Life - Saturday Beach Walk

I think one of the best things about living in Northern Ireland is that you're never too far from the sea, even if it is a bit chilly. These are just a few photos from a walk with my mum, sister and Heidi at the beach today...

Love finding some seaglass!!

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Falling in Love with Lancaster

These are just a few photos taken out on a girly evening with my friend Louise (who, by the way, was the very good friend who lent me the wise Lion King-related advice a few posts back). It's crazy to think, but my first year at Lancaster is now very quickly coming to a close (my last exam is tomorrow, moving out of uni accommodation on Thursday!!!) and it was nice to just spend some time off-campus to reflect on the months that have gone by.

I  first met Louise because she was part of my workshop group on my marketing course but for months we were just casual acquaintances and only really spoke when we had to sort things out for our group work and presentations. I was actually a little intimidated by her at the start because since marketing was her major she often had to assume a sort of leadership role in the group and I was afraid she was judging me or I was letting her down by not giving my all. As it turned out, however, this was all nonsense and in fact, she had also found me a bit intimidating! First impressions can sometimes be very wrong. especially among girls I think sometimes.

Despite our misunderstanding about each other however, because she lived quite near me on campus we would sometimes walk back from seminars together and chat for a bit. It was on one of these occasions I mentioned to her that I used to horse-ride and was thinking about taking it up again, it turned out she also used to ride and we decided to go together and in the process we actually found out we really have a lot in common and now I'd consider her one of my best friends!

If you've read any of my previous posts you'll know I wasn't particularly happy here at the beginning. I found campus and campus accommodation very oppressive and because of a few personal problems I encountered, I found it really difficult trying to keep up with work and assignments as well as the demands of living on my own for the first time. It was a struggle but I can now say over this last term and a bit I've really found my feet, settled in and made some really good genuine friendships to the point where I will actually be really sad to go home for the summer.

Sometimes I also think I failed to appreciate how beautiful Lancaster actually is. There's some really stunning architecture in the city which is then surrounded by miles of green countryside (I'm a big fan of countryside), and also the Lake District is basically on your doorstep, something which I will definitely be taking more advantage of next year.

All in all, I'm very happy to say that I'm very much looking forward to my next few years at Lancaster and all the ups and downs that are still to come over my next 2 years here.

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Vegan Lunch and Woodland Walk

It was a lovely sunny day in Lancashire today and I had a niiiiice lie-in which was just perfection! When I did decide to get up and brave the day today I went for lunch and a catch up with one of my best friends from uni, he's called Will, he's great and is also one of the wittiest people I know (love you, Will!) One thing I don't think I appreciate enough about my uni campus is how darn funky it is! Turns out there's a vegan cafe randomly on the rooftop of one of the ICT buildings which Will took me to which was pretty cool and there were some pretty views over the fields around uni! Unfortunately I'm not vegan, in fact I'm a raving carnivore (much to my shame being such an animal lover), fortunately though there was a quorn sausage toastie on offer on the menu which I was all for, since I sort of prefer quorn sausages to regular ones, weird I know. 

I'm also just going to have to apologise for the absence of our eyes in these photos, it was very bright!

After lunch we went for a dander through the woodland trail which runs around campus and it was just a really lovely afternoon! Will is heading off soon, first to Cambodia for a month and then off for a year abroad in Maine, USA and since he's English and I live in Ireland I probably won't be seeing him again for a good while after this year at uni is over which is very sad indeed, so I'm really happy to have got the chance to have such a nice lunch today before we part ways.

Hopefully I'll be a little bit more active on my blog now that exams are coming to a close. I really haven't been out much recently to have anything to blog about, but I'm really hoping that will change, otherwise I would be really sad!!

Hope y'all are good and are getting lovely weather! This is based on the assumption that if the sun can shine in the North West of England, it can shine anywhere!

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