May

Hi, hello (:

I'm getting dead good at this blogging more often lark, aren't I? NOT! I don't even really have much of an excuse as to why it's been so inconsistent again. After I posted my Fine Hair Saviours post, I had a big list of make up and beauty bits and bobs to review and chat about, but I never really got round to it.

May started off quite badly. I wasn't having a good time at work and I had to drop out of going to see Twin Atlantic with my sister because of it. I was really unhappy and not in a good place. I had a job interview for a call centre and even though it wasn't what I wanted to do for work, I wanted a way out of retail. I didn't get the job.

Fast forward to a week later and I had another interview and was offered the job an hour later. I'd be mental not to take a full time admin role over my part time retail job. So I took it and waited for my offer letter to arrive in the post so I could hand in my notice. It had been squared at interview that I wouldn't be starting until the 1st June, due to having too many other things going on in the last week of May.

I can honestly say, I've worked at Primark for nearly three years and it's been some of the worst times of my life so far. It's been nothing but constant bitching, pressure, upset and anger. From word 'go', I hated it. I've talked about leaving for such a long time, that the longer it went on, the less I thought it would ever happen. After handing my notice in on the Monday, I was in such a daze for the whole week. I wasn't upset to leave the place, but I was upset to leave my friends behind. As much as I've loathed the job from the start, I can't deny I've made some incredible friends and met some interesting people along the way.

So, that right there is my excuse for not blogging. I was in such a daze after finding out I'd gotten the job, then handing my notice in, it was a couple of weeks of feeling like I was in some sort of dream world. I kept thinking I'd wake up and it'd all have been a dream.

My last day was really surreal. Because I never thought I'd get to leave, it felt very weird. I used to do the last shift of the day so when we go to the shop floor at six, the day shift staff start to leave. Saying bye to them was really weird, then the daytime manager coming to wish me luck was also a bit dream like. My friends from other departments popped down to see me, but I was kept separated from my friends on my department. Which, I wasn't best pleased about. That was until we all got called to the loading bay. Our manager and supervisor were acting really shifty and I just assumed we were about to be told off for something, but no. One of my best pals pulled a Build-A-Bear box from behind the boxes of stock and inside was a pink unicorn they'd all clubbed together to get for me.

I don't think I've done a happy squeal like that for a while, to be honest.

All in all, after that it was a pretty decent last day. I managed to speak to most people and got to say bye to my friends (not that I won't ever see them again, because I will) but it was just nice to feel appreciated and made me feel all fuzzy. Like sometimes I feel like so happy that my chest might burst and that's how I felt on my last day.

I had last week off completely and I'm quite glad I did. I'd booked two days off from Primark anyway, and we got bank holidays off by default.

On bank holiday Monday my sister and I made the journey down to Wolverhampton to Slam Dunk Festival. I've never been to Slam Dunk before and I can safely say, I'll be going again, albeit to Leeds. It was such a good day, despite the extreme queuing and our hotel being super unorganised. Unfortunately, we missed Set It Off due to the queue to get into the venue itself taking round about an hour. However, after that, we managed to see everyone we wanted to, highlights include You Me At Six playing songs from Take Off Your Colours. I've not heard some of those songs live for years, so it was something really special! Lower Than Atlantis were also really good, and I'll never tire of seeing Neck Deep live.

On Wednesday, myself and my gig buddy went over to Manchester to see Foo Fighters. I've loved Foo Fighters since I was about 14/15. I remember really loving Best Of You when it first came out and I've been hooked ever since. Unfortunately, I've never had the chance to go and see them. I stupidly passed up the chance in 2007 and then I've either not had the money to head to festivals or not had anyone to go with to the stadium shows. My sister saw them at Leeds in 2012 and so she was up for seeing them again. Fun fact: I'm the only one in my immediate family who hadn't seen them live till this year.

It was everything I hoped it'd be. They opened with Everlong, which is my favourite song of all time ever, so I was sold from the start.

Thursday was my mum's birthday, so we made a quick trip back to Sheffield for food and cocktails. We went to Smoke Barbecue, and the best bit was the dessert! I had smores and it was incredible.

My last week of freedom was topped off with seeing Heaven's Basement at Corporation. It was really good and the best way to end the week.

I want to say blogging will become less sporadic, but it probably won't. I need to settle into this job and get my hours sorted, it's going to be a shock to the system to have to be up early, but it'll be also nice not to have to wait for buses till gone 11pm. I'm hoping I can get one or two blog posts a week up, I've got plenty of ideas it's just finding the time and motivation to get things really going. May's been a bloody mental month, what started out really not great has ended in an absolute whirlwind.

I'm super nervous for starting tomorrow, but I'll try and report back next week.

Fine Hair Saviours

Hello (:

Something a bit different from me today. I've thought of venturing into blogging about beauty bits and bobs for a while and have a huge list of potential posts, so I thought I'd finally take the plunge. I'm not an expert when it comes to anything I'm gonna chat about, it's all simply opinions and my own experiences.

I've had fine hair for a long time now. When I was younger, my hair was really thick and as I've gotten older, it's just gotten a lot more wispy and flat. I never like cutting my hair really short and I don't like the idea of using hair extensions to make my hair look fuller and thicker - I know they can cause a lot of damage and they're really expensive for a decent set. I've tried a lot of products that boast volume and thickening ingredients and I've never found anything that's worked at all, or in the long run.

That was until I picked up this Aussie Aussome Volume Shampoo in Superdrug. I've never tried Aussie products before, and it was on offer for about £2.30 or something really cheap. It smelled nice and the bottle said it was for fine, limp hair, so I was sold.

This shampoo is probably some of the best shampoo I've ever, ever used. It smells incredible, it's very perfume-y, but not overpowering. It does leave a little hint of scent in your hair afterwards too, which I really like. But, most important of all, it does actually work. If I wash my hair with the shampoo and the conditioner (I reverse wash, as well, which has helped my hair a ton) and then blow dry my hair upside down, it looks and feels a lot thicker and fuller. I've had a lot of people comment and say my hair looks thicker and much healthier, which can only be a good thing.

A lot of the time though, especially if I'm going out or going somewhere more exciting than work and want to give my hair a little extra oomph, I team the Aussie shampoo and conditioner combo with John Frieda Luxurious Volume Blow Dry Spray. I spritz this through the roots before blow drying, dry upside down as usual and it gives my hair an extra boost. 

I've used endless amounts of blow dry sprays and shampoos that claim to make hair thicker and fuller and I've been disappointed so many times. I invested in a shower comb from Superdrug and their own brand de-tangling spray as well in a bid to minimise hair fall out and breakage. Since switching to using the Aussie shampoo and conditioner, I've definitely seen a difference in the strength of my hair as well.

This little combination of Aussie and John Frieda really works and I'd recommend it to anyone who's fed up of trying volume sprays and shampoos and feeling like they're not getting anywhere with it.

Have you tried Aussie Volume Shampoo and Conditioner? What products do you recommend to give fine, flat hair a boost?

April

Hello (:

It's been a bloody long time, hasn't it? I've slacked so much on the blogging front. I feel dead boring and like nothing worth writing about has happened recently, so I've just not said much. I want to try and implement some sort of blogging routine, where I post on specific days. That might help things to be a bit more consistent on here and it should help motivate me to write a bit bloody more.

Anyway, April! Not the most exciting month of my life, not gonna lie.

It all started with a little trip across the pond to Dublin. In hindsight, I'd have done a lot of that trip a lot differently. As I've gotten a bit older, I want a lot more from my holidays. I love going on nights out and I like a good boozy holiday as much as the next person, but I like to do things as well. I like going on day trips and seeing things you wouldn't see at home. We didn't really do much of that in Ireland. The Guinness Storehouse left much to the imagination and my hopes of going to Dublin Castle were dashed by spending too long in the hotel faffing around.


Not long after Dublin, it was my friend's 26th birthday and we planned a day trip to Alton Towers to celebrate. She's not massively into big nights out anymore, so we thought this would be a fun alternative. I love Alton Towers. I first went when I was in year 9 at school and it was a post SATs treat, but no one got on any of the big rides all day and we were super miffed that the teachers had bought themselves queue jump passes and got on everything. Rita had just opened back then as well.

Fortunately, I've managed to go a few times since that disappointing day, and so I've been on all the big rides. It was a really decent day out, the weather stayed alright, which was one thing we'd been worried about. We ended up waiting a good two hours to go on The Smiler, but still managed to cram in most of the other rides before it closed. The only downside was how busy it was, and trying to keep up with ride times. My friend has the app on her phone but that wasn't updating so we often ended up in bigger queues than anticipated.

We also totally missed The Big Six Challenge. We saw the advert on our way down to Thirteen, and we had about an hour left to cram in that and Rita, so we missed out on completing the challenge. It's basically to ride all 'The Big Six' rollercoasters in a day (The Smiler, Oblivion, Thirteen, Rita, Air and Nemesis) we'd only missed out Oblivion!

In April, my sister turned 21, so we ended up in TGI Friday's eating everything and drinking cocktails before work (naughty). I bought us tickets for Slam Dunk Festival as part of her present, and that's two weeks tomorrow, which is really exciting! We're heading to the Midlands date in Wolverhampton. 

Apart from that, April's been quite dull. I've spent a lot of it trying to work as much over time as possible. There's been talks of potential holidays in October and so much stuff coming up that I need the money for. So, I apologise for abandoning my little blog, I really do want to try more with it in the coming months.

I'm not going to do a monthly 'reads' round up for April, as I'm still stuck in a reading rut and only read one book. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins was the perfect, slushy end to the trilogy, and one I'd definitely recommend if you're after a good YA book. If you have any good book recommendations for me, don't hesitate to leave them in the comments, the book I'm currently reading isn't engaging me at all.

On the blog, I talked about my trip to Dublin, created the ultimate cheer-up list and chatted about why everyone should've voted - I hope you did!

Here's to hoping May is a bit more exciting than April (although, I'm sure it will be)