Today the Beast from the East returns! Jared has been telling me all week that it was going to snow this weekend. I was listening but I was just like 'yeah that's nice, it's not really going to snow again'. 

Even when it started snowing yesterday and we had a small dusting I didn't think we were going to get anymore than that. So when I woke up this morning to a good couple of inches of snow I was pretty surprised!

When it snowed a few weeks ago, it was so cold and the wind so strong that it was a battle just to walk up to my parents house (through waist high drifts), look after the horses and wade back through the drifts home again. I didn't have the energy for enjoying the snow other than a brief snowball fight. 

So today we have actually had fun with it. I've been up to my parents house and we have done something we haven't done since we were kids. We went what we like to call Bonneting. Sounds mad? That's cos it is. 

We have the bonnet off of one of our old cars that we hitch up with a long piece of rope to whatever vehicle we have capable of towing it, take it out into the field and it makes an excellent sled. 

Then you basically go donuting in the 4x4 and swing the bonnet at high speed. It sounds crazy but its incredibly fun. The more you do it, the more you flatten the snow like an ice rink and the faster you go. 

So that's what we like to do when it snows, regular sledding is too dull. Gotta make the most of that farm life ;)

When we finally came back inside to warm up my sister made us hot chocolate (have I mentioned her hot chocolate is the stuff of legend?) and cookies to warm up with. Mmmmmnnn.

Now I plan to spend the rest of my Sunday relaxing while I get over the illness that has bugged me for the past few days ready to start the rest of the week. 

Hope you're also enjoying the snow! 

Thanks to my Mum and Tiggy for the pictures :)

Preparing for your Independent Mapping Project

If you're an undergrad Geology student, chances are you've been hearing people banging on about your Independent Mapping Project from the moment you downloaded the course prospectus.

Now that you're in the last semester of your second year and you're finally staring it in the face, it's time to start preparing for what will undoubtedly be one of the toughest challenges you've ever faced.

Don't listen to students in the year above you who tell you how awesome it was and all of their clutch-your-sides-from-laughing stories. They're lying to you. The same way women who've had children tell first time mums that you forget all the pain once you hold your baby for the first time. That's a tactful way of saying that labour and birth really does hurt like a motherfucker, it's just worth it in the end.

Same with mapping. It is HARD (although probably not quite as hard as childbirth but you get my point). But you too will survive it and become one of those asshole third years who regale innocent second years with hilarious stories and conveniently miss out how the daily grind can wear you down.

So here are my tips to make sure you're well prepared!

1. Start your prep early

By that I mean do not leave it until you only have a few weeks to go to start making arrangements. Ideally you need to start 6 months before you leave.

Probably one of the few days where it wasn't raining :D

2. Consider your choice of mapping partner carefully

In my opinion this can be the most critical decision you make. You will spend eight hours a day with them for 6 weeks. Just the two of you alone. Chances are you will probably be living with them too and you are quite likely to be sharing a room together too. My mapping partner and I even had to share a double bed for 6 weeks. Plus we had four fabulous days cooped up in a car together traveling to Scotland and back. Luckily we managed it all without a cross word.

How did we do this? We mapped together before and we were good friends. We approached our mapping as a partnership and we were a team. The project itself might be 'independent' but you and your mapping partner MUST be on board. You have to make lots of little decisions together daily.

Where are we going today? Whats our plan? What are we trying to achieve? Try and pick someone with a similar level of physical ability to yourself. My mapping partner was fitter than I was and I had to push myself to keep up with her pace but overall we were reasonably equally matched. Especially by the end of the trip. If you have different attitudes about wanting to scramble up vertical cliff faces to reach an interesting outcrop or climb an actual mountain daily then you might be in for a conflict filled 6 weeks.

Plus you will need to take days off. Nobody can map for 30 days straight without going insane. So you need to be able to have a laugh together when you're not working.

My top tips? Pick someone who is a good friend, understands you, has a similar work ethic and fitness level and try to map together beforehand as a practice run.

Better to find out halfway through a week long field trip they're driving you nuts than when you're on day 10 in the pissing rain and you're contemplating pushing them in a river.

Our holiday cottage that we rented, complete with hot tub ;)

3. Book your accommodation asap

As soon as you know where you are going and how many of you are going, book your accommodation STRAIGHT AWAY. Chances are you will be mapping during the summer holidays, which is peak tourist season for just about everywhere you could possibly go.

As a result, accommodation gets booked up fast. Especially when you want to book it out for 6 weeks at a time.

Try and negotiate a lower price as you will be staying for a lengthy period as high summer tends to command peak prices. If you are mapping somewhere popular like I did (the Isle of Skye has been the training ground for generations of geologists), then you may find that lots of cottage owners are very used to geology students.

The owners of the cottage we stayed in rent to geologists for the majority of the summer. As soon as one group leaves, the next one arrives. One of the best places for a recommendation is to ask the students who went the year before you and see if they can put you in touch with someone.

You will be stuck behind a campervan 98% of the time

4. Make your travel arrangements

Think seriously about how you are going to get to your mapping area. And I don't just mean from where you go to uni to whatever far flung location the uni have chosen for you to map in, but also how you will get from your accommodation to your mapping area.  

For some groups from my uni this was simple as everything was walking distance. Not so for us. My mapping partner and I had a 45 min commute each way along terrifying single track, sheep filled highland roads. A car was 100% essential for us in Skye. Taking a car can have it's pros and cons. It cost us an absolute fortune in fuel, but it became our safe haven. Sitting in it shivering with the heating on full blast and watching the rain lash down is one of my fondest memories of Skye.

So think about your travel arrangements and get planning them as soon as you know where you are staying.

5. Create and print your field slips well in advance

If your uni wants you to do this yourself then do it well ahead of time. Do not leave it to two days before departure like I did. It took me a whole day to make them and it was incredibly stressful.

Get ahead of the game and do this when you have lots of time to tackle it calmly. The finished result will be better too.

6. Make copies

Print off at least one spare copy of your field slips and leave them at your accommodation. If a gust of wind happens to catch your field slip and send it off somewhere irretrievable you will be incredibly grateful you had the foresight to make a spare.

Everyone's boots drying by the fire. My Brashers on the right stuffed with newspaper and away from the heat because I was stupid enough to put my foot in a bog that day

7. Seriously consider some new walking boots

My lecturer said she would recommend we all bought a pair of full grain leather boots to take to Skye with us and to avoid anything with Goretex as they don't keep your feet dry for long.

I listened to her and splashed out on a new pair of Brasher full leather walking boots as my current pair at the time were a pair of Regatta ones I fished out of a bargain bin at an outdoor discount store and paid £5.99 for. They had lasted me well but were starting to fall apart and they were made of goretex.

This was the best piece of advice I ever listened to. Unless I actually submerged my foot in a bog (which I did do several times) my feet were dry throughout the trip. I still have the boots and they're still fantastic. Everyone else on the trip had very good quality boots but they weren't full leather and they all had wet feet at the end of each day. Quite a few peoples boots were ruined by the end of it and they ended up replacing them anyway.  

If you are going mapping anywhere in the UK I suggest you do the same. You will be forever grateful. The few days I did have wet feet were utterly miserable and this is avoidable (as long as you watch where you are putting your feet). Make sure they are thoroughly worn in before you go.

Although Brasher don't seem to still sell the pair I have these ones looks quite similar. 

People aren't exaggerating when they say the midges can be really bad in Skye

8.  Purchase any additional kit you need

What you need exactly will be specific to where you are going but if you are mapping in Skye get yourself a decent midge hat, midge repellent, good quality waterproof trousers and a proper coat. A weather writer is an absolute must if you don't already have one.

If you are going somewhere hot you will obviously need different kit. Chat to your lecturer who is running the trip and the students who went the year before. They will tell you what will be helpful.

9. Check your existing kit

Check you have it all, it still works and replace anything if needed. Make sure you have enough notebooks.

If you are mapping in the UK you must be prepared for all weathers. We had a three day heatwave (that lasted three weeks back home) and we both got completely sun burnt as we were caught off guard. 

Pack sun cream, even if you're going to the Hebrides. You just don't know what the weather will do!

10. Check if there is a BGS map available

Or the local equivalent if you are off abroad. The BGS maps aren't done in the same scale but they are a valuable resource that can be used.

Bear in mind that they are also just someone's interpretation and may not be completely accurate...

11. Photo copy and laminate useful reference material

If there is some useful info you think might help you in the field (log keys, relevant section of the BGS map, rock descriptions etc) then photocopy them and laminate them. Keep them in the back of your weather writer.

They can be extremely useful in the field when you just want to check something for reference as chances are you won't have any phone reception.

12. Order any prescriptions you need well in advance

It's no good running out while you're out there. You could be mapping somewhere extremely rural or even in a different country, which could make getting your medication extremely difficult. Try to make sure you have enough to last you.

Ladies, if you are taking a contraceptive pill I would recommend taking it back to back while you map to avoid the hassle and aggravation of being on your period. Chances are there is nowhere to even have a wee in comfort let alone change a tampon. It is completely fine to take more than one strip back to back too. Ask your doctor if you're not sure.

13. Try to do some reading around the subject

Find some books and reference material to read before you go. If you find anything useful print it off and take it with you. 

14. Chat to the students in the year above

They will be your greatest resource for help. This is particularly true once you get back and you're struggling to interpret your results.

They've been there and done it before so don't be afraid to ask them for advice. Just take all anecdotes with a pinch of salt, as 30 days of staring at rocks is enough to make anyone a little bit loopy.

Things that have made me happy this week

The past few weeks haven't been the best for me, it seems like everything is going wrong! But I think it's important to remember there's still things to happy about.

1. It's getting noticeably lighter.

It feels like the winter solstice was forever ago but it finally seems like it is starting to get a bit lighter. Like most people I leave for work when it's dark and don't get home until it's properly dark again. It can get very depressing and I get quite frustrated that I spend all my daylight hours in an office. But I've noticed that it's no longer completely pitch black when I leave work.

Summer is creeping a bit closer every day!

2. Cadbury's hot chocolate.

I had forgotten how amazing this is with real milk. I've had a few mugs of this in the evening recently when it's been cold and miserable outside. I haven't had it for years and it always cheers me up. It's so much richer and creamier than the stuff you make with boiling water. A swirl of salted caramel added to it makes it even nicer ;)

3. Our cat.

Every morning when I get up she's waiting outside my door ready to come and get into bed with me for cuddles. I look forward to it every day.

She wasn't very well before Christmas and it made me so sad to see her looking so unhappy and ill. I'm so glad she seems to have recovered and is back to her old self.

4. My part time studying is going well.

I'm currently studying part time alongside working and it's been going well this week. I'm nearly halfway through the course. I'm actually ahead of schedule at the moment which is nice because it makes me feel like I have enough time to take things at the pace I need to. 

Going back to studying after a break is tricky, particularly as I've never studied this sort of material before. 

Now I need to keep the momentum going!

5. Cookie dough.

Over Christmas I made two batches of chocolate orange cookies and froze them ready for when I had a cookie craving. 

I was feeling a little low and craving something sweet so I dug these out of the freezer.

They were so so good and they were ready in 15 minutes. I'm glad I've still got the other batch ready for when I need another cookie hit...

Is there anything that has made you happy this week? It's always good to try and appreciate the little things!

Interiors - Bedroom wishlist

Now that we have finally moved into our new house I can finally get excited about furnishing and decorating it how we want.

This is my current wish list of items to decorate our bedroom with. We have quite a neutral colour scheme in our bedroom with lots of natural wood and I think these items would go well with what we already have.

Clockwise from top left

1. Set of two copper wire baskets - ASDA - £6.00

2. Bayliss & Harding Prosecco Fizz candle - Tesco - £10.00

3. 230 Thread Count Non Iron Egyptian Cotton Bed Linen - M&S - £2.99 - £59.99

4. Medium Gold & Glass Mirrored Tray - Oliver Bonas - £12.00

5. Ananas Cushion in Cloud - Elizabeth Scarlett - £50.00

6. Saskia Trinket Dish - Oliver Bonas - £9.50 

7. Albus Twisted Table Lamp - John Lewis - £40.00 

8. Coco Chanel Gold Foil Art Print - Etsy - PeachAndGold - £7.27

9. Succulent Planters - Etsy - InGaConcrete - £5.81

10. English Pear & Freesia Home Candle - Jo Malone - £45.00

11. Iona Small Table Lamp in Grey - John Lewis - £40.00 

12. Herringbone Patterned Blanket in Dusky Pink - £34.99 

Now to just save the money to buy it all ;)

2018 Goals

As I mentioned in my previous post, 2017 has been an amazing year and I've achieved so much more than I thought I could when I made my 2017 goals.

I didn't manage all of them, but some of them I smashed out of the park so that makes up for it ;)

Money Goals

1. Replenish our savings

As I'm sure you can imagine buying our house has taken its toll on our savings so this year I want to try and help them recover a bit so we have a more adequate rainy day fund. 

2. Repay Kiera

My sister very kindly lent me some money to buy my new carriage when I had none. I have paid her back more than half now but this year I want the debt to be finally wiped out. 

3. Save enough for some sort of mini break

We might manage this or we might not as we have other priorities for our money but it would be good if we could manage a weekend away somewhere this year. 

Travel

4. Visit Rome

This was actually one of my 2016 goals and this year we are definitely making it happen because it's all already booked! 

Jared and I are going to Rome in late April for our five year anniversary. 

I've always wanted to go back and explore more and I'm really excited about it. Jared's Mum very kindly bought me a guide book for Christmas so looking forward to putting that to good use.

5.  Visit more local attractions on our doorstep

We made a good start on this in 2017 but there are lots more places to see in the immediate area that we live in. I want to make an effort to visit these before we head further afield. 

Development

6. Pass my first financial exam

This is a big one for me this year as I am back to studying. I am officially a student again and have a NUS card to prove it. 

I am sitting my first CII qualification and have started studying for the first module. I am aiming to pass this as soon as possible so hopefully I can get back to studying in the New Year.

Blogging

7. Sort out my domain name

I have actually owned the domain name for this blog for years but because I'm not very good with computers I haven't managed to successfully set it up.

This year I want to get this sorted as I think it will make my blog a little nicer, plus I am currently paying for something I'm not using which is daft.

8. Create some categories

I want to change the layout of my blog a little and make it easier to navigate. As I'm not the most tech savvy person in the world I'm not sure if I'll be able to manage this but I want to give it a go!

Home and Lifestyle

9. Spruce up the outside of the house

Now that we have redecorated the inside of our house, I want to give a bit of attention to the exterior. 

Our windows and fascias need repainting and I'd like to improve the garden a bit.

I've thought of a few small and easily achievable ideas that I'd like to try, more on that at a later date!

10. Grow more stuff

I've always loved growing things and I spend many happy hours in the garden with my mum and grandmothers as a child. 

As I've got older I always try and grow something at home, but I'm always a bit half hearted with it. 

Now that Jared and I have our own house I want to try and grow a few new things I haven't tried before. Thanks to Cider With Rosie for sharing her veg growing excitement and inspiring me to continue with my old lady hobbies ;)

2017 - The Highlights

2017 has been a momentous year for me. So much has happened that I never expected and there have been times that have severely tested my mental strength and resolve.

I'm actually quite sad that this year is over, but looking forward to what 2018 brings.

1. We bought our first house!

This is obviously the biggest and most important thing that has happened to me this year (just in case I haven't gone on about it enough yet on this blog). 

Owning my own home has been my number one goal for a very long time, so to finally achieve it feels amazing. I've written quite a lot on here about how it hasn't really sunk in yet that this space is now mine and I can do what I want with it, which I wasn't expecting to feel like. I thought it would me immediate and I would instantly feel like it was mine but its actually taking a long time.

I am loving buying all the little bits that make it ours (my bank balance is probably loving this a lot less) and seeing it start to come together. 

Without a doubt this is one of my proudest achievements ever as Jared and I have done this by ourselves after a lot of hard work. 

It is nice to finally be able to enjoy that hard work and sit back and relax in our own home.

2. I started a new job

I started 2017 determined to find myself a new job where I could push myself a bit harder and learn more about the industry I work in.

It took me a while to find somewhere that was the right fit, but I absolutely love my new job. My new role is more challenging and the company I now work for is keen for me to develop professionally which is all I ever wanted.

While it was a steep learning curve initially I feel that I have started to find my feet now and am looking forward to continuing this next year.

Timing wise, my new job wasn't brilliant as I signed the contract just days before we had our offer accepted on our new house. This complicated our mortgage application but it all worked out in the end so it was worth chancing it. 

3. Visiting Norway

It's hard to believe that this trip was already almost a year ago but I absolutely ADORED Norway. 

I've never visited a country before and thought 'Yep, I could live here pretty happily'. It was such an  incredible family holiday and we still talk about it all the time. 

Seeing the Northern Lights, going snowmobiling and husky sledding... all things I've always wanted to do. Not to mention Norway's incredible landscape. 

Now I want to go back and kayak under the Midnight Sun, see more of the fjords and experience the landscape in a different season. 

4. I wrote my first sponsored post

This year I wrote my first sponsored post as for the first time I was offered a collaboration that I was genuinely interested in. 

I've been writing this blog a long time and it was nice to see it finally pay off in some small way.

5. Completing our redecorating project

Buying a house has meant we have had to learn how to do many new things and that includes decorating. When we got the keys we decided to repaint the vast majority of the house.

A pretty ambitious project for two 23 year olds who have never done anything of the sort to complete on their own. 

It took us three weeks of every evening and weekend (plus a few days off work for Jared) to get it done but it was so worth it. 

The house now looks how we want it to and although we have a tight budget we have made it our own.

I'm really proud of how it looks and can't wait to continue improving the remaining rooms and garden next year.

6. The support from family and friends 

I have been absolutely blown away this year by the continuous support we have had from our family and close friends. Buying this house was the most stressful thing I've ever done and I could never have done it without their help.

My parents especially deserve a huge thank you as they supported me through all the ups and downs that happened over the six months it took from viewing the house to getting the keys.

On top of that they have very kindly donated to us all sorts of furniture and appliances, which has dramatically reduced how much we have had to buy.

In fact, all sorts of people came out of the woodwork to donate or very kindly buy us useful gifts for our new house. As a result we have bought hardly anything new and we are incredibly grateful to everyone who has helped us. 

If any of these people are reading this, thank you so much. It really has made all the difference to us and we've been overwhelmed by everyone's kindness. 

To quote Bridget Jones: An excellent years progress. 

Moving into our New House

Ok everyone I have an announcement to make: Jared and I have finally moved into our new house!

We finally moved in on the 28^th October and I hope you’ll forgive me for taking so long to write this post. As I’m sure you can imagine, it’s been pretty hectic and I haven’t had time to do anything other than work on the house. 

We celebrated our first night with a picnic on the floor because we were too tired to cook. It was a pretty sweet meal though, knowing all our hard work was worth it in the end. 

By the time this post goes live, we will be returning from a trip to Birmingham to collect Jared’s stuff from his parents house. This is our final phase of moving stuff and then we can finally consider ourselves settled.

So we spent a week moving our stuff very slowly each evening, one car load of stuff at a time. Eventually we only had the absolute essentials at my parents house. By Friday evening my room only had my bed and my empty wardrobe left it in. It looked like I had just moved in, rather than moved out.

That was the worst part as I felt all over the place and quite emotional about the huge change that was about to take place. I was desperate to just get on with it as I knew it would be fine once I actually moved. It finally dawned on me how a big a moment this was and how permanent this would be.

On Saturday Jared and I took our bed apart and reassembled it in our new room. My Dad very kindly helped up move my wardrobe and mattress and did all manner of small jobs like helping put up curtain poles and installing our new cooker (thank you Daddy, you're the best).

It was all going so swimmingly until we started to reassemble our TV. Jared’s sister very kindly gave us our TV for free just after we graduated last summer. She had bought it second hand at uni and then moved to a house where it wouldn’t fit. Although a 50 inch plasma looked ridiculous in my bedroom at my parents house, I can’t afford to turn down a free TV. It worked fine but the only downside was the stand that it came with. Not only was it ugly but it didn’t seem sturdy enough to hold the weight. But the previous owner had removed all the attachments you needed to fix an alternative.

On top of all of it’s other negatives, the stand was also a right faff to take apart and put together. After an hour of aggravating messing about, the TV was finally back on its stand in our new house. At which point there was an almighty crash as the TV fell off onto the glass stand which shattered into millions of tiny shards. To cap it all the TV landed on a leg from the stand and smashed the screen. Pretty disastrous all round.

It took us an hour to carefully pick up all the tiny pieces of glass and hoover the whole room. At which point we discovered that it wasn’t our fault that it happened. The metal bracket on the TV had physically sheared off, causing the TV to fall. So it was basically an accident waiting to happen and I’m mostly grateful it didn’t fall on anyone. 

My parents very kindly let us borrow their TV from their bedroom (after they had finished laughing), while we waited for our new one to arrive. As we didn't have a stand now that our old one was in a million pieces we had to improvise! 

The plus side is we now have a lovely new 4K 50 inch Samsung and it is so so nice *inserts heart eyed emoji*! Watching Blue Planet 2 on it is pretty out of this world compared to our old one.

Our spare room is still an absolute mess and will only get worse once we bring all of Jared's stuff back from Birmingham. But I'm just calling it a work in progress ;)

The best thing is that our cat Boo is now feeling settled and at home here. I love her being here as it reminds me of home and it's hard to feel stressed when a cat is asleep on your lap.

Actually living here feels very strange and although all of our stuff is here and we both feel comfortable, it doesn't yet feel like home. It feels like we're staying in a holiday cottage for a few weeks and then we'll be going back to my parents house. I guess that will change with time as we get used to it. 

If you have any tips for making a new place feel like home, let me know!