Birthday haul!

I turned 17 yesterday (21st) and despite not having the best of days (it mainly consisted of biology revision and sitting in my room alone with a massive plate of chocolate cake!), I did get a few lovely things from my parents this year that I thought I'd share with you lovely people! 

 1. My Mad Fat Diary by Rae Earl - I've been watching the Channel 4 programme of this book and absolutely fell in love with it, and the book is meant to be just as amazing!

2. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green - I've never read any of John Green's books but have so many good things about his writing. This one is meant to be really sad, but brilliant. 

3. Miranda Hart Is It Just Me? - I looooveee Miranda, I just know that while I'm reading this book I'll have Miranda's hilarious voice in my back of my mind reading along with me :D 

 This set of drawers is originally made for keeping bolts and screws and general DIY 'things' in, but I thought it would be the perfect place to store all my necklaces! I used to hang them on this old metal Christmas tree, but they would get tangled really easily, so I think having each necklace or just a few necklaces in separate compartments, it will keep things a lot neater and save me ten minutes in the morning trying to untangle one! 

 1. My parents know how much I looove Charbonnel et Walker chocolates so I'm so happy they've got me another flavour to try (I'm determined to collect a box for every flavour before I die :)). I've tried one of these already and if I'm honest, they're not my favourite flavour, but they're still quite nice! 

2. I love candles and glitter, so this one is just perfect for me :)

 My lovely younger brother bought me the Les Miserables soundtrack! Ever since I watched the film, I've been humming along the tunes, so now I'm glad to have a backing track accompany me (and drown out my awful singing!) 

 I've been massively into getting-fit-and-healthy recently and have taken up running and zumba, so to get me started, my mother got me these lovely neon orange and grey Nikes. 

 Very Classy by Derek Blasberg - I think this has got to be one of my favourite presents! This book is bascially an instruction manual for 'how to be a lady and not a tramp'. It's hilarious and full of articles and pictures, I love it. 

 Another 2 books to add to my ever-growing collection of ones I still need to read! I love the Pretty Little Liar series and unfortunately we don't have Sky and I'm not keen on trying to find the episodes illegally online, so I've had to stick to reading the books, but they're so well-written and gripping, I read the first 5 so quickly! 

I've been looking for a pair of disco pants for so so long, and all of the pairs I've tried on (namely American Apparel ones, Topshop ones and River Island ones) have looked so unflattering and didn't fit right on me. I almost gave up until I saw this lovely pair in Primark (of all the places!) and found that they fit almost perfectly. The waist is a bit too big, but the legs fit well so I don't mind. 

My mum also got me this lovely pink bag from Primark when I fell in love with it a couple of weeks ago. I think there's such a retro feel to it, I love it! 

I also recieved a surprising amount of money from both my grandmothers and parents, and the most exciting part!! - an iPhone in a couple of weeks! 

I'm unbelievably grateful to my family for this wonderful collection of gifts and feel so cherished. 

I've got my AS Level mocks coming up in a couple of days which I'm dreading, so I was hoping my birthday would be a good excuse for a well-needed break from my work. But unfortunately, after way too much procrastination in the last few days, I felt too guilty to ignore the pile of revision notes I still had to learn, so I sat at my desk for a couple of hours and flicked through my biology notes. 
My parents had left for work before I had woken up in the morning and my mother came home for an hour in the afternoon but dashed out again to meet my dad at his work. They had to go to a dinner to 'celebrate' the anniversary of one of their friend's death's. They didn't get back until about 11:30, so I pretty much celebrated my birthday on my own in my room :P 
My good friend/neighbour bought me a hot chocolate from Costa as a birthday treat though, which was nice :) 

I'm hoping next week goes okay!
I'm really sorry I haven't been very active on this blog, I've just been overwhelmed with work recently but hopefully by March I should have a lot more spare time. 

Lots of love, 

Ellay xxx 

Update: 04/02/13

Hello lovelies! 

I've been neglecting this blog quite a bit recently and I feel utterly guilty, but to be honest, I haven't felt enourmously inspired to write any posts. 

My life hasn't been majorly interesting since new year, but nevertheless, it's been quite fun...


1. I went to my first rugby match ever with one of my best friends! We caught the train to High Wycombe and watched the London Wasps VS Rugby Mogliano game at Adams Park. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, the only downer was when my friend, Em, knocked a cup of hot coffee all over this old farmer guy when we were trying to get to our seats and he went absolutely mental, and worse, we had to sit next to him and his equally-fuming farmer friend for the next hour and a half. Oh well.


2. It snowed! There was almost 7 inches in my area and I spent days taking pictures of the gorgeous white blanket! Kind of annoying though... the first day it started snowing happened to be an inset day sort-of-thing because of these 11+ examinations taking place there (exams for the 10/11 year olds that are applying to get into Year 7 at my school). However, my year had to go in and sort everything out and organise them and get them into their exam rooms while everyone else from my school enjoyed the day off, playing and sledging in the snow. But it snowed constantly all weekend and on my way to school on Monday, I slipped over and messed up my back, so got the day off to sit at home and rest! :) 

my pink snowboots! 

Alfie got a snow beard!

3. On the 23rd of Jan, I went to the birthday party of one of my close friends! It was at an amazing, trendy restaurant called Nobu in London, and we were sat in the 'VIP Corner'. And guess which incredibly famous star happened to be on the table next to us that evening? Only Will.I.Am from the Black Eyed Peas! He sung happy birthday to my friend (along with the rest of the restaurant), he bought us dessert, then just as he was about to leave, he decided to sit down at our table and talk to us for the next hour about why we should study and appreciate our parents, and how technology is advancing so rapidly! It was crazy, I practically fainted when I first saw him, and almost died when he started talking to us and agreed to have a photo taken with us. He was the nicest, funniest (if not slightly tipsy) guy! 

I look like a complete idiot, but aaaaah (here's proof! :) ) 

my friend's absolutely amazing, yummy birthday cake 

I really liked my hair that night :P 

4. I had a little group of friends round for dinner on Saturday night. I nicely forced Em into helping me cook (pasta and meatballs for main course, Oreo cheesecake for dessert). However, we ended up cooking the meatballs while we were half-drunk, so most of it ended up splashed all over the wall, or on the floor for my dog to lick up! When we'd finally cooked it and poured it onto the plates, it sort of resembled a pile of meaty-tomato sick, so the running joke all night was 'I really hope we don't get food poisoning tomorrow morning!'. But despite this, it went down well and everyone enjoyed it, and the Oreo cheesecake was the cherry on top! It was amaaazing. I used this fab recipe from Lottieslittlekitchen and it went down a treat. 

5. Next Saturday evening, Em's having a little Chinese New Year party with a couple of our friends and her older brother and some of his friends and I'm already excited! An endless supply of margaritas, strawberry daiquiris, gin and tonics, tequilas and mojitos has been guaranteed! 

Lots of love, 

Ellay xxx