Chester Zoo Day

Today Scott and I went to Chester Zoo and we had a wonderful time! We last went over a year ago and thought it would be something fun to do before i go back to uni next week. As you all can probably tell, I'm a little bit in love with animals, so the Zoo has always been one of my favourite days out.

Firstly we saw the elephants, They're one of my favourite animals at the Zoo, the way they plod slowly around and do little funny things. What made them extra special this time was that there was a little baby Elephant which had recently been born. He was so adorable and I spent a good 20 minutes just gawping at how cute he was!

He's so tiny in comparison to his mum!

I know I shouldn't say it, but I really love this picture of us both :) 

I really like the spectacled bears at the Zoo, but the last time, and this time they haven't been there! :( However, Scott decided to cheer me up and we both had a got at being speccy :) The problem is.... Scott can do it really well and i'm awful!

My fingers are just too small :/

I poked my self in the eye and snotted a little. The glamorous adventures we have!!! Again so flattering...

This is our hand comparison. No wonder I can't blooming do it :P

I loved these orange mushroom/fungus' growing on a log in the zoo. The colour was so vivid.

This is my awesome Satchel I got for my Birthday last month. I'm in love with it, however I'm used to having a small bag and not carrying much around but Scott now takes advantage and stuffs things in it :P But its really nice having a proper leather satchel. (Cambridge Satchel company). As i've had my cheapy version H&M one for a year now and wishing for this :) 

Flamingo's are also a favorutie of mine! They're colour is just so random compared to all the other aniamls ! Also they remind me of the plastic ones that are stereotypically in American people gardens. i really want a plastuic one too actually... but anyway! They also amuse me when they stand on one leg?! Why do they do that?!

Here's my imitation of the flamingo's ;)

I bought a 'grabber' in the shape of a flamingo form the gift shop. I've always LOVED grabbers, and they've always been my toy of choice in zoo's/ aquariums since I was young. Here is Seabear looking rather confused by the contraption. I wanted to take her to the Zoo and even googled 'Can you take dogs to the zoo' but unfortunately you can't.

Scott and the flamingo :)

The penguins are also awesome, but hard to take pictures of as they don't stand still for two minutes. Also I was a complete dope and had my camera on the wrong setting for half the walk round so I apologise for the poor photography this time!

Scott likes reading all the plaques! I liked this one showing the skulls of the zebras.

Finally the butterflies! They're very pretty but my camera steamed up in their enclosure with condensation so I couldn't take pictures. I had to use my phone which worked better than anticipated :) i'd really recommend the Zoo for a day our with families, boyfriends etc as we both thoroughly enjoyed it! 

Christmas on Instagram

Here are just a few pics from my instagram account! I'm still rather a little obsessed with Instagram and find myself taking pictures too often with it. My profile is 'BETH2852' if you're curious :)

 I was making cranberry sauce in the first two pictures, fruity curry in the bottom right and stuffing for christmas day, bottom left.

 Scott and I went to the christmas market in Manchester again this year. The mosaic floor is in the town hall, and Scotts in front of the market and town hall. Below is Alfred my cat and Seabear my lazy doggy!

Scott and I over Christmas, and below a Christmas wreath from Manchester, and to the right the most incredible english breakfast we made a couple of days after christmas.

Hoover damn (or maybe not)

There is a special lake in North Wales where Seabear first learnt to swim. She was a young puppy and a little afraid of swimming until one day when we visited this particular lake over ten years ago with my mum and dad. There was a hoover that was dumped in the middle of the lake, Seabear caught a glimpse of it and made her way swimming to the middle of the lake in an attempt to retrieve this plastic yellow hoover. Unfortunately it fell over as she tried to pull it and she had to return to shore empty handed, however she was now no longer afraid of swimming and it is now one of my favourite places to take her, and my other dog Ella, back to.  My dad then coined the name 'hoover damn/ hoover lake' which we all find quite amusing. It's real name is 'Llyn Du Bach' which is little black lake for those who don't know Welsh!

Yesterday Scott and I went to this lovely lake for a picnic and a walk with the doggies :) It's quite far from the nearest village and people etc and there are usually lots of interesting things to discover from bones to plants and sometimes frogspawn in the right season!

We had a lovely picnic with bacon, cheddar, chutney and cucumber sandwiches, satsumas, pepsi max, Pringles and mini Toblerones for dessert. Classy I know but delicious :)  I'm really getting into my photography at the minute, just as a hobby and for fun, but I just fond it some wonderful to take photos and look back at them to remind myself of all the interesting places I go, what yummy things I ate and the interesting plants and things I find along the way! I wore my standard farmer wellies,.. It was so swampy and wet and windy - I wore to raincoats to try to keep the wind out!There were a ridiculous amount of bones (i'm assuming sheep) which I enjoyed looking at, and tried to keep the dogs from sting :/ I 

 This is a particularly unattractive photo, but it sums up how we were feeling, a mixture of happiness, excitement and a face full of bitterly cold wind! I also look a little like Wallace and Grommet!

     It was that windy Seabear's ears were flying back in the wind :)

    Scott and Ella.

 Seabear :) Happy to be back in her lake!

I was holding hands with Scott and didn't realise for a while that I'd been splashing mud onto him from my wellies.. woops :) 

My faithful car Fester the fiesta!


And lastly Scott lifting a very wet and tired Bear into the car as she didn't have enough energy to jump up herself!

Christmas, Turkey and family photographs

Christmas Agiain!It's been and gone and it's been so lovely seeing all my family, friends, animals etc! I've eaten way too much as per, but it's all been worth it :)

Here was our delicious Turkey that we had for Christmas day, it's 15lb and is was ridiculously heavy, and had an impressive coloured skin this year which always makes it

look beautiful.

My Christmas dinner :) Turkey and all the trimmings! All home made of ccourse, even the cranberry sauce ! We never make our own Chistmas pudding though, so many thats something to think about for next year.

I had a wonderful new Instax Fuji film camera which I'M IN LOVE WITH.  I already have a Polaroid and Canon camera which are my old faithfuls and I couldn't live without, but I felt it was time to get a newer Polaroid as the price of the old film is ridiculous now Polaroid have stopped making the film.
Here are a few snaps I've taken so far :)

Scott and I in hats playing card games with my family. it's a little blurred as I was just figuring out all the buttons and angles etc.

The Clough's! My mums side of the family always come over just after Christmas as it's my Grandmas Birthday shortly after. It's such a wonderful time full of card games, cheese and a heck of a lot of competitive treasure hunting...

more of my family with the fujifilm camera. I will do a blog post soon about the camera in more detail, as it's an awesome camera to have. And now fuelling my photography hobby!

Lastly my Dads side of the family who all come for bacon butties of Christmas morning :)
I hope you all had a fab Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year !!!!

Christmas Lights

Scott and I stumbled across this awesome house in Rhyd Uchaf, North Wales with tons and tons of vintage christmas light fixtures! I'm a real sucker for anything that lights up, neon signs, fairy lights, lava lamps etc so these were right up my street. Yes maybe a little excessive, but it was so pretty to look at and a really exciting thing to find as we were just having a casual drive down this quiet country lane ( In the middle of nowhere) after a lovely walk with the dogs. They leave them up all year and you can leave a donation for charity when visiting.

 Fortunately they had this sign letting us go into their garden to have a proper look which I thought was really kind of them!

 This os my Christmas wooly jumper which Scott has 'acquired' this year ;)

There were lot of nativity themed plastic lights, I especially like the sheep, reindeer and santa!!!

 Next time we will definatly g at night time when the effect is in full, but even still it was worth going :)

Gingerbread House Building

Gingerbread house making! My mums lovely friedn Cath had a special evening in our tearoom for mums and daughters to decorate a gingerbread house, unfortunatly I hadnt come back from uni in time and I missed out, so she was kind enough to leave me some bits and peices so i coud have a go when i got home :)

I used smarties, jellytots and gummy bears!

The icing is Royal icing and it sets and acts like a glue to stick the gingerbread house together and help stick on decorations.  Recipe Here

It was a little rushed and aI had a little accident with the icing and spilt it on the front (hence the white smudges) but it was a fun little project when I got home - One which Scott later enjoyed devouring...

The doggies were also eying up the gingerbread House!!

You can get gingerbread house making kits from Lakeland with the walls/roof etc made already and even little icing people ready to stick on.