Noah's Ark

Hey guys! Once again I'm sorry for the absence. I took some time off so I could focus on my exams at college. But now I'm going to try and get back into it.

First post back and I thought I'd tell you about somewhere I'd been recently. I've been going to Noah's Ark since I was really little with my older brother and thought it was about time that my little sisters went there.

So a few weeks ago my mum and I took them there. When I was little it was tiny but going back there after a couple of years it had grown so much. It was really hard to narrow down the pictures I took to just a few but here's my favourite ones. 

Absolutely love giraffes! They're so awkward and clumsy that they remind me of myself!

Both the lions and the tigers were asleep when we were there. I think it might have been because of the cold weather. But I'm so happy with the close up shot I got of the lion's face. So beautiful!

Now elephants are my all time favourite animal! I took so many pictures but I think this one is my favourite just because of the way it captures how magnificent the elephant is. 

Now I took this one because camels are one of Mark's favourite animals. I've no idea why but he always laughs whenever you even mention them.

I always end up taking so many pictures of meerkats because they are always constantly moving. These are my two favourite just purely because it makes them look adorable! 

Hope you enjoyed some of my pictures!

I would highly recommend that if you are near Noah's Ark that you definitely visit. Take a picnic and enjoy a family day out. Even if the weathers bad like it was for us there is an indoor playarea and a restaurant/cafe for you to enjoy. There's also opportunities to hold some small animals which my sisters really enjoyed!

Here's the website so you can check it out for yourself.

http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/ 

 xxMegan

Lush Haul!

It's been ages since I treated myself with any beauty products. I don't know if Lush counts as beauty but it does now!

So I recently when shopping in Bath with Mark and the Lush shop there is the biggest I've ever seen. I bought myself a couple of my favourite bath bombs and though I'd also try out some new ones. 

Okay so I bought two of these and they were actually for my sisters. But my sisters love the bath bombs just as much as I do. They're from the Easter collection that they bought out and I think they're called  'Hoppity Poppity' or something like that...

I've never tried this one before but it was recommended to me by some friends. It's called 'Phoenix Rising' and is supposed making a green and purple layered bath and have a cinnamon sent to it. 

'Butterball' is one of my classic favourites and I'm so excited to use it again! It's so good if you have dry or sensitive skin and it smells so good. My bath always becomes 10x more relaxing when I use this bath bomb. 

'Space Girl' is one I've used once before and wanted to try again. It makes an amazing colour in the bath and has a fruity scent. The grapefruit oil in it is very good for clarifying the skin and is one I would highly recommend. 

This one was also recommended to me and is called 'Twilight'. It is supposed to be good for helping you sleep, hence the named 'Twilight'. The fragrance is lavender which is one of my favourite scents.

I love the bath bomb range at Lush but want to venture out and try some of their other products. I've no idea where to start though. 

Is there anything your recommend I try?

xxMegan

Distractions...

Let me first just say that I'm very sorry for not posting in a while. I've had a little distraction for the past two months that I would like to share with you...

Here is my new little friend Buddy! When I got back from Prague I then decided I wanted a little puppy. It all happened really quickly. He was posted for sale online and I pretty much went and got him straight away. 

Buddy is a 'Pugalier' which is a cross between a Pug and a King Charles Cavalier. I know people don't like crossbreeds and think it's cruel for them to be bred but I didn't get him for those reasons. To me he is just my little Buddy not something for me to gain money from. 

He is currently 5 months old. I haven't had him from 8 weeks old like most people when they get a new puppy. His previous owners didn't want him from when he was 14 weeks old and put him up for sale. But he's mine now and isn't going anywhere. 

Buddy has puppy training sessions every week and is almost fully house trained (he has the occasional accident but once you look at his little face you forgive him immediately). I have never met a more hyper dog than him. Yet when he is sleepy it is the cutest thing ever! 

He is currently sat on my lap while writing this post. It's like he's making sure I don't write anything bad about him! 

Checkout my instagram @meganhaldane96 to see more updates and pictures of Buddy throughout the week!

xxMegan

Book Review: Love, Tanya

As promised, last week I went out and bought Tanya Burr's new book 'Love, Tanya'. I read the whole book the same day I bought it!

I absolutely love the front cover! Yeah you shouldn't judge a book by its cover but this one is beautiful. It's the first look at many of the beautiful features throughout the book.

The book is about aspects of Tanya's life and her experiences through it. She provides advice everything from hair and beauty to becoming confident and happy. There are also plenty of spaces for you to write lists of your own and read her favourites lists. I chose not to write in the book itself but on post-it-notes instead. 

This is a great book for fans of Tanya or YouTubers in general. I really recommend reading this if you are wanting to learn about the YouTuber life and how they become who we see them as. 

'Love, Tanya' is split up into different chapters covering a range of topics. My favourite chapter is probably the 'Growing Up' chapters. I also really enjoyed looking at all the pictures from Tanya's photoshoots.

Here's a couple of my favourite pages from the book:

I hope you pick up Tanya's book and love it as much as I have! Go view her YouTube channel and watch some of her videos. I promise you will love her bubbly and genuine personality. Well done Tanya!

xxMegan

P.s. I'm unsure whether there will be a post next week as I will be visiting Prague from Monday to Friday. I will try my hardest to get a post scheduled by then for you!

Current Beauty Favourites

First of all let me just say I'm a firm believer in drug store make-up. I will never recommend high end make up products because not everyone can afford those. There is such a wide variety at shops like Boots so there's no need to spend double the price on a product that does near enough the same thing. 

Also, I'm some sort of professional make-up artist, these are just a few of the products that I'm loving at the moment. It's just my opinion and you don't necessarily have to agree.

I was really disliking my old foundation and thought it was time for a change. So a couple of days ago my Mum and I went into Boots and had a skin match test for the No7 foundation range. I've never had it done before and I was really excited (sad right?). I ended up being the palest colour there 'Calico', which really isn't a surprise. 

The lady recommend I use the 'Beautifully Matte' foundation and I have to say she was 100% right. It covers my skin so well and leaves stays on throughout the whole day. It also has a really soft finish and doesn't feel like I'm really wearing foundation at all. People have really noticed the difference in my skin as it looks so much healthier now that I've changed foundations.

I would highly recommend going at getting your skin matched to the perfect foundation. My Mum ended up coming away with a whole set of new make-up she's never used before and was really rather excited about it!

You'll have to excuse the camera quality on this one as I took it on my phone. I've had this one for a while but only really started wearing it recently. It's the 'Rimmel London Apocalips Lip Velvet' in the shade '307 Meteoric Matte'. 'Lip velvet' is the perfect way to describe it as it is so smooth and sleek on your lips, yet it also has the perfect matte look. 

It's comes out as a red berry kind of colour and I tend to wear it if I'm going out somewhere nice or going out for a few drinks. Not the kind of shade I'd wear to college on an everyday basis. I'm still looking for the perfect nude lip colour that doesn't make me look overly pale. 

Any recommendations on nude lip colours? What's your favourite products at the moment?

xxMegan

Book Review: Elizabeth Scott

Being a little bit cheeky this week and clustering multiple books together, but they're all by the same author so that makes it okay!

Now you may not have heard of Elizabeth Scott before but neither had until I found 'Love you, Hate you, Miss you' in a second hand book shop. After I read this I had to find out more about her. This led me to try out 'Stealing heaven'. That was it then, I had to read as many of her books as possible! Most of these I read on the day I got them as I just could not put them down! 

Picking a favourite is hard but it has to be 'Stealing Heaven'. It's about a girl called Dani who was trained as a thief by her mum when she was young. They move around so much that they never stay somewhere long enough to form real connections and a real life.

Elizabeth Scott writes to effortlessly it makes me jealous! She is partly one of the reasons I want to become a writer. Some how she manages to deal with very serious issues in a way that doesn't make you want to cry for a month. Her novels are perfectly paced in a way that you are hooked in but don't feel rushed through the events.  

My collection of her books isn't complete yet thanks to money having to go on everything but books. But I gave in and purchased 'Heartbeat' which is currently in the post! 

I cannot recommend her books anymore! I hope you love them as much as I do!

Come back next Tuesday for my review of Tanya Burr's 'Love, Tanya'.

xxMegan

Book Review: Matched Trilogy

Hi guys! First of all let me just say how sorry I am for the lack of blog posts for the past week, I've had a mountain of coursework to do and have only just managed to complete it all. Wow college is stressful but bring on University!

I want to start doing more book reviews and thought I'd kick that off today with the first one.

Matched Trilogy - Allie Condie

Genre -  Dystopian Young Adult 

The first book 'Matched' is about a tightly ruled society that decide who you love, where you work and when you die. At the age of 17 you are "matched" with your life partner. The trilogy follows seventeen year old Cassia Reyes who ends up being matched with her best friend, Xander Carrow. However, when she views the information pack about her "match" an unsuspected face shows up instead of her best friend. She attempts to find out about the mishap but becomes conflicted about her match. 

The book is then followed by 'Crossed' and 'Reached'. Obviously I'm not going to tell you much about the next two books or it will spoil the first one. 

I loved this trilogy and could not put the books down! I think it took me a total of a week to read the trilogy and have re-read it many times since. I highly recommend these books, they will keep you held in until the very end.

At first you think it's just another cheesy forbidden love story, but it turns out to be so much more than you expect. Ignore the bad goodreads reviews and go read the first book! 

Check out the youtube trailer for the first book here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaeNWL8rlBI

Here's my favourite quotes from each of the three books:

"It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures" 

- Matched

"Love changes what is probable and makes unlikely things possible" 

- Crossed

"When you can't cry because all you are is pain, and if you let some of it out, you might cease to exist" 

- Reached

Come back next Tuesday for another book review! 

xxMegan