I don't know about you but these darker, colder nights only mean one thing... It's nearly Christmas! 

Now yes I am aware it's only October but a girl needs to be organised about these things or it can very quickly become stressful and expensive instead of fun. I always start my Christmas shopping early because I can't deal with the crush of people in every shop from mid November and I always try to do as much as I can online to save time and effort.

So in this post I've got a few ideas to share with you as part of a collaboration with Uncommongoods. 

I was really excited about this post because I absolutely love buying people gifts, but I can struggle to find them unique and exciting things that they actually want. But one of the things that immediately caught by eye about Uncommongoods is that their products actually do offer something different. On top of that they are committed to doing good business. By that I mean focusing on sustainable products and packaging, supporting their designers by celebrating what makes their creativity unique and making sure all their staff have a great place to work. 

I always try to get my boyfriend Jared cool little stocking fillers but he can be incredibly hard to buy for. He has very particular tastes and interests and I don't want to get him anything too generic. 

I think he would absolutely love these beer jellies as he is a real foodie who loves to try new things. He really likes chutneys and savory foods like that and as these have beer in them I think they would go down well. I got him a tomato and red pepper chutney last year and he loved it, so I think these would be a winner.

Even though I try really hard with buying presents for Jared, he's not always the best at buying gifts for me. I have sometimes ended up buying things for myself for him to give to me. Such romance in my life *inserts eye roll emoji*. 

That said, I'm sure finding special gifts for your girlfriend can be a bit of a minefield because we can be just a little bit picky. But that is because we usually have a firm idea of what we want. Personally I would love to receive this for Christmas. What is not to love about a cute little tin full of pampering goodness? I can see myself relaxing with this on a lazy Sunday afternoon when I need a little bit of zen time. 

Even shopping for those who have similar tastes to your own can be tricky. I try to get my friends unique and useful Christmas gifts. We've all got enough stuff cluttering up our lives without well meaning friends adding to it.

I think this is the perfect example of the kind of thing you never knew you needed but is fantastically handy. Some of my friends spend a lot of their lives on the road due to their job and after four years living out of a suitcase traveling back between home and uni I think this would be helpful for someone who travels a lot. One of the frustrating things about traveling is no matter how neatly you've packed you can't find the thing you're looking for. By keeping things separated it should also make it easier to unpack once you've arrived. 

Hopefully this was some inspiration to get you started on your Christmas shopping. If you've spotted anything that you've simply had to get someone recently let me know!

*This post is sponsored by Uncommongifts but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Visiting Oxford

One of my goals for this year was to go and visit my best friend Ann in Exeter before she graduated. Sadly, we were both too busy to manage it and the time just flew by this year. Before I knew it, she was prancing across the stage looking fabulous in her gown so I would have to take my trip there some other time. To be honest I've been to Exeter several times, the goal was more about making time to visit Ann this year.

Luckily though another goal was to take a day trip to Oxford which happens to be pretty close to where Ann lives... So I've switched it up a bit and jumped in the car a few weeks ago to go and visit her. 

First off getting there was not straight forward as the road into her village was closed. I ended up driving around in circles for about 25 minutes trying to follow the really poorly signed diversion, which kept bringing me out at dead ends because the roads were shut. Eventually I found myself in a village I recognised and figured it out from there, but it was pretty stressful! Don't you just adore living in England with our crap tiny roads and love of shutting important things (like ROADS) on Sundays?

The village Ann lives in is lucky enough to have it's own station so we jumped straight on the train to Oxford. I've always wanted to visit and I've got no idea why I haven't already when it really isn't that far from where I live. 

We were also so lucky with the weather and had glorious sunshine for the whole day. The forecast had said it was going to rain so I was totally not dressed for the sun, but isn't that the fun of a day trip to somewhere in Britain, being unprepared for the weather?

So we spent most of our trip just wandering about and looking at all the spires and listening to the bells tolling. When I got home and looked at my phone we had walked nearly 12km! No wonder it felt like we did a fair chunk of walking. Top tip, if you're planning a trip to Oxford, where flat and comfortable shoes. The city is small and flat and every thing is in walking distance so you will do a lot of walking about.

We went to visit Brasenose College which is where one of best friends is at uni. It is quite literally a whole world away from the gross pebbledashed building (that used to be a hostel) next door to the city crematorium that I lived in when I was in halls at uni. Shout out to any Bencraft people who might read this (you know you'd rather be from Bencraft). Our halls may have been rank to look at it but the people in there made up for it <3

For real though, it actually looks like a magical place to live and study with all the amazing old buildings. With the one exception of the Earth Science building which is this horrible new modern construction, that does not jive with the rest of the city in my opinion. Thankfully I'm not clever enough to get into Oxford because imagine being SO DISAPPOINTED when you arrived and then found out your lectures were in the only ugly building in the whole damn city. 

For lunch we went to M&S and grabbed some picnic food before heading to Christ Church meadow to sit under a shady tree. We sat here for ages chatting and watching the world go by. If you take a trip here and it's a nice day I would highly recommend doing this. Heck be more organised than us and pack yourself a picnic because the meadow is gorgeous and it's a great spot to really soak up the atmosphere.

We spent most of the afternoon exploring the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. This was rather like visiting an excellent, scaled down version of the Natural History Museum, which I love but there is SO much to see, it's hard to squeeze everything in. 

My favorite part was looking at their fossil and mineral collections as it was pretty extensive and they had some really cool exhibits (geology nerd over here). The best part was that it was free as I'm really trying to watch my spending at the moment so it was kind on the wallet too. 

It was such a lovely day and so nice to just spend so many hours wandering about with one of my oldest friends and have a chance for a really great catch up.

Oxford, I love you. I'll be coming back! Let me know if you have any tips of places that I should visit or eat at on my next trip there!
 

30 Things I don't miss about being at university

Yes this really was me at uni.

With spring approaching that can only mean one thing: graduation is creeping ever closer. Alongside dissertation deadlines, final exams and job hunting. 

But, it’s not all doom and gloom. If you’re being really honest with yourself there are some things about student life that are less than ideal and that you’re probably looking forward to leaving behind by now. 

It’s been almost a year since I handed in my dissertation and effectively finished my degree so here are the things I definitely DON’T miss about student life and chances are you won’t either.

1. Being hungover approximately 4 days out of every 7.
2. The sad empty feeling that you’ve wasted a whole day without achieving anything because said hangover prevented you from going to your lectures.
3. Revision. Nothing else needs saying.
4. Lecturers who don’t reply to your emails.
5. When you zone out for a few minutes in a lecture while you contemplate how you can possibly survive on the £8.27 left in your bank account and then suddenly realise you’ve got zero clue what the lecturer’s talking about.
6. Spending £300 a year of precious money in order to spend 2 hours a day on a bus.
7. The feeling of panic when you get your results emailed to you later than everyone else.
8. The anxiety of having to open the email when it does arrive and actually read your results.
9. You are surrounded by people who have exactly the same problems as you (same deadlines, same exams etc.) so EVERYTHING is a drama.
10. Having to listen to people trying to one up each other on how much time they spent in the library.
11. Never being able to get a seat in the library because of the people who seem to have just moved in.
12. Living in a damp, mouldy house with a bunch of twats.
13. Cleaning up after you stupidly decided to have pre-drinks at your house the night before.
14. People who eat your food.
15. Constantly getting threatening letters from the TV licensing people. WE DON’T EVEN HAVE A TV.
16. Working solidly through your holidays so you can afford to live.
17. The sick feeling you get from knowing you have a big piece of work to do.
18. Fresher reps. They can fuck off.
19. Spending 4 hours straight in lectures listening to someone read off the slide which you could have done from your bed.
20. The crushing feeling when you’ve worked really hard on something and get a lower mark than you hoped for.
21. Friends of your flatmates who move in and won’t leave.
22. Being too scared to ever take a bath because it’s so filthy you’ve got no idea where to even start cleaning it.
23. Physically dragging yourself into uni after a tearful all-nighter to submit a paper because the lecturer won’t use turnitin.
24. Lying awake the night before your exam unable to sleep because there are drunk students outside your window who’ve already finished their exams.
25. Owning one chipped wine glass and one washed out Nutella jar glass.
26. Getting into a passive aggressive war over whose turn it is to take the recycling out.
27. Refusing to give in when playing Bin Jenga.
28. Surviving on a diet of toasted sandwiches, cold dominos and questionable things from cans.
29. Meeting sports societies out drinking together on a night out and having to endure their rowdy and obnoxious behaviour.
30. The never ending ‘what am I going to do with my life’ crisis.

Leaving uni was scary, there’s no getting around it but at least none of these things irritate me on a daily basis anymore!