Bournemouth Travels Part 1

Beach Huts along the Bournemouth seafront.

Sorry for the lack of posts last week but I have a fairly good excuse. I've been on a little Holiday down Bournemouth over the Easter weekend with my family. I'd never been before and I hadn't been off the island for around three years so was incredibly excited to go. To add to this excitement, my mum got us tickets for McBusted last Christmas and I finally got to fulfill my childhood dream seeing them live. I had a lovely time and I want to share some of my adventures here with you. Enjoy.

Yes, animals are a recurring theme within this post.

We left on the boat on Saturday and, after a two and a half hour Friends marathon on the boat and a little read of The Fault in our Stars on the train, we arrived in Bournemouth at about half seven in the evening. Now, I'm not from England and had never been to Bournemouth before but we braved it and ventured around by ourselves in search of out hotel. We were lost for an hour. The funny thing is, our hotel was only twenty minutes away from the station. Really ought to learn to read road signs. However, we did see a couple of foxes roaming around someone's garden. We don't have foxes in Guernsey so I'd never seen one in the wild before and they were just so cute. 

OOTD1: Coat - Boohoo | Jean- MissGuided | Boots- Dorothy Perkins | Camera Bag - Vintage

Arriving at the hotel, we were pleasantly surprised to be upgraded. The room had an amazing view overlooking the sea and the hotel in general was very welcoming. I usually find it really uncomfortable staying in hotels but I felt at ease here. I mean, it's nothing compared to sleeping in your own bed but I'm usually a terrible traveler and never sleep when on holiday so I'm impressed with myself. *gives self pat on the back* *cringes at how cringe that was*

View from the pier, rather foggy.

Me, getting a little arty with the rain. You got to make the most of what you got.

The first official day in Bournemouth was Easter Sunday and, as everyone in the UK will know, it was a horrible rainy day. Since we were only staying for a few days and the shops were almost all closed, we planned to venture around the town. So, despite the rain and not being familiar with the area, we braved the great outdoors. It was actually quite busy compared to what I was expecting. Everything is usually close on a Sunday in Guernsey so the streets are fairly empty, let alone being a rainy bank holiday. We went literally everywhere. We walked along the seafront (the tides don't change as unpredictably as they do over here, it's weird!) and on the pier as well as mooching around the few shops that were open, the huge park (much bigger than Saumarez Park) and the aquarium (which I loved by the way), somehow finding time to squeeze in a tonne of photos without getting water damage from the rain. At the end of the day I was exhausted and resembled the look of a drowning rat, did I mention that it rain a lot? ;)

I love the shiny scales of these Piranhas at the Bournemouth Oceanarium.

This fish just wouldn't leave me alone. A real attention seeker.

Became slightly obsessed with this sea turtle.

I love lizards but hate how the glass reflects the background. You can see my sister in the reflection.

Did I mention that I love this turtle.

Going to sound really geeky right now but I used to always catch these on Animal Crossing.

The big air balloon at the park. Poor weather conditions meant we weren't able to go up but it still looked cool.

If you haven't guessed already, this is a very photo heavy post.

Lego + Toy Story = Best. Thing. Ever.

Here in Guernsey, we also don't have squirrels so these surprisingly friendly ones in the park made me very happy.

More views at the park.

As I'm aware that this posts is turning into one mammoth read, I'll end this part of the journey here. I will follow up shortly with the rest of my travel tales (probably not as adventurous as it sounds) including shopping and McBusted. Stay tuned! Haha!

Bournemouth Pier.

It brightened up by early evening, thank goodness. These are some more beach huts along the seafront.

Tasmin x 

The Reason Why I Hate Exercise

Yes, I accidentally picked up the wrong colour and now she has a yellow forehead...

Drifting away slightly from my usual type of posts, I hope you like it all the same.

You know that moment when you remember something horrendously embarrassing from ages ago and you can feel yourself go red and get that horrible feeling all over again. You could be sat on a bus, doing coursework at school or just about to drift off to sleep and then bam, you're the biggest idiot ever! What were you thinking? That feeling where you never want to see anyone from that situation ever again and the only reasonable resolution you can muster in that moment of time is to burry yourself in a hole and never leave. You know the feeling?

Well, I had one of these recently and I think this may of been one of the most embarrassing things that has happened to me and trust me, I embarrass myself an awful lot. And, for some incredibly strange reason, I thought I should document it so I can return and remember it all over again, relive the cringe-feeling whenever I want.

I'll set the scene for you. It was PE (I think this is called gym class in America), my worst lesson. I am the worst at sports and apparently I have the weirdest run, my friends constantly laugh at me for it. But today's lesson was different. It was the first PE lesson of year 9, the sport we were starting was gymnastics and we had been up into new teaching groups. My first ever gym class in our newly set mixed groups. I was previously in an all girls set so you can imagine the horror I felt when I realised we were doing a sport I had never done before in front of people I didn't know all that well.  Not being particularly talented at any sport myself, my only wish was for the ground to swallow me up there and then.

Our task for the lesson was the volt, or at least I think that's what it was called. Basically, we had to run up and jump on a spring board to jump over a small wall. I think you can probably tell where this is going...

The whole class forms a queue in order to take their turn on the dreaded jump. I strategically took a place nearer the end of the queue. I don't know why, was I secretly hoping that the bell might ring and I wouldn't have to go or that someone would hurt themselves before my go so I would have to endure the run up? Either way, this never happened and it quickly became my turn. I stood there, eyeing up the wall, mentally preparing myself for everyone laughing at my run. If only I knew... 

With inpatient friends pestering me to hurry up, I went for it. The whole class, lined up within perfect view of the jump, stood watching. To my surprise, the run up went rather smoothly, not a single snigger of laughter to be heard. Everything was fine and I felt a little bit more confident. Jumping on the spring board wasn't as terrifying as I thought it would be either. Completely fine. But I hadn't thought this all the way through and didn't propel myself enough to leap-frog over the wall. What was the perfect run up quickly turned into a major crash landing and I ended up belly-flopping the wall. I dived stomach first into a wall I front of a brand new class. I was utterly mortified. So mortified that I didn't fully think through my next moves either. Instead of standing up and laughing along with my peers, the recommended way to smoothly exit any type of embarrassing situation, I decided to best way to exit this was to slide down the other side of the wall at a painfully slow rate whilst my dignity was washed away by the laughter of my classmates. This was not one of my best decisions and the laughter of the audience only grew louder the longer I kept sliding. And it wasn't a fall either, it was definitely a slow decent down the side of what was actually a rather small wall.

Writing it down now, I can laugh at how utterly horrendously I handled this situation. I remember laughing at the time, but on the inside I was dying. No one wants to be the first to make a mistake in new group situations, let alone make a blunder as stupid as that with the whole class watching. But, I guess you learn from things like this. For example, this taught me that sliding is definitely not a smooth way to exit embarrassing situations. Well that, and I most definitely HATE exercise.

Tasmin x

#ootdfridays Number 24

The sun is out and it is finally socially acceptable to leave the house without a coat! Yes, spring is truly here which can only mean one thing, more decent photoed outfit posts. Thank you British weather!

Little confession here, these photos were taken yesterday *gasps!* 'Taz, your lying to us!' Everything was just perfect. My hair looked good (something that is rare with me), the sun was out and I loved my outfit. The only problem was it wasn't Friday so I'm just going to pretend it is.

T-shirt: MissGuided | Skirt, Sandals and Bracelet: New Look

With today's outfit, I really wanted a free and relaxed vibe to it to match the holiday feeling right now. This dipped hem skirt, albeit a little long for me, looks effortless floating in the gentle spring breeze. I wanted to keep this outfit casual so opted for a simple t-shirt and sandals to keep with the relaxed vibe I was going for. However, you can never escape a little touch of glam, especially with such a beautiful skirt, so pair the skirt with a loose silver belt and a silver woven bracelet to finish the look.

Now the weather is set to improve continuously coming towards the summer months, I hope to be doing more #ootdfridays like I did last summer. And here's where you can get involved. If you have an ootd you just want to share with the blogosphere, you can do so right here! Using the hashtag #ootdfridays, tweet or Instagram your ootd to me and I could feature you in my next post.

Happy weekend!

Tasmin x

My social media links:

Twitter: @96_razmataz

Instagram: @razmatazgirl

Travel Survival Kit

It's finally the Easter Holidays and nearly time for my trip to Bournemouth. I've never been a keen traveler and feel rather anxious being so far from home as well as suffering from motion sickness. So, if anyone needs a travel survival kit, it's me! And that is exactly what I've created. I've tried to make it as broad as possible to make this kit applicable for every mode of transport but you can pick and choose which you find most useful.

Handbag Versus Backpack: This really depends on what mode of transport and the nature of your holiday. However, I don't own one of those ridiculously cool and fashionable high street backpacks. You know the ones, often in a dainty floral print perfect for festivals. Or, going down the also incredibly cool edgier fashion route, you could rock a leather backpack done right by blogger Zoella. For me, though, I will be using my trusty school bag as its the only bag big enough to fit my travel essentials (I don't have many big bags, I tend to prefer smaller ones as they are lighter to carry around and I am not particularly strong.)

Travel Necessities: At the risk of sounding blindingly obvious, without your ticket you're not going anywhere. They are the easiest little things to forget but the most important. I know that I check for my keys about three times before I leave home on a daily basis, so you can image how paranoid I get about my passport. Money is also quite important if you plan on paying for all the lovely things you find on your travels as you've got to have the right currency. In my case, I can not use Guernsey pounds in England despite the exact same exchange rate so will have to ensure I have English notes in my purse. Knowing me, I will get confused and try to pay with Guernsey notes and it will only end embarrassingly badly.

Handbag Must Haves: Just because it isn't an everyday occasion, doesn't mean we don't still need the everyday handbag essentials. This is something I'm guilty of forgetting and, although you can purchase replacements for the items you forget, it's better to be prepared. You never know when someone's going to need a tissue!

Music: I'm not just talking about iPods and headphone (an item that I am forever forgetting), but the music itself. Travel is the perfect time to listen to brand new artist and albums that you haven't quite got around to yet. I know that I will be listening to a bunch of new albums, including the new American Authors CD (should be good!).

Reading Material: It may seem boring and trust me I really struggle with reading, but we can't forever rely on our mobiles. The battery will run out and, if you are as unfortunate as me, mobiles aren't guaranteed to work abroad. This is when alternatives need to be sorted. Big readers, like my sister, are likely to be kitted out with kindles equip with  every book they could possible dream of reading. However, novices like me who would rather look through picture then words are more then welcome to gather copies of our favourite fashion magazines. 

Food and Drink: Now, there are certain restrictions with this on flights but water is a must for me. I could not sit in a harbour terminal without being armed with a bottle of water and a packet of Starbursts, I just would not cope. Travel is so draining too, making it double-ly as important to keep hydrated.

And that's my travel survival kit. Now, I understand that most items are pretty obvious but, as a nervous traveller myself, anything that helps calm the nerves is worth the thought. Are you going anywhere exciting over the Easter holidays? I hope you all have a wonderful break!

Tasmin x