July in Pictures

Hey Owlets,

I tried a new style of post last month with my June in Pictures post, and it had so much good feedback I thought I'd do my July in pictures too - even if it is a little later than anticipated.

We start off the month with a trip to Bristol Zoo after hours which was absolutely amazing! The lovely people at Bristol Zoo invited us for dinner and a private tour after the zoo had closed to celebrate their restaurant refurbishment and their twilight evenings at the zoo. The food was amazing and it was so cool to see all the animals in a more peaceful setting, check out the post for more details.

On 3rd July I got the chance to go and see Dirty Dancing at the Bristol Hippodrome as press with BSR. Dirty Dancing is such a guilty pleasure film and is one of my all time favourites so getting to see it on stage was really exciting. I loved the way they'd translated it onto the stage, especially parts like where Baby falls into the lake while doing the lift - the way they managed to show that was really clever. It's one of those that even though I've already seen it on stage once, if it comes back round again I would be first in line to buy tickets.

5th and 6th July are the most important days of the month for me because I graduated!! On 5th July we drove over to Cardiff early so that we could check in to our hotel and have a chilled afternoon and evening before graduation the next day. By the time we'd gotten through the traffic and championed the one way system in the centre it was already pretty late so we relaxed in the hotel for a while before going for dinner at Cafe Rouge in St David's Centre, which was of course lovely as ever!

We then went back to our rooms and had an early night before our stupid O'Clock start the next morning. 

Read about what we got up to over our two days in Cardiff here.

6th July is hands down my most memorable day of the month (probably of the year to be honest!) because that day 3 years of stress became worth it as I donned my robes and mortarboard to collect my degree. You know those moments when you're kind of waiting for someone to pinch you so you wake up? It was one of those - it felt so surreal but I had an amazing day & I've probably watched the vlog at least eight times to relive the day since I uploaded it.

If you'd like to watch the vlog with me, check it out here.

7th July was definitely a bit of a comedown from my amazing day before, but I still had something lovely planned. In all honesty, I was shattered from graduation so had a massive lie in and spent the morning catching up on admin. In the evening I was invited to a lovely event at the YSL beauty counter in Cribbs Causeway to try out the products. It was nice to have a look around but we didn't really get to test the products so it was a bit of a non-starter event, nothing much to report.

The Saturday after my graduation got a bit more surreal - having collected my degree two days previous I was back at my primary school with Bradley Stoke Radio for the school's summer fair. It was weird being back at the place where my love of being creative all started, but it was nice to go back to my roots and enjoy listening to some music in the sunshine.

Photo: Nicole from A Beautiful Chaos

On 10th July I got to meet Nicole from A Beautiful Chaos - she's a blogger that I've admired for a while so getting to meet her and be interviewed for her Beautiful Minds Magazine was seriously an honour. We went to Coate Water to take some photos for the interview then went into town for a coffee and a chat - it was so nice to finally meet her and she's just as lovely in person as online!

Talking of meeting bloggers that I admire, a few weeks previous my amazing friend had surprised me with a ticket to Louise Pentland (Sprinkle of Glitter)'s Bristol book signing. She was really quick off the mark because I didn't even know this was happening and she'd already said about it. We had a great evening and it was lovely to meet someone who's channel inspired me to want to do the same. Thank you Stacey!!!

Right, half way through the month! Sitting down to write this post I thought it would be a really boring one as I felt like I hadn't done much but clearly I was very wrong! On 13th July I went to an event in central London called Christmas in July which was absolutely amazing! As you walk downstairs to the basement, you're greeted by Christmas trees, elves and snow. Inside the event you meet with marketing teams from brands of all sizes like Moonpig and Firebox to start up brands like Stitch and Story who aim to get more people into knitting, all to the soundtrack of Christmas songs. It's really cool getting to meet the people behind the brands that I know and love and see the Christmas stock before it's released - believe me there's going to be a lot of gift guides around here soon!

(Dad said he wants crediting too!)

On 20th July Dad and I went to the SS Great Britain summer preview party, which they held to celebrate the launch of the summer circus where they put on a daily performance to teach the audience about the crossing the line ceremony that used to take place on the ship as she sailed across the equator. If you want to see more detail about this, I wrote a blog post here.

On 21st July the Summery Christmas celebrations were kicked up a notch as Dad and I went to our first Christmas party of the year. The Mercure Grand's All That Glitters party is a sort of Christmas season but covers all occasions party that runs every week from November to January. We walked in, greeted by Christmas songs playing from the DJ in the corner and a glass of prosecco. It was kind of a weird event - the food was good but celebrating Christmas on a Thursday night in July with very few decorations and a room full of people that had work the next day was never going to be a recipe for a great night. We were home by about half 10 and still hadn't seen a single person on the dancefloor, but I think come Christmas it has the potential to be a really great evening. Also, this dress kind of exploded my Instagram - it was £13 from Primark (this season) and the shoes were £12 from Asda several years ago, so it just proves you don't have to spend a lot of money to dress up.

22nd and 23rd July saw the Harbour Festival descend on Bristol City Centre. This is always a lovely event with a huge turn out - apart from this year. I can't remember the last time the Harbour Fesitval was rained off - it's a standard joke that they order the weather in but obviously somebody forgot to book the sunshine this year. On Friday we got there at 9am to set up, with music starting at 12. By 2pm we'd given in, packed up and gone home because the performers were starting to need to swim onto the stage.

Saturday was a lot better - the rain (mostly) left us alone and we were able to sit down and watch the performers on the Cascade Steps - the Saturday is always ridiculously busy so I didn't get chance to wander anywhere because I didn't want to fight the crowds, but the music was good so I was happy to stay by the stage.

Sunday was the day where we came a bit unstuck. We arrived at 9am to find it raining inside the BSR tent, as well as on stage. The rain wasn't letting up so by 11am we'd had to call it as it was unsafe to set up the broadcast equipment, and instead packed up. Mum and Dad went home while Adam and I decided to make the most of it being quiet so donned our waterproof coats and went for a wander. I was surprised by how quiet it was this year actually-  not just the lack of people but there seemed to be very few stalls around. We ended up having lunch in Queen's Square from one of the street traders then went to Watershed for a coffee on the balcony (under an umbrella).

24th July was actually a very quiet day - I worked on the blog in the morning before getting ready to head out to the theatre in the evening with Mum and Dad. If you don't know, I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to the 40s/50s era so for my birthday my parents bought us all tickets to go see Dreamboats and Petticoats at Bristol Hippodrome. I wish I could've taken photos during the performance because it was absolutely amazing and the costumes, sets and musicians were all incredible. If it comes anywhere near you I would highly recommend it.

On 27th July I was back in Birmingham for the day. I'd been invited to a blogger's dinner in the evening but decided to go and make a day of it in one of my favourite cities. I had planned to meet up with a friend but plans got cancelled when I was already in Birmingham so I did a bit of shopping, ran some errands and sat at my favourite spot at Pitcher & Piano on Brindley Place. One side of the pub looks out onto the canal and there's a little balcony so if you sit downstairs under that, you can sit outside and be sheltered from the rain which I find really inspiring when I'm trying to blog. In the evening I met up with Tracy from DevinaMayUK and we headed to Chung Ying Garden just next to Birmingham Hippodrome. We were there to try all the different DimSum and I'm so gutted I didn't know about this place before I was allergic to squid because there was a lot I didn't get to try. However, the bits I did get to try tasted absolutely incredible and reignited my obsession with DimSum.

The final day of July was a lot less exciting than the rest of the month. Recently, Adam and I have both been busy so despite only living 25 minutes apart we've barely seen eachother. on 31st July we met up in Bristol and spent an entire day relaxing. He taught me to knit and we started to make the hat from the Stitch and Story box I was given, then we went to the pub for a quiet dinner in the sunshine. I try to take time off social media when I'm with Adam because it gives me chance to reset a bit and enjoy offline life, so I didn't take many photos. Instead I'll leave you with the amazing sunset that you can see from the bridge of Bristol Parkway station most evenings.

I hope you enjoyed my talk through another busy month - I'm always surprised by how much I've managed to cram in when I look back. Let me know if you're still enjoying this type of post and if so I'll do another for August.

What's your favourite thing you've done in the last month?

Love and Feathers, 

 The Owlet 💜 

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