspiration, with every single person there coming away from there feeling inspired to go out and live their dreams for someone who couldn't do that for himself any more. 

What's at the top of your bucket list? I'm nosey and would love to know :)

Carry Me- Bombay Bicycle Club

I sit and pine for wasted time

Over Easter weekend I took a trip back to The Wirral to catch up with my friends and family. We had some looovely weather (some of the time at least!) which made a bit of a crazy contrast to Easter weekend last year where I had a day trip out in the snow with my Mum and Dad. English weather, you're full of surprises.

We spent a lot of Good Friday travelling around about a zillion car show rooms as I've decided that after passing my driving test six years ago its probably about time I actually invested in a pair of wheels. After a few hours, my Dad decided we needed a stop off for lunch which I'm fairly certain was really to stop him from having a minor heart attack every time a salesman uttered the words "fancy a test drive?" to me. Having not driven properly since passing my test all those years ago, my Dad was clearly having vivid nightmares about me being trusted behind the wheel of a shiny test car (can't say I blame him... I can barely remember which pedal is which!). 

Anyway, we ended up in New Brighton for our little pit stop. Back when my Mum and Dad were young, New Brighton was a thriving seaside resort complete with an outdoor pool, but for most of my life I've known it as being a bit of a depressing, run down place that had lost all of its appeal and visitors. Over the last few years, they've really put a lot of effort into redeveloping the Prom and there were just people EVERYWHERE. Normally, I get a bit fed up if somewhere is absolutely chock a block with people, but actually this was a pretty lovely sight and it was great to see that the town is regaining some of the glory and atmosphere it had lost over the years.

 (Oh look, that Primark playsuit I keep rambling on about is making another appearance on here already!)

Did you manage to make the most of the sunshine over Easter weekend?

Overdone- Bombay Bicycle Club

Now the night has fled, just like everything I said

Last weekend we paid the remaining balance of our holiday to Corfu. Hooray! To celebrate, I headed straight to Primark for a wander around their holiday collection and came out with this playsuit. I thought it'd be perfect for wandering around the beach and sipping cockails, and for £5 it would have been rude not to buy it. I didn't bother trying it on in the shop (Primark changing rooms on a Saturday are my idea of hell) so threw it on quickly before my trip to Roast and Conch to check it fit me. A quick trying on turned into a spontaneous change of outfit plans for the night as I decided Primark had done far too good a job with this playsuit for me to keep in a drawer until August. 

The dress has a really nice cut out back too which I wasn't brave enough to show in these photos- it may have got a bit warmer and sunnier this week but I'm not quite brave enough to ditch the jacket just yet. I think this is one of those pieces of clothing that I'm going to have trouble separating myself from (cue doing extra loads of washing just to get this back in my wardrobe that little bit quicker!), its long enough to wear in the daytime but I've already got plans to add it to my going out wardrobe too. So, that's me not taking this playsuit off until mid-October now...

Luna- Bombay Bicycle Club

Whenever you want it, wherever you want it

Well, that was a fun weekend. Its been pretty non-stop but not being the sort of person who likes to sit in one place for too long, it suited me just fine! 

I had a jolly little time drinking cocktails on Friday night and then fell asleep on the sofa watching 500 Days of Summer (even though I've seen it about 782000 times, I'm still gutted that I slept through the end!). 

On Saturday I went into town with one of my buddies to book a holiday for us and one of our other friends... I think the travel agent was almost at breaking point when she asked us where we wanted to go and what we wanted to get out of our holiday as our answer was "Ummm.... the sun?". Eventually though, she did manage to establish that we didn't want to go anywhere that would likely feature on Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents and so we've booked to go to Corfu in August. Its my first proper holiday in a few years so I'm massively excited already. 

Saturday night was spent celebrating my housemate's birthday with lots of lovely people, then Sunday was largely built around a lazy day and a ginormous plate of cheesy chips and beans before I headed out again to see Bombay Bicycle Club play at the O2 Academy in Leeds. I've seen Bombay Bicycle Club a few times over the years (one particularly memorable show was at Leeds Festival in 2012, when Bombay somehow inadvertently became the band that had the most topless girls on people's shoulders in the crowd... surreal doesn't even cover it) and they're one of my absolute faves to see live. They manage to move seamlessly between super-chilled out songs and crazy guitars in others and bloomin' hell it works. The new stuff sounds great and the old favourites were still as awesome to hear as ever. Some bands I'll just never tire of watching, and Bombay Bicycle Club are definitely one of those. Absolute perfect way to round off the weekend. 

Roll on next weekend, its my birthday on the 9th so I've got plenty of birthday activities planned... hopefully it'll be even better than this weekend was! 

Hope you've all had a good one :)

Whenever, Wherever- Bombay Bicycle Club

Down where the walls start shaking, I'm waiting for you to find out

I can never resist a cheeky wander around the home section of Primark, and so when I was back at home over half term I fully made the most of having the huge Liverpool store on my doorstep. A while ago I'd spent ages on a hunt for some fairy lights to match the blue and red theme I've accidentally ended up with in my bedroom. I found some really pretty lanterns from Sass and Belle in Oklahoma in Manchester (anyone else bloomin' love that shop?!) but the colours just weren't quite right so I resigned myself to the fact I was going to have to continue living a lantern free lifestyle. 

Anyway, whilst having a wander about in Primark with one of my buddies, I stumbled upon these little beauts. Plus they were only £6... as if I needed any more incentive to march myself straight to the tills with them. They're absolutely perfect for evenings like today when quality time in my pjs nestled up amongst my millions of cushions is just what the doctor ordered. There's normally nothing more I love than spending as much time out and about as possible, but when you've had the longest week in existence (the inevitable consequence of having a laughably short working week last week) sometimes you just need to snuggle up in bed surrounded by pretty lights.

Fairy Light Lanterns: Primark, cushions: Primark/ Cath Kidston/ Sass and Belle/ homemade, bedding: Ikea

Lunar- Bombay Bicycle Club

If anybody wants to know, our love is getting low

 Last week, everyone at work was (semi) jokingly talking about how I haven't provided them with cake in a while, I fully blame this on the massive quantity of Christmas chocolate we still had in every corner of the office throughout January... working in education is possibly the most chocolate filled career ever. Teachers always have tonnes of the stuff! Towards the end of last week, we miraculously polished off the last of our supplies, so I agreed that we probably needed something to get us through so we weren't all experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a lack of Roses in our lives.

And so, not wanting to do things by halves, I went for possibly the most gooey, unhealthy option ever. Salted Caramel Brownies. They're quickly becoming my favourite thing in the world to make and they went down an absolute treat with everyone at work (which I'm not sure is the highest accolade really as we'll literally eat ANYTHING if its left on the table for more than five minutes!). The recipe is based on this one from The Boy Who Bakes and its surprisingly easy to do!

Salted Caramel Brownies

Ingredients:

180g plain flour

3tbsp cocoa powder

1/4tsp salt

300g dark chocolate

150g butter

150g caster sugar

220g soft brown sugar

4 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

for the filling:

1 tin of Caramel

1 or 2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 160C (fan) and grease your baking tin (I'd probably suggest using some baking paper to line it with but I didn't have any in the cupboard... the brownies still came out ok though!). 

Place the chocolate and butter into a heatproof bowl over a pan of water and stir on a medium heat until all has melted.

Add the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract to a bowl, add the chocolate and mix together until smooth. Sieve in the flour and cocoa powder and beat the mixture until it is all combined. 

Pour half of the mixture into the tin, making sure it is evenly spread across the whole tin. 

Take the tin of caramel and add the salt to the tin, mixing thoroughly. 

Add a layer of caramel on top of the brownie mixture in the tin- make sure you don't get the caramel too near to the edge of the brownie- leave a gap of about 1-2 cm. 

Layer the remaining brownie mixture on top of the caramel, making sure none of the caramel is visible afterwards.

Bake the brownies in the oven for about 30 mins and then leave to cool before serving (unless you're as lazy/greedy as I am... in which case tuck in- they taste pretty damn good warm!).

Let me know if you try these!

Carry Me: Bombay Bicycle Club