Stratford upon Avon, also known as, the birthplace of Wiliam Shakespeare.
I had never been to Stratford before today, however I highly recommend going. It is a stunning city, with beautiful architecture and a history to the town. It is really the quintessential English town with it's classic buildings. Honestly, I would absolutely love to go again and explore the city in more depth. It had a lovely atmosphere there, I could of quite happily stayed there.
This part of our day trip made me reminisce back to my trips to London, the food markets with the street food and people sitting outside and eating reminded me a lot of the markets in Camden Town and promoted a sense of nostalgia. The use of chopsticks also reminded me of the many visits to London, where I went to Hi Sushi and had to use chopsticks there, although I must say that my chopstick use today was much better than I remember it ever being back in London.
The tourney owl with the deep black eyes looked rather scary! Ekkk...
Whilst the ice cream looked delicious we had waffles, I absolutely adore waffles! They're most definitely my favourite dessert food ever, I just love them!
To end our lovely Sunday weekend trip we went for tea, very English. Although the café that we ended up in was rather weird...it was strange, quite hard to describe but the service was as if you were in a posh restaurant. A waiter would ask you how many for a table and proceed to seat you... It was all very weird!
I do quite miss going to London actually, it is a wonderful and ore inspiring city with lots of magical and mystical places, every tube stop is completely different to the last.
Just writing about London is giving me wanderlust!
Also in the little market area were some real live owls! (queue the Harry Potter theme music)...
I've not seen live owls since I was a very young child in reception class. Wow that seems so long ago now, 15 years to be precise! Whilst I was there some owls, and their handlers - of course, came into my primary school for some sort of demonstration. I'm not quite sure as to how I remember this happening but I don't remember what happened to me last week!?! Maybe it's because as a young child I didn't like owls?
Although saying that even now I'm not 100% sure as to whether I like owls or not, they're ok from a distance I suppose but I'm not sure if I'd dare to touch one. I'm not sure if I'd ever even dare to get closer to them than from behind a camera's lense. I think if they fluttered or flapped their wings near me I'd probably freak out, although their wings are astoundingly beautiful, and I do have 3 owl thingys hanging in my car. However, real live owls are quite different to cute little in car things.
The little owl was quite cute though, but things in miniature size usually are cuter.
Whilst we were there, and wandering the streets we came across this very classical house, although we couldn't decide if this was infact Shakespeare's house or not, since there was little signage around the actual building. Although close to this building was the Shakespeare visitor centre and bookshop.
When I got home I looked online and I found out that this house was infact Shakespeare's house. It was the home in which he was born in and grew up in. We never went inside the building only passed it on the outside, but if I was to go again I would quite like to go inside just to see how he lived back then all those many years ago. In my next university module, reading and studying literature, I get to look at the works of Shakespeare which will be interesting.
I love the old classical architecture of these black and white timber framed buildings, although I'm not internally sure what the proper name for such architecture is, but either way they are beautiful buildings. I think in a way that, this style of arichecture with their timber shapes and black glass windows, adds some sort of character to the buildings. The sort of character that unfortunately modern day red or grey brick buildings lack.
We went to a wonderful dessert café too! They had loads of different ice cream flavours including Jammy Dodger flavour, I have honestly never seen that flavour before although I bet it tastes wonderful. From the people watching that I did out the window the ice creams from this establishment looked lovely, fresh thick cones with a rather large scoop of ice cream! I think that perhaps all these different ice cream flavours were handmade, although I can't be sure on that fact.
They were really light waffles, not heavy at all, even though the look of them tells a different tale. They were delicious. If I do get the chance to go to Strartford again I'd make sure to hunt this dessert place out in order to have their waffles again.
...and yes, I did eat all of my waffle... which came as quite a shock! Haha
Whilst in Stratford we saw some wonderful cars, including a Porche, a Ferrari - which was of course red, as well as the pièce de résistance million pound car in the photo above...well we can but dream eh?
It was a wonderfully lovely day! Stratford upon Avon is a beautiful place, I imagine that at Christmas time it is even more beautiful with all the fairy lights and Christmas market stalls with handmade gifts, and warm drinks. Which reminds me I forgot to mention that whilst in Stratford we went into a shop that just sold Christmas baubles and little decorations! It was insane, a while shop dedicated to Christmas when it's only September, I've not even thought about Christmas yet!
I'd love to go here again, I hope that I will do one day soon!
Last night, after a very long car journey into the barren countryside (which really looked like I'd imagine Texas to be, it even had a little garage with a big Harley motorbike outside...queue tumbleweeds...) we went to a farm to see some very sweet labradoodle puppies!
There was only two left, a curly haired puppy and a rough coated puppy.
We ended up buying the curly haired puppy, so without further ado I introduce you too our little bundle of joy, Rolo.
He is adorable! On the journey home I had him on my lap he was very scared and stressed (understandably) so he was cuddled up to me the whole way!
He's settled into our house very well, he's a lovely boy very good temperament and knows his boundaries. Both Labradors and Poodles are clever dogs, which makes him extra clever! He is very sweet and playful, when he jumps around the living room with excitement it is so sweet ! He's wonderful!
I've wanted a wanderlust tattoo for about the last 2 years, today (12/9/14) was the day that I finally did it! Yet another item to cross off my bucket list!
For those who don't know what wanderlust means, it is a German word meaning 'a strong urge to travel'.
All my life I've wanted to escape and travel the world! Most of my bucket list is about traveling, I'm doing a degree in English language and literature and a TEFL course so that I can teach English abroad and travel.
The font I had was drawn up by a wonderful artist; Jessica, also known under her artist pseudonym brownpaperbunny who creates wonderful watercolour prints and illustrations!
Before I went into the tattoo studio I went to Starbucks just to eat a little more, so that I wasn't faint. However, when you're extremely nervous and shaking eating is awfully difficult.
I am also very glad that I got my take away tea as I kept sipping it whilst I was sat waiting in the tattoo studio - it definitely helped to calm my nerves!
I was so scared of the pain since it was on my foot but to be honest it wasn't that bad. My artist started in the most painful place to get it over and done with but that wasn't even that painful. All in all I'd say that it was irritating but that was really it. I'd say it was a 3 out of 10.
Because of the placement I will have to go back in 2 weeks to get it touched up - which I don't mind so much since it didn't hurt all that much.
I absolutely love it so much! I'm so happy! Although now I want another one....