On Friday night I surprised my Mum with a night at the theatre. I've seen a few ballets over the years, but she never has, so was thrilled and, thankfully, totally shocked. Ballet Cymru performed Beauty and the Beast at the Riverfront in Newport, South Wales, and it was incredible. I was lucky enough to get seats in the middle of the second row, so we could see everything. It was a brilliant night.
As I posted on my Instagram at the beginning of the week, when I was about 8 years old I had an accident which resulted in a broom handle going into my eye. I had a small surgery and had both eyes bandaged shut for a while, I thought everything was fine after that and never really gave it much thought. For the last couple of years though I've been having issues with my eyes, particularly the left eye (the one that I damaged), and I found out this week that a lot of the problems were probably caused by the accident years ago. I've always seen an optician regularly, so it's a shock that they didn't pick up on anything until now. Thankfully everything has healed really well now and the scars that I'm left with don't really affect my vision, which after seeing how large the scars are on my iris and pupil is amazing! I'm so pleased I have a different, better, optician now.
Loathed: Bonfire night
I've never really been a big lover of fireworks, they're noisy, smelly, leave a horrible smoke in the air that lingers until the following day and they're a nightmare for the environment, but ever since I've had my dog I've really started to hate them. I have nothing against organised firework displays but I really wish the local government would ban them in residential areas. Cherry has been a complete wreck for days (because the people around here don't just light them on November 5th, but the 2 weeks proceeding and 1 week following too). The poor thing has been too scared to go outside once daylight goes and on the odd occasion that I do manage to convince her to go out, within a few seconds a doofus lights another banger and she comes running back indoors.
Candle of the week: Village Candle - Pumpkin Pie
This is right up there with my favourite ever candle scents. It's spicy, creamy, vanilla-y and just an all around gorgeous evening autumn scent. The throw is just as good on this votive as a large jar candle and it burns pretty clean too.
Make-up product of the week: Autograph foundation
I've never tried any of the base products from Marks and Spencer before, but I love their lipsticks. I picked this up a couple of weeks ago now but only got around to trying it this week and I really, really like it. I have the shade Ivory and it's so light, maybe even too light for me, which is very unusual. I'll be writing a full review on this in the next couple of weeks, once I've got some more use from it.
Bought: Lip balm and soap
I was feeling a little down the other day so decided to cheer myself up by using my loyalty points from Holland and Barrett. I searched the website and found Crazy Rumors, I didn't realise they sold them, I've never seen them in my local store and I've always wanted to try them. I chose Gingerbread, Apple Spice and Bubblegum. The only one I've tried so far is Gingerbread and I love it, The smell, taste, formula, everything is just heavenly. I also picked up 2 soaps (with an offer of buy one get one half price) from Dr. Organic. The Pomegranate smells gorgeous but the Vitamin E doesn't really have a scent, not that I expected it to.
Wrote: Christmas lists
I've finally got around to planning Christmas, not only what I want (I had to write a list for my Dad and step-mum), but also what I'm buying other people. I have 1 present sorted so far, which is a start but I've got a long way to go yet. My aim is to have everything bought and wrapped by the middle of December so I'm not too stressed to enjoy myself, like I am almost every year.
I've told you before how much I enjoy listening to Ben Howard, so with his new album coming out a couple of weeks ago I knew I had to buy it as soon as I could. I Forget Where We Were is his second album, and dare I say it, may even be better than his first. I've had this on repeat all week long and am nowhere close to being fed up of it yet.
Watched: Nurse Jackie
I'm one of those people that puts off watching a TV show for years, then after finally being convinced to watch it binge watches every season until it's finished, this is exactly what I'm in the middle of doing with Nurse Jackie. It started back in 2009, but I only started to watch it on Netflix this week, and I'm already half way through season 4! I haven't watched anything else all week. If you're unfamiliar with the show; it's about a nurse called Jackie (shocking, right?) who has an addiction to prescription pain medication. In the first episode you find out that she's not the goody goody two shoes a lot of people would expect nurses to be. It's a drama but is also really funny, I particularly love Zoe, a young nurse in training.
