♡ iyastevie ♡: harry potter studio tour

♥ My 2017 Highlights!

2017 has been one hell of a year hasn't it? A lot has happened this year, over the whole world! I thought I would reflect on the highlights of my 2017 and let you all in on what I have enjoyed this year.

2017 was the year that I finally attended a LUSH bloggers event! I was so super excited and honoured to have been invited, I couldn't quite believe it! It was so nice to have a sneaky peak look at the Easter products and be able to choose a couple to take home! It was nice to have one on one time with the staff, to discuss what we liked about the new products and a gossip about all things LUSH! It was also really nice to meet some other bloggers who live in my area, although most of them were mainly all about make up, it was still nice to know there are other bloggers around!

After being a Harry Potter fan since I was a very small child, growing up reading the books and watching the films and spending years wanting to go, really really wanting to go to the Warner Brothers Studio Tour, I still find it quite hard to believe that I finally got to go. This has been on my bucket list since the studio opened back in 2012. I thought I was never going to get there as prices to travel that far down the country from where I live are so expensive. I thought I was never going to see the home of Harry Potter, where the cast spent the majority of their time, working and learning. Finally being able to see it all with my own eyes is something that I will never forget. I was in awe the entire day at how amazing they had made the studio, how many Harry Potter artifacts were right there in front of me, the real props that were used in the films. I was so emotional that day, I nearly cried at least 5 times! I would go back in a heart beat! This day was easily one of the best days of my life.

Photo credit - Google Images

After leaving sixth form in 2012 and deciding that I didn't want to go to university to study Photography like I had originally planned, I spent the next four years in and out of temporary employment. I was very lucky in those four years to never be unemployed for more than a week or two in-between jobs, but I hated the uncertainty of not having a job at the end of the month, living on a four hour a week pay check and that one time I received my P45 in the post before my manager told me I wasn't going to have my contract extended. It caused me a lot of stress and made my anxiety go through the roof. I had a long term job in the civil service and I found where I wanted to be. I loved office work and I really enjoyed working as part of the government, I felt like my job had purpose and it was so much better than size ordering t-shirts in a retail job. I applied for a permanent position in a different part of the government in the summer of 2016 and I found out I had the job in the October. I started in the December of 2016 and I'm not going to lie, I hated it at first. I wanted to leave and go back to my old job, I would come home so miserable and cried quite a lot. It's hard to believe that I felt like that when now, just over a year later, I absolutely love my job! I finally think I have found the job for me and that makes me very happy. Sometimes my job can be a little stressful and I can come home and feel like I just want to curl up in bed and sleep for days as I am so tired, but I am so happy I stuck it out and kept telling myself that everything would be okay! To anybody who is looking for work or is in temporary employment, I know how it feels, I know how shit it is to work your butt off in the hope of being rewarded with a permanent contract or an extension and not feel like you're getting anywhere, but I promise you it will and can only get better! Just stick in at it and you'll soon find your perfect job, just like I did!

I have been wanting to attend the Showcase since the very first one, the thought of all the exclusive products and getting my hands on products early made me so excited! I was finally able to see what all the fuss was about for myself, take all the photos of all the LUSH I could have ever asked for and be surrounded by so many people who share such an immense passion for LUSH, just like I do. Although I was a little disappointed in the Showcase itself, it has to make it to this list for a few reasons. If it wasn't for the Showcase, myself and Reece probably wouldn't have taken the plunge to finally go to London, we'd been talking about it for quite a while but just never found the time or money to actually do it. I had been wanting to go back ever since I first went and as Reece had never been before, I thought it would be the perfect trip for us both. I also got to finally meet a very good friend of mine, Jess (@snapsoflush on Instagram). We had been speaking since the Christmas of 2015, nearly every single day! We'd became really good friends over that time and it was so nice to actually meet in person, spend the day together and chat, sniff and compare all the new LUSH that was coming out! We are definitely going to meet up again and I'm super excited to go to Liverpool as I've never been before! So thank you very much to the Showcase, you may have pissed me off but at least I got to go away with my boyfriend and meet my friend!

Photo credit - Google Images

I very rarely talk about my best friend on my blog, I don't know if she reads my blog posts (I highly doubt she does!) or even knows I have a blog! I have been best friends with my best friend, Lauren, since I can remember. We grew up together, her Nana is my godmother and my Mum used to babysit her Mum when she was younger, it's very confusing, so we just say we're cousins! All my life, Lauren has always been the one person I know I can rely on. Whether I broke up with a boyfriend, had a fight with a friend or had an argument with my parents, I have always known I can call her and she would be right there, just as she knows she can always count on me, whenever she needs me. Lauren has always liked to prank me, so when she told me she was pregnant back in 2015, I honestly didn't believe her until she had a bump. She had little Lacey in March of 2016 and became one of the best mums I have ever known. Lacey is the most adorable little girl I have ever met, shes so super clever and so loving! It's so cute when I walk in and she comes straight for a cuddle! So one of the top highlights of my year has to be my best friend having baby number two! Little Taylor was born at the beginning of October and he is the cutest, cuddliest little man in the world! Seeing my best friend with her children makes me so happy, because I can see that she is happy and that's all I've ever wanted for her! I am so excited to see Lacey and Taylor grow up into the amazing, strong and independent people I know they are going to be, but just not too fast, I want them to stay little and babies forever!

Travelling with Reece is one of my favourite things to do, ever. I love it when we go away for a weekend or a few nights to somewhere we've never been before. I love going exploring a new city together and being alone to do whatever we want, when we want. When we see each other, either I am staying at his family home or he is staying at my family home, and while that isn't an issue at all (I love his family and he fits right in in my house) it is so nice to just have time to ourselves. It's nice to not have to creep about at night and worry you'll wake somebody up, or be home at a certain time because my Mum is cooking our tea. Even if we only go away for the day, I enjoy it so much, us just being left to our own devices. This year, we have visited the Dark Hedges, the Giants Causeway, the Lake District, London, Edinburgh and Belfast. Next year, I want to visit so many more places and possibly even go abroad together! Here's to hoping!

I hope you have all had a very lovely and successful 2017! 2017 has had it low points, but it's also been an overall good year! I am so excited to see where 2018 will take me.. Hopefully to saving for a house!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and all the well wishes in the world for 2018! Thank you for reading this blog post and if you're a frequent reader, thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming back! It means more to me than you will ever know that people take time out of their day to read words that I have written!

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post, it is very appreciated! Make sure to follow so you can see the next time I post! ♥ xo

**Disclaimer: All views, opinions and photos are mine unless otherwise stated**
#2017 Photo credit: Google Images

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, by iyastevie

♥ Our Trip to London

Myself and Reece had been planning to travel to London for a while. We initially decided to go in around April but we postponed the trip as we decided to go later on in the year. As the Creative Showcase was announced for September, I persuaded Reece that we just had to go this time! We planned our trip out pretty well, we booked well in advance, bagging ourselves an apartment for a third of the price that it should have cost and our train fair was nearly half the amount we would normally pay. We also planned out what we would do every day that we were there to ensure that we saw the most of London that we possibly could!

DAY ONE
The first day was mainly travelling as its nearly a four hour journey from Carlisle to London on the train. We had to change trains at Crewe to make the journey quicker and when we finally made it to Euston we had to work out where to purchase our Oyster cards, as we had read online that this was the best way to pay to get around London. If you are planning a trip to London, I really suggest purchasing an Oyster card. You have to pay a £5 deposit for the card and we topped up £25 to do us for the three days, There is a cap price that your Oyster card will be charged on a daily basis to ensure that you are getting the cheapest travel possible. We bounced about between zones one and two our entire trip and we only needed to top up and extra £5 on the last day, just to make sure we had enough money on the card. Once we had got ourselves an Oyster card and topped up, we made our way to Canary Wharf, where our apartment was to check in.

Pictured - Our apartment in Canary Wharf, master bathroom

Pictured - Our apartment in Canary Wharf, master bedroom

Pictured - Our apartment in Canary Wharf, second bedroom

Pictured - Our apartment in Canary Wharf, living room

Pictured - Our apartment in Canary Wharf, kitchen

Pictured - Our apartment in Canary Wharf, en suite

Our apartment was lovely, it was a lot bigger than we anticipated, or even needed! We had a fully functioning kitchen, a living room with a TV, a full bathroom, two bedrooms, one of which had an en-suite and another stand alone toilet. It was a lot bigger than we needed and as nice as it was, I wish we had gotten somewhere a little smaller. Once we had gotten the keys to our apartment, taken a proper look around and taken photos (not only for blogging purposes, but to note what the apartment was like before we spent any time there in case we were charged for something that was already broke etc.) we took ourselves out for a walk. We got the tube to Tower Hill and walked across Tower Bridge. It was a lovely day which I'm glad about as it let us take some lovely photos. We then walked down beside them Thames and crossed over London Bridge and then made our way down to St Paul's Cathedral. It was nice to wander around and stumble upon the city of London.

Pictured - London Bridge

Pictured - Ice cream I bought at London Bridge

Pictured - St Pauls Cathedral

Pictured - Festival Gardens outside St Pauls Cathedral

We made our way back home so I could cook us some tea as we had barely eaten all day. We were both exhausted so made our way to bed, but ended up spending the majority of the night awake sleeping on the couch as I had been creeped out by a group of guys outside the apartment at around midnight and I couldn't rest because of it. Also when you're staying in quite an old house, there are a lot of creaks in the night that we're obviously not used to, so I was on pins the entire night and probably had around an hour and a half sleep all night.

DAY TWO

Our second day in London was mainly dedicated to the Creative Showcase. After spending most of the night awake and terrified, I felt sick to my stomach and Reece literally was. I didn't think we were going to make it out at first, but after a few minutes of fresh air and some water, we both started feeling a bit better and set off to the Showcase. I'm not going to write too much about the Showcase as I have an entire blog post about it which I will link here. I also managed to meet a lovely friend of mine that I met on Instagram through our love of LUSH at the Showcase. After speaking to Jess for nearly a year, it was really lovely to spend the day with her. We've decided we're going to meet up again, myself and Reece will probably travel to Liverpool where she lives as neither of us have visited there before.

Pictured - Christmas Sweater bath bomb at the LUSH Creative Showcase

Pictured - Star Light Star Bright bath bomb melt at the LUSH Creative Showcase

Pictured - Knot Wraps at the LUSH Creative Showcase

Pictured - Starry Night gift set at the LUSH Creative Showcase

After the Showcase, myself, Reece and Jess hopped on the tube and visited LUSH Oxford Street store, the biggest LUSH store in the world, home to many exclusive products and of course, all the available perfumes. I had been dying to go here since it opened and I couldn't quite believe I was finally going there. If I'm going to be 100% honest, I was slightly underwhelmed. All in all, it's just a huge LUSH store isn't it! Now that you can purchase all the 'Oxford Street exclusives,' it kind of took away the magic of visiting, which disappointed me in whole honesty. I would like to go back and have a proper look around when I'm not exhausted, feeling unwell and I've had a proper nights sleep, I feel that way I would really be able to experience visiting Oxford Street in full form.

Pictured - The perfume lounge at LUSH Oxford Street

Pictured - The bath bomb wall at LUSH Oxford Street

Pictured - Snow Fairy at LUSH Oxford Street

Pictured - Bath oils at LUSH Oxford Street

By the time we left Oxford Street, Jess decided to set off back home and we decided to wander about a little bit. I started feeling super ill again and ,y anxiety started to kick in so we made our way back to our apartment. I was annoyed that I didn't feel very well as we had planned to go out for a meal this night and we were unable to. We went back to our apartment with a pizza and watch crappy TV for the rest of the night before finally having a good nights sleep!

DAY THREE

Our third day in London was all about Harry Potter, another experience that I have dedicated a whole blog post to that you can find here. We spent the morning wandering around London a little, visting Covent Garden, which was gorgeous but a bit too expensive and posh for us.

Pictured - Covent Garden

We then went on to Leicester Square where we visited the Lego store, where they had human sized Lego men and a huge Lego Big Ben! It was incredible to see how creative some people can be with tiny pieces of plastic. We then crossed the road over to M&M world, where they have tubes about 7 foot long filled to the brim with sugar coated chocolates for you to purchase. We then carried on walking down to Chinatown, where I really wish we had spent more time. Chinatown was amazing! The shop windows looked so authentically Chinese and the streets smelled amazing with the scents of Chinese food! I would have loved to have stopped here and ate but as we were pushed for time, I made do with a sandwich from Sainsburys!

Pictured - China Town

We then walked into Soho as there was a Harry Potter graphic art exhibition that I had seen online that I had really wanted to visit called House of Minalima. I have also wrote a blog post about visiting there as there was so much to see and I enjoyed it so much. I should be uploading the post in the next couple of weeks. Just before we made it to House of Minalina, we passed the theatre that was showing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, so naturally, I had to stop and snap some photos.

Pictured - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

After visiting Soho, we jumped back on the tube and made our way to Piccadilly Circus. Much to my dismay, it was turned off and covered in board advertisements as there was construction underway on top of the building. At least Reece can say he's been there!

Pictured - Piccadilly Circus

We then went back to Euston and hopped on our train to Watford Junction to go to the Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio Tour. You can hear all about the worrying mess I became about travelling there and see all the photos I took of the sets and props in a blog post here. This was probably my favourite day in London and will take a lot to top seeing what we saw there!

Pictured - Snape and Voldemort at Malfoy Manor

Pictured - The Hogwarts Express

Pictured - Hogwarts

After we spent nearly five hours walking around the Leavesden Studios, we made our way back to our apartment, where I cooked us some chicken curry.

DAY FOUR

Day four was our last day in London and it was a bit bittersweet. I was quite relieved to be going home, but also sad that our trip had came to and end. Just as we were getting used to the bustle of the underground and making our way about, it was time to leave again. We packed up all our stuff and I stripped the beds and emptied the bins (something I always do as I used to be a chambermaid) we locked the door on our apartment for the very last time and set off into the city.

Pictured - Leaving our apartment for the last time

I planned to purchased a locker in Euston station, because as far as I was aware they had lockers available to rent to store your cases, I was wrong. It was going to cost me £25 to store two bags for over three hours and I really just couldn't justify the price. I ended up trailing my suitcase, my tote bag and my rucksack around London with me for the rest of the day. It was torture, my suitcase was super heavy as it was packed to the brim with all the products I had bought at the Showcase and I had all my clothes, my shoes, make up, hair straighteners, hair dryer and so much more crap in my ruck sack and tote bag! That will teach me to buy and over pack!

As the most of the trip had been my decision, I left the final day for Reece to decide what he wanted to do. He chose to visit the Emirates Stadium, the home of Arsenal. I'm not a football fan myself but I couldn't complain when he had trailed around a LUSH convention with me! The stadium tour was actually better than I thought, I managed to find a seat at every point so I could relieve my back from my heavy bags and Reece seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself! After we completed the stadium tour, we were allowed entry into the museum, so we went there next. I walked right and found a bench to park myself at whilst Reece wandered around and took some photos.

Pictured - Emirates Stadium

Once we were finished at the Emirates, we jumped back onto another tube and made our way towards the London Eye. I've been on the London Eye before when I visited London in 2010 with my sixth form group and I wouldn't go on it again. Who in their right mind when they have a fear of heights, decides to stand in a glass bubble and go hundreds of metres in the air?!

Pictured - The London Eye

We snapped a few photos of it and then continued on to Westminster and Big Ben. It was unbelievable to see something you see all the time on TV and in films in real life, it was quite surreal.

Pictured - Big Ben

Pictured - Big Ben and Westminster

We then walked on the 10 Downing Street which was rather disappointing. There were a lot of tourists there and of course, you can't just go and stand outside the door to where the Prime Minister lives, so we ended up leaving shortly after getting there as there was no way to get a good picture and the tight crowd was a little too much for me. After visiting Downing Street, we stumbled upon New Scotland Yard which was quite exciting!

Pictured - New Scotland Yard

After we were done here, we took a short walk through Hyde Park. I really wished we had more time and I'd been in a better mood when we got here, (bare in mind, I still have all my luggage with me) as it looked so pretty, but I was determined to make it to our final destination and then head back to the train station. We took a slight short cut and dipped out of the park to find ourselves at Buckingham Palace. It looks ten times bigger and prettier in real life! I wish we'd had time to get closer and see the changing of the beefeaters, but we were quite strapped for time by this point.

Pictured - Buckingham Palace

We found the closest tube station and headed back to Euston to catch our train home to Carlisle.

Overall, I enjoyed our trip to London. It was nice to get away from home for a few days, especially with Reece who I only see every few months, We don't go away together near enough as we should do and I think this trip showed us how much we like being away together, when I'm not complaining about trudging my luggage around with me! As much as I enjoyed our trip away, I don't think I'll be planning to go away to London again in a hurry. For me, I think it's a bit too fast paced and too crowded. The anxious, panicky and paranoid side of me hated constantly watching my hand bag and being shoved here there and everywhere by passers by. I was quite relieved to get on the train home and know I was going back to my safety blanket of a city, Carlisle, where I would happily wander around the streets at 3am and not panic at all. We did miss out a few things that we wanted to do, I really wanted to go to Camden Market as I thoroughly enjoyed it last time I visited and Reece wanted to visit Abbey Road. I'm sure we'll travel back in the next couple of years and complete the list we made. I think we didn't think about how tired we would be and how lack of sleep can make you feel and we definitely over planned our trip, thinking we were going to be able to squeeze so much into a day, when in reality we just couldn't.

If you're planning a trip to London anytime soon, I would suggest first, buy an Oyster card! It will save you a tonne of money and you only need to tap in and out of the areas you need to enter and leave. I would also suggest staying in a hotel and not an apartment. We chose to stay in an apartment t save money on food, so we didn't have to eat out every day and we could cook for ourselves. In whole honesty, I'd rather pay for eating out every day and have a little bit of extra security in the place I am staying, especially in a huge city like London! With hotels you tend to have 24 hour service and so much more security, this you do not get with an apartment.

If you've ever visited London, let me know down in the comments what you got up to and whether you had the same feelings as me - please tell me I'm not the only one!

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post, it is very appreciated! Make sure to follow so you can see the next time I post! ♥ xo

**Disclaimer: All views, opinions and photos are my own.**

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, by iyastevie

♥ My 2017 Highlights!

♥ Our Trip to London

♡ ♡ ♡

@adventurewithstevie

archive

♥ My 2017 Highlights!

♥ Our Trip to London

♡ ♡ ♡

@adventurewithstevie

archive

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