Birthday trip to Edinburgh

For a few months, my mum had told me I had to keep the two days after my birthday free.
Obviously I was intrigued, but I liked that it was a surprise and didn't want to know where I was going until my birthday.

On the night of my party, which was the night before my birthday, I was chatting away to a family friend when she came out with,
               "oooh you must be so excited for Edinburgh on Monday!"
Ooops. My mums face just dropped. The surprise she has managed to keep quiet for months had just been revealed!

I found it funny and couldn't help but laugh, but my mum's friend was mortified, she obviously didn't realise it was a surprise trip, poor woman!

Anyway, I was so excited and really didn't care I had been told where I was going because I love Edinburgh and didn't know what we were doing there.

My mum, sister and I drove up and we stayed at the Ten Hill Place which was a lovely, central hotel that had everything we needed for a one night stay.

We spent the Monday shopping on Princes Street and George Street  I went a bit too far with the shopping which meant we had to move the meal reservation to 2 hours later. But with me being the birthday girl there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

We had the meal at Tiger Lily on George Street in the city centre. The restaurant was very cosmopolitan and perfect for a girly meal out.

The food was really good as well as being reasonably priced. We then went into their bar area and finished the night off with cocktails.

The next day was by far one of my favourite days ever: a spa day at One Spa at the Grand Sheraton Hotel.

I had my first taste of haggis when I had the full Scottish breakfast. The buffet was unbelievable, there was every breakfast food out you could imagine, all of the best quality. It looked like an episode of Gossip Girl.
But for £20 a head, and to say I wasn't hungry at all, I thought it was a bit unnecessary.

After breakfast, we were left to roam all the different rooms in the spa. They ranged from saunas, steam rooms, ice buckets and a rooftop hydropool.

There was also a pool which was available to use, so I had a quick swim before my treatments to attempt to burn off the breakfast.

Then for the treatments. An hour and a half of salt scrubs and a full body massage. Fair to say it was the best I've ever had.

I highly recommend both the spa and the restaurant we went to if you're ever planning a visit to Edinburgh.
It was the most perfect girly trip for my 21st!

Lots of love,
Olivia Dee xx

Drink up and have a cupcake.

Thought I'd do a party food and drink post linking on from my 21st birthday. A party is not complete without cute cupcakes and fruity drinks.

My Dad's fruity punch is famous with my friends every year. I added some strawberries, lime and lemon slices to this cute drink dispenser to add a bit more colour. 

A dear family friend of ours, Irene, is the most amazing cake maker EVER. Not only do they always look good, but they always taste incredible. 

This year it was travelling themed. As you can see it was a huge world map and then the sign post was labelled with 'The World Is Your Oyster' followed by 'Los Angeles', 'Paris' and 'Thailand' which are the places I've most recently visited, and then the last one was 'Croatia' which will be my next trip.

The main cake itself had fresh cranberries inside a soft sponge with cream, and then the suitcase and bag were chocolate cake! 

She also baked me gorgeous cupcakes which she is famous for amongst my friends. 

She's such a talented lady. 

These crab rolls were really simple to make. I mixed tinned crab meat with mayonnaise and fresh lemon juice, toasted sliced bread buns and then topped them with spring onion and cayenne pepper. 

My sister and I attempted to make some cupcakes, even though they were never going to be as good as Irene's. To add something extra, we placed a shot cup of cherry brandy into the middle. They were really easy to do, just normal vanilla buns with vanilla buttercream and then the plastic shot glasses were pressed down into the middle. 

One of my best friends Amy baked me this beautiful cake. Not only did it look adorable but it tasted so good. Healthy balance of fruit and sweets obviously, got to sneak in one of the five a day. 

We filled this sweet dispenser full of rhubarb and custards, jelly beans and little jelly babies. Some of my friends didn't see the 20p's provided next to it and were thinking they had to put their own in! It would have been pretty cheeky to make profit from my guests ha!

This isn't the best of pictures of the nacho pots I made, as from the side you could see the different layers of guacamole, salsa and sour cream. They were put into plastic shot glasses then I put a tortilla chip into the top. However learn from my mistake, don't add the crisp until you serve them as you can see from the front one they went pretty soggy!

Here's a grown up version of cheese on sticks. I cut a cherry tomato in half, and put a feta cube and piece of fresh basil in between.

These fruit kebabs were so easy to make and they look so refreshing. Basically just a fruit salad on kebab sticks. 

Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to take any pictures of the drinks. I had jam jars for the mojitos, had pretty grey and cream striped straws, and I made the flower sticks you can just about see in the picture of my crazy friends Megan and Sadie. 

To make them, I bought a bunch of fake flowers from the market, pulled off the flower head and put them onto wooden kebab sticks. Then I stuck them in the long shot style glasses with lots of crushed ice. 

I want another party now! It went way too fast. 

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer, and making the most of it before Autumn comes. 

Lots of love, 

Olivia Dee xx

My 21st Birthday!

So this post is rather delayed as my birthday was 28th July, but with moving houses (both my family home and my Uni one) and everything in between I have had no time at all to blog.

So finally I'm 21! Out of all my friends, I am the youngest of the group with my birthday being in the middle of summer.

I used to hate it when I was little, I always wanted to be older (didn't everyone?!) but now I'm glad I'm the last because I don't really want to grow up! Time is going way too fast.

To celebrate the occasion, I had my lovely family and closest girl friends round to my family home. It was such a nice night with plenty of food, cocktails and music all night with all the people I love.

Here are a few photos from the night...

My lovely cousin Alicia and I.

My favourite person in the whole world: my lovely mum. 

Dad's little speech with my 21 roses he hand picked for me from our garden.

My family.

My BFF Sadie sharing the love. 

The result of one too many cocktails. 

I'd love to relive it all it went way too fast, but I couldn't have asked for a more perfect night.
Thank you to all my family and friends who made it so perfect.

Olivia Dee xx

A Sunny Yorkshire Day Trip

This sunny weather England has experienced over the past few weeks has caused me to be pretty quiet on my blog lately. It's also been my 21st birthday (which I will blog about soon) so I have been too busy celebrating!

I have spent most of the sunny days in my back garden with my bikini, sun cream, and Elle magazine, but for a change my girl friends and I decided to venture out on a typical Yorkshire day out.

We had a mini road trip to Bolton Abbey, which is a gorgeous area in the Yorkshire Dales. With the heat being so intense, we just sunbathed, had a picnic and dipped our feet in the river.

It was pretty busy to say the school holidays hadn't even started, with children playing in rubber dinghies and couples having afternoon tea at one of few tea rooms. 

Quite embarrassing I got stuck on the stepping stones, I blame the weight of the picnic basket. 

It cost £7 to park the car, but when split between a few people, and if you bring your own picnic, it's a cheap day out. 

When the sun started to go in, we stopped off at a nearby pub, The Devonshire Arms, with the intention of having a drink and a bar snack. Unsurprisingly with my group of friends, it turned into a meal.

It was such a cute pub which was definitely worth the visit, and I recommend going if you were going to visit Bolton Abbey with it being so nearby.

To find out more about Bolton Abbey and the different things they have there, visit their website.

Hope you're all enjoying the heat!

Olivia Dee xx

NE1 Cocktail Week

From the 15th to the 21st July, it is Cocktail Week in Newcastle Upon Tyne. Bars across the city have put on special deals so that us cocktail lovers can enjoy what they have on offer. Each of the participating bars have 3 price points especially made for Cocktail Week, starting at £3, £5 and £7.

On Tuesday, my friends and I came up to Newcastle to celebrate our friend Sadie's graduation, so a few cocktails after a meal out was the perfect opportunity to try out some new cocktails.

Happy Graduation Sades!

My usual favourite place in Newcastle for cocktails is Jalou, especially on a Thursday night when they have 2 for 1 on all cocktails which makes it way too tempting to try a good few from the menu. However, the point in Cocktail Week is for you to try out places you might not have been to before, so we decided to go to Tokyo, which is a lovely little bar by the train station in the city centre. 

I'm not a fan of really sweet cocktails unlike some of my friends, so I went for the Tokyo Iced Tea (their own twist on Long Island Iced Tea and cost £5) and Moscow Mule, which contained one of my favourite mixers: ginger beer, and it was only £3! 

The cocktails were a really good standard and the setting was even better. The place was packed out, but we managed to get a seat outside on the terrace which made it the perfect summer evening to celebrate my friends finishing university. 

I will definitely be visiting again when I return to Newcastle in September for my final year, and this visit has proved that from now on I need to try to venture to bars I haven't been to. 

For more information on NE1 Cocktail Week, visit the Get Into Newcastle Website. You have until Sunday to make the most of the offers! 

Olivia Dee xx

Overnight Oats

As you UK readers will know, the weather we've been having lately is just amazing. I feel like it's only going to last for a couple of days then I wake up to it being sweltering hot once again (sweltering for England anyway).

I'm used to having my trusty porridge for breakfast to set me up for the day, but there is no way I want standard porridge for breakfast in this heat. So I've been making OVERNIGHT OATS. It's like a cold version of porridge but doesn't require any cooking. The liquid is soaked up by the oats overnight to make a porridge consistency the next morning. 

They're so easy to make, so tasty, and saves you faffing around in the morning for those of you who like to lay in bed as long as possible (me being one of those people).

You can adapt the ingredients to suit you, depending on what you usually make it with or what you fancy. 

All I do is use the same amount of porridge as soy milk. Mix it up and then leave in the fridge overnight. 

On occasion, I have added Greek yoghurt, which makes it creamier and slightly thicker. 

Then play around with toppings to make a yummy summery breakfast! 

I tend to use a small close up jar as sometimes I like to take it on the go and I think it makes the liquid soak up better overnight. 

Here are a couple I have made recently:

Blueberry, banana, and peanut butter

Pina Colada style! Banana, pineapple and shredded coconut with fresh coconut juice 

Please comment and share your favourite toppings and variations of overnight oats! 

Thank you for reading, 

Olivia Dee xx

Summer Turkey Burgers with Home-made Guacamole

Summer BBQ dinners don't have to consist of fatty sausages and burgers, slumped with coleslaw and mayonnaise.

Last night, my friend Hazel and I decided to make our very own healthy BBQ style dinner, which included home made turkey burgers, sweet potato wedges, home made guacamole, salad and peas.

It was really easy to make, and it could have probably been improved by adding an onion, but we just used what we had in. So adapt the ingredients to how you like, as it worked for us by just chucking everything together.

Ingredients (serves 2):

Burger-
- 300g turkey mince
- 1 tsp chilli flakes
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 1 slice wholemeal toast
- 1 egg

Guacamole-
- 3/4 avocado
- 1/2 tomato
- couple pinches of salt
- few squeezes of fresh lemon juice

Salad-
- Handful baby spinach leaves
- 1/3 baby gem lettuce
- sprinkle of pumpkin seeds
- 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cucumber

- 80g garden peas
- 1 sweet potato
- 1 tbsp olive oil

Recipe:

1. To speed the process up, put the sweet potato into the microwave for roughly 7 minutes to soften. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. While it is in the microwave, beat the egg and mix in to the turkey mince. Add the chilli flakes and garlic and mix in so it is all blended.

3. Toast the slice of bread, and once toasted, allow to cool and crush using your finger tips and mix into the meat.

4. Remove the sweet potato from the microwave, allow to cool so that you can cut it into wedges.

5. Place the wedges into a roasting tin, drizzle half the oil over them and place in the oven for around 15 mins to crisp them up.

6. Heat the rest of the oil in a griddle pan and add the turkey burgers to it. Cook these for around 12-15 minutes on a medium heat, and keep checking to see that there are no pink bits.

7. While these are cooking, you can make your guacamole. Remove the stone from the avocado and in a bowl, mash it up
using a fork, but not until fully smooth so there are still chunky bits in it.

8. Squeeze the lemon and add the salt and mix together.

9. Chop the tomatoes into small chunks and blend in to the mixture.

10. Prepare the salad ensuring it is all washed.

11. Boil hot water in a saucepan and add the peas on a medium heat. Cook for about 5 minutes and then drain off the water.

12. The burgers and wedges should be cooked by now, so serve it all up onto a plate, and enjoy!


To finish off with, we had frozen vanilla yoghurt with a spoonful of honey.

Give them a go and let me know what you think!

Olivia Dee xx