CHAI TEA LATTE CONVERT

Today when I got in from college,

I went to go put on the kettle for a much needed cup

of tea. As my fellow Brits will understand, when you come

home after going out somewhere, if you're British,

the standard ritual is to make a cup of tea.

Or ask someone else to make you one.

Either way, you're getting one. End of.

It's almost like it's ingrained somewhere in your DNA.

I was following this said ritual earlier

when I suddenly thought, you know what, I'm going to mix this

up a bit; I'm going to have a chai tea latte.

I had one at Starbucks at Christmas and despite it

being far spicier than I had anticipated, it was, to be

frank, quite delicious.

And right at that moment in time, a chai tea latte

was just the thing I wanted. What proceeded after was therefore

a quick google to find a good recipe and the first link

had 4.8 stars out of 5, which was good enough for me.

To cut to the chase, it was easy peasy to make and 

tasted divine, so I thought I'd share the recipe with you below..

(What you can see to the left and right is an aerial shot of my attempt and an arty farty shot set against the window. Well cool)

RECIPE

(serves 2, take approx 3-4 mins to make):

INGREDIENTS:

2 tea bags

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp mixed spice

1 cup of milk

2 tsp brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla essence

METHOD:

1) Make a two typical cups of tea ie. tea bag + hot water

in a mug and allow it to brew as normal.

2) Add the cinnamon, ginger and mixed spice and stir

once or twice and then leave it for a minute or two whilst

you move onto the next step.

3) In a sauce pan on medium heat, add the milk, sugar 

and vanilla essence and stir with a wooden spoon (this step is super duper fast). Once the sugar has dissolved 

completely turn off the heart.

4) Take the tea bags out and pour half the milk into

one mug and half into the other and stir.

5) Have a sip and go 'aaahhhhh' as all those

lovely, sensuous flavours explode in your mouth.

Mmmmm mmmm mmmmmmm.

(you can also put whipped cream on the top

if you have any- I didn't :( )

-if you're making tea for one, just halve all the ingredients

IKEA + LANTERNS = PERFECT SATURDAY

Yesterday my mum, sister & I went to 

Swedish heaven, aka Ikea and we had the perfect Saturday.

And as soon as we set off in the car to go,

I knew it would be a bad idea, because nobody goes to Ikea

and spends nothing. It's just not possible.

And as I expected, I splashed the cash,

rolled the doh, spent the pennies.

I would've been able to refrain from this,

except that they had these lanterns...

and I love lanterns.

They were two quid and oh my gosh, the colours, THE COLOURS!

Red, yellow, pink, green, blue, silver, white,

black... if I had space in my already

packed out bedroom, I would've bought them all.

I had love hearts in my eyes

as soon as I saw them.

Perfection.

me & my sis chilling in swedish heaven.

I only managed to get away with three,

but I still consider that to be a big achievement, seeing

as my mum just could not appreciate

the amazingness of these lanterns and why you

would spend £2 on one.

And currently, as my mum rightly said, 

yes I don't have space for them in my room yet, but

I consider them to be a future investment,

for when I eventually get my own pad to decorate

and call my own.

So yes, it was a rather perfect day,

filled with chilling in the many different rooms,

nabbing mini pencils, eating Swedish 

meatballs, drinking £1 milkshakes and stocking up

on beautiful starry lanterns.

Sigh......

I guess all that's left for me to say, is

I LOVE IKEA!!!

and I'm booking my holiday to Sweden ASAP.

_________________________________________________________

If you like my lanterns as much as I do,

you can get them at this link:

/http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/70175614/

although you'll find more colours instore,

if you're set on having every colour of the rainbow, like me ;) 

(Ikea also have battery operated tea lights too,

so no fire hazards! BRILL!)

AN HOUR WITH YOU...

I just drew this little

cutie on my graphics tablet,

and I wanted to share it with you, my lovely

readers, wherever you may be.

It's inspired by a certain someone, yes,

however their identity shall

remain a secret for now.

But if you've read some of my earlier posts,

you might be able to guess who...

And for me, the person I like to

spend my hours with is someone who makes

me laugh, who I can talk

to about anything and everything,

who I am 100% myself with,

and who makes my life 

just a little bit brighter than it 

ever was before.

I never know just what we will talk about,

or what will happen when

we are brought together, 

we can talk about anything from

our dreams, our likes, our favourites.

And we never seem to stop.

And I know that when I walk away I

am smiling, and I am happy, and when I am with

this person, I feel exactly the same.

I crave their company,

I look forward to seeing this person,

I look forward to hearing just what tales they have to

say, I like being near them,

close to them.

I wouldn't say I'm in love with this person,

but I feel myself falling just

a little bit each time I am with them, and one day

 in the future I will look at this person

and realise I have fallen in love with everything

they are and everything they are not

without even realising it.

But then again, if fate has other plans,

and we just simply remain friends, I will also be happy 

because having this person somewhere in my life

 is all that matters.

You can't buy that connection,

it's either there or it's not, and whether it be friendship

 or love, you must never let it go.

<3

THE BEGINNING

So this post is kind of to do with love...

I'm kind of inviting you into the goings on in my heart.

Y'see, for the last year I've had a crush on

this guy at my college who just

happens to be an aspiring musician (ie. right up my street).

And obviously at the beginning

it was lovely and perfect and you have

every hope in the world. You're both looking at each

other all the time and thinking this could

really go somewhere and believing it really will.

But the problem was, we had no chance.

We were never introduced, we had no mutual friends or classes,

nothing nothing nothing, both shy, both a little awkward,

and the bottom line is, no matter how much

you convince yourself you do,

you don't really know each other.

And without that essential little component,

nothing can happen.

And as time went on, I wanted more, I wanted to find someone

who I actually spoke to and who made me feel like

something could really truly happen.

And so my feelings slowly burned less brightly,

and I didn't like him like I once did.

It was like hitting a brick wall again and again

and I knew things had to change,

no matter how lovely I thought he was.

And for the record, I still think

he's a lovely person- he's in my form now and

he makes me laugh, which I like (:

But the other day, something happened, and I found

that the loyalties of my heart kind of swapped.

And I closed the door on him.

And someone else kind of kicked open another...

Y'see, the last month or two

I've got to know this guy in one of my classes.
We sit next to each other, and I never dreamed I would get

on with him. But but but, we literally

get on like a house on fire.

It's kind of hard to learn when I'm sat

next to him because he always makes me laugh,

and I always make him laugh,

and we just get on so well and it's lovely

because I've never had that before.

I forget everyone else is there when I'm with him,

it's like it's just me an him, laughing away,

as usual, much to the annoyance

of my teacher.

Now I wouldn't say I fancy him,

but I would say that I have this affection towards him

that slowly gets a little stronger

every time I'm with him, and again,I've

never had anything like that before.

And sometimes I don't know if

he's feeling it too. Last lesson there was a moment

where I definitely felt like he might be, 

but I can't be sure, and I don't

want to rush or assume or mess it up,

because I love just knowing him and chatting to him.

So as I finish this awfully

long post off, I'll say that for me,

one thing came to an end, but, it

coincided with the beginning of another,

and I don't know what might happen,

but what I can say,

is I'm so, so happy I've found him.

<3