Afternoon Tea, Overwatch + Shitfaced - A Long Weekend with Sherbet Aurora

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

This post is long overdue for sure. A few weekends ago I got a little visit from my best bae blogger friend Gail of Sherbet Aurora. She had said for ages that she wanted to come up and see me so we decided on her staying for 3 nights to hang out and meet my little baby girl Rinoa. For two of the days she was here we were also accompanied by Stuart's best friend Doug so it was a full house for the weekend. But you wanna know something? Both of us were terrible bloggers and took next to no photos! Shocking right?

Gail headed up on the Saturday (nice early start for her) and the weather was just wet and dreary, thankfully we didn't actually have anything planned for the day or it could have easily been ruined by the weather. We drove back to my flat and just decided to chill out. Stuart and Doug were sitting playing Overwatch, which as per, involved a lot of shouting and swearing at the screen. Gail and I sat and discussed blogging things and some of the other bloggers (so yes, if you follow both of us you may have been part of the conversation!). Gail had brought up some tablet her mum made for us and my god it was amazing. White chocolate, chocolate orange, After Eight, Strawberry and Vanilla flavour and my favourite was definitely the white chocolate with the After Eight coming in at a very close second. It was amazing, best tablet I've had for sure. I made a quite frankly, super tasty spag bol for everyone's dinner which seemed to go down a treat with them all!

We intended on drinking that night and obviously due to that and the fact I wouldn't be able to get up to do the night feeds, I had arranged for my mum to babysit Rinoa for the night which was going to be the first night away from me. We drove to drop her off then headed to the shop to get some drink and some munch. Stuart's friend suggested a card drinking game called shitfaced and to cut a long story short, I fit the title of the game within a couple of hours. Poor Gaily had a sore head and wasn't feeling too good so ended up not drinking and having to deal with me being drunk for the first time since before I found out I was pregnant. We skyped with Saph for a little while before she went off. I was just drunk and laughing though (Gail took videos of me doing so).

Sunday, I decided to do the good thing that I like to do when I have guests (even sometimes when I don't) and made a massive fry up for all of us. Took me a good while and Gail kept me company while I made it but it was worth it! Everyone enjoyed it (I think the consensus is I'm alright at cooking). Since I had woken up at 1pm, it was about 3pm before we actually got it! We had a good few hours to wait before Rinoa was home as my mum was taking her through to Elgin to see her boyfriend's mum for a few hours. So this was more Overwatch being played and I got a few games in as well, though I notice I play worse when I'm being watched because I feel under pressure! Then was another load of cooking for me in the form of a Sunday roast which was damn good if I don't say so myself. Doug went home after we had it as he had to drive back to Aberdeen and get up early for work the next day, it was just another night of us all chilling out. 

Monday we intended on going for our afternoon tea but we didn't, just sat in and didn't do all that much if we're going to be honest here. Stuart was at work all day so it was just me, Gail and Rinoa. We decided to be good bloggers this day and get some blogging done. Gail worked on her post that she will eventually be posting about her weekend here and I got a post done, we also just spent a good few hours looking at other people's blogs and catching up on some posts. So it was pretty much a blogging day for the two of us. The topic of people believing that the earth is flat came up so Gail spent a lot of time looking at flat earth memes. I hadn't thought ahead for dinner that night and with the discussion of pizza, plus the fact it was 50% off at Domino's all week, that was dinner sorted. Gail wanted to watch Professor Brian Cox so we popped him on! 


Tuesday came which was the last day of Gail being here and it was the day we were finally going to go for Afternoon Tea. I originally said to go to my old work for it but I thought we could go somewhere else as it is somewhere that I haven't been for it and I had heard great things about it. So we went to the Simpson's Garden Center for it! It featured a lovely uphill walk with a pram on grass which was not fun to do at all. Upon arriving we learnt that it probably would have been a better idea to book it as it was a bit more of a fuss for them to set it up for us and as the sandwiches were already prepared before, I had to put up with butter on the sandwiches (which I hate, girl doesn't like butter). Photo above and below this paragraph are from Gail's instagram. 





The Afternoon Tea had a whole area of it's own that was sectioned off from the rest of the restaurant but the only problem I had with it was when there are people in their seats, it's difficult to get the pram through it. I managed it though and we took a table up in the corner. 




Being a garden center, they seemed to stick with the theme for their Afternoon Tea and they give it to you on a cute little picnic bench! You get two scones, a selection of cream cakes and 6 quarters of sandwiches of varying kinds. We got ham and tomato, bacon, brie and cranberry and egg mayo. The egg mayo wasn't touched by either of us as we don't like it and I didn't enjoy them much since I had to eat the butter and it reminded me yet again that I really can't eat food with it on. 






The cakes were gorgeous and you got unlimited refills of the tea which isn't something I've seen happen when I go elsewhere for afternoon tea. I loved the cream that came for the scones and was on the cake, would definitely go back just for the cream because my god it was lovely. All the cakes are homemade in the store in the morning so they're fresh every day and you can taste it! The chocolate cake was amazing, probably the most moist chocolate cake I've had! 


We pottered around the garden center and just had to stop and take some photos at the Bomb Cosmetics area, so much colour! I've picked out a few things I want to get from them as they smell amaaaazing. 








After we finished we had to head back to mine so Gail could get her things and get her bus back home. We were cutting it close as the traffic was bad for Stuart getting back to ours after work. We said our wee goodbyes at the bus station and Gail headed home. It was a really great and chilled weekend, I would have liked to have tried and planned to go out and do more things but money was a bit of a constraint as was the weather so I wasn't complaining about a weekend in. It was great to meet Gail and it was good that it wasn't awkward at all when we met and we could just speak comfortably! Will definitely go down and see her sometime myself as well! 


We're also planning for Gail and Saph to come up at somepoint which would be great! Hopefully next time we are better bloggers and actually take more photos!
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Mask Monday | LomiLomi 7 Scheduler Mask - Cucumber | Bouncing Mask

Monday, 11 July 2016

Hi everyone, this post is a little (well, very) delayed as I have been preoccupied with the little one which has made blogging a challenge to do! She doesn't want mama to blog it seems! I wanted to start this last week but by the time I could sit down and type it out it was Tuesday...But here I am with a new mini series on the blog, Mask Monday! I was inspired by Lona to go ahead and do this and it will motivate me to use masks more regularly! It will be a wide variety of sheet masks, clay/other masks and hair masks!

Skin18 kindly sent me a selection of masks to try out and give my honest review on and I'm going to share one a week with you for the next 5 weeks. Today's one is from LomiLomi and their 7 Skin Scheduler Mask in Cucumber. It comes from a box set of sheet masks to be used for 7 days is quite a popular concept going about. It means every day your skin gets a chance to be pampered and reap the benefits of sheet masks. This cucumber mask is intended for Thursday (or the 4th day you follow this routine) and is supposed to help firm your skin. 

Cucumber is a great ingredient for your skin as it nourishes and moisturizes the skin. Being such a refreshing ingredient, a cucumber mask would be ideal for a hot summers day to let your face get a lovely cool down! For an extra boost, it could be a good idea to pop the sheet mask in the fridge for a little while to allow for your pores to contract down! 

I was keen to try this mask first as my skin is feeling a little dry, being a new mama means I don't get the best sleep in the world so my skin has suffered a little because of it. I was hoping this would just give my skin a little boost and look better!

Scent: As expected, this mask has a lovely scent of cucumber, it's quite strong but that's not an issue with me. It makes it pleasant to have on my face and lasts after you've removed the mask as well.


Size/Fit: This is by far the best fitting mask I have used! Even better than the Innisfree masks that were the first I came across that had fit me well. There are little flaps for your eyes as well on this mask but I folded them underneath the mask (you could always cut them off or put them over your eye lids with your eyes closed and lie down!).

Material: The mask is your standard thickness of sheet and there is a lot of essence in the mask, it was practically dripping when it came out! This gave me a lot extra to use before bed and in the morning after my skin routine.

Result: I put the sheet mask on for 30 minutes while I was in a hot bath, which allowed for my pores to open and the essence to seep into my pores more. The mask didn't slide down and stayed in place. Upon removal, there was lots of the essence on my face which I massaged in and left it to dry. This actually took a few hours which might be an issue for some people but for me it let me know that my skin was continuing to be moisturised. So it's definitely one I recommend to use at night or you'll have a wet looking face! If you have dry skin you may find the time this mask takes to absorb into your skin to be very beneficial. 

The benefit of being in the bath when I used this was after I took the mask off I used the actual sheet and swept it across my shoulders, arms and chest to let my body get a little bit of use out of it! I found my skin looked plump and dewy. It felt soft and definitely moisturised! I had a couple of small spots on my face and it seemed to take some of the burn off of them. Just a little sweep over my chest made my skin feel so much softer. 

Would I repurchase? Oh for sure! I might invest in the entire box set when I get the chance though so I can see how the other masks fare in comparison and also to see how my skin looks by the end of the week! 

Where to buy? You can purchase this mask at Skin18.com for £2.64

Have you tried any of the LomiLomi masks before? What sheet masks have you been giving a go this week?

This post features samples gifted to me and contains an affiliate link

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Swatches | Etude House Play Color Eyes - Ice Van ♡ 스와치 | 에뛰드 히우스 플레이 컬러 아이즈 - 아이스 밴

Tuesday, 21 June 2016


 Summer is officially here! While the weather here in Scotland may not do much to show for it, it's time to get in with some of the summer limited edition make up! Etude House's Play Color Eyes range usually features seasonal eye palettes that are released throughout the year, for the summer they have released the Ice Van palette. With a gorgeous mint green case, this was immediately on my wishlist, but it didn't stay on that list very long as I bought it as soon as I could!
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