Just when you thought all the monthly favourite posts were gone, here I come creeping out of the woodwork keeping you on your toes. January has been a hellish month, with 6 weeks between payday I spend most of it debating whether or not I could afford to buy a cookie at subway, and then buying it anyway.


My first favourite this month was a candle that I got for my christmas from Benj. I absolutely must have a candle burning at all times and this one is the perfect combination of sweet and warming at the same time - it makes my room smell slightly like a bakery. The candle is the first one I've ever had from New Look and I am more than pleasantly surprised at the burning length and scent give off.




My second favourite is more beauty related and my saviour this past month. Just before Christmas I decided to get acrylic nails for the first time and boy do i regret it. I loved having them on, however when I took them off I had never been in so much pain in my life. My nails are unhealthy thin to the point I could barely use my hands without wanting to yelp in pain. After some research (I googled it) I went out and purchased Sally Hansen's nail strengthener from Boots and it has given me some hope that I will have normal nails again one day. 


                   


Following on from that, I also purchased some cuticle & nail oil from L'Occitane to help my poor nails as much as possible. It is the perfect size to just keep in my handbag ready to pop on whenever I am applying hand cream or my nails are aching a bit. 

                     


In other news I am off to Sri Lanka in just 3 months and so I have been crazy busy filling out all the forms necessary. I picked up this notebook when I was in Singapore in September from Kikki.k, and never really had a use for it until now, but I have been picking it up whenever a new list or task comes into my mind.

   
            


What have you been loving this month? 

January Favourites



With Valentines Day fast approaching, we enter the time of year where every store is adorned in various shades of pink and every chocolate becomes heart shaped. One of the things I dread the most is trying to buy a present for guys, whether it is birthday, christmas, brother, boyfriend or father. Despite writing this I am still absolutely clueless of what to get Benjy so alas maybe I need a few more gift guides myself.



For the comic booker lover 


Light up Darth Vader rubber duck





   



For the bearded one


 Beard grooming kit




For the adventurer 

Go Ape voucher



Scratch the world print



For the food lover 


Curry Night subscription


Copper cocktail kit

Valentines Day Gift Guide - For Him



*Mainly just a long rambling post*

A  lot of people (mainly girls) will say that a friendship breakup can be worse than a relationship ending - and it is true, girls can especially be so horrible that a fall out over something mundane can turn into WWIII. I will put my hands up right now and say that I, Eilidh, am a serial indirect tweeter. I love them. I love making the cryptic messages, and more than half the time end up making them so obvious I might as well tag the person in them. Yet as I get older and oh so wiser, I've realised that sometimes, whilst they are shit, friendships can and will end naturally on their own. The jump between high school and university can put strain on any friendship, you go from seeing your friends everyday at lunch, to having to organise nights out and dinners in advance.



This past year I've started to really see the friends that have made the effort and those who haven't. With about 90% of students working as well as studying, there has been occasions where (myself included) hasn't been able to attend organised occasions by our friends, and yet I found myself asking to meet up with people multiple times only to be brushed off with the old work excuse. It gets to a point where you have to ask if it is worth it, if it is worth constantly being put to the bottom on a persons list of priorities.



I dont react well to change, especially if I myself have not initiated it, however I react even worse to being ignored and feeling neglected. During the peak time of puberty I witnessed several friendships end, sometimes they were my fault, and sometimes I did nothing to help solve the issues and instead decided to shit stir (not even going to deny it). It was these friendships that helped me to learn how to navigate my friendships in the near future and whilst I still muck up, I am able to remember that twitter fight I had in 2013 and be like 'Actually maybe I shouldn't tweet that'. Almost 4 years on, I am starting to reconnect with old school friends, and I love seeing how we have grown up and what they have accomplished in the years we have been absent from each others lives. I spent the past couple of months of 2016 feeling like shit. I was spending time I didn't have attempting to stay in contact with friends who had made it obvious they wanted nothing to do with anybody from school, I was left humiliated after being turned away and then seeing posts on social media of them with other friends - and in turn missed opportunities where I could have been seeing real friends who actually make the effort that everybody deserves in a friendship. Even if we are only able to see each other mainly for birthdays, Christmas' and whatever dates we can fit in-between, its my oldest friend Lindsay that I know I can contact about anything and she would make the effort to see me - even for a brief couple of hours. It is that kind of friendship that I crave as I move on and start to tackle different aspects of my life, not the part time friends who can easily lie to your face.

For some reason, almost every photo I took in 2012-2014 is in a black and white filter

At school whenever there was an argument, everybody found out by lunchtime and offences and defences decided by home time, nowadays there is a strange element of 'is this it?'. No large blow up, minimal indirect tweets and the acceptance that you probably won't speak to them ever again. At the end of the day, it is the people who make the effort, who will show up and not use the same excuse over and over again, who will have friends they can turn to when they have a problem. I know I am incredibly lucky to have some of the friends that I do, and I can't wait to experience our upcoming milestones alongside them.





Friendship Breakups





This past October saw my boyfriends birthday, and to celebrate this we booked a weekend away to Amsterdam - a place that both of us had always wanted to go for slightly different reasons. Whilst the idea of coffeeshops and bars appealed to Benjy, the eccentric nightlife of the red light district and the sex museums appealed to me, particularly in the spirit of where I work being so heavily revolved around lingerie and sexual aids.



  Staying a little bit further out from the centre of    Amsterdam, we did  have to take a 10 minute bus back and forward, however with a 48hr  bus pass costing €12.50 and the transport being so frequent we were  more than happy to do this. The hotel itself was based around artwork  and rather modern compared to some of the smaller, more traditional  looking hotels in the city centre. 




Our first night there we decided to do a canal cruise, and after booking our trip during the Light Festival we managed to get tickets for a cruise focused on all the various light artwork around the city. After spending our first afternoon relaxing and having a general mooch around the city it was a perfect way to finish the night off.










One of my favourite parts of the trip was visiting the Van Gogh museum, and whilst not being a massive art fan, I've developed a deeper respect from Van Gogh and his brother's relationship. Sadly photos weren't allowed inside the museum apart from one giant portrait of the man himself.











With both Benjy and I being massive fans of going out for a drink or two, it would have been stupid of us to head to Amsterdam and not visit the Bols Academy/Museum.

Greeted with a free shot upon entry, we were instructed to hold onto the bottle and leave it untouched until told. Part way through the museum, we were ushered into cubicles and filmed taking the shot, whilst various lights and parts of the room moved in order to demonstrate the effect our various senses can have on taste. With your ticket covering a free cocktail of your choice at the end of the tour, I cannot recommend it enough to anybody looking to kill an hour or two in the city.                                          






Basically the whole trip was booked on the foundation of myself wanting to visit the sex museum, and it did not disappoint. I finally got my photo with the 6ft penis chair and watched Benjy get slightly more mentally scarred with every room we visited. We did go relatively later on in the night so I could see why the narrow staircases and small rooms could be off putting if you were to visit during peak time, as well as it being quite overwhelming if you are maybe a bit shyer when it comes to sex.













With Benjy starting back at college on Monday we did have to keep the visit short, however I would happily go back for another weekend in the summer (it was bloody freezing and snowed on our last day) to explore the city a bit more as there was still so much to see.





Amsterdam

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