Beauty and lifestyle Blog
To start off with I want to say that I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and has an amazing Boxing Day today eating lots of food ❤️
This year is Maya’s 3rd Christmas with my family which is so weird to think about because I still think of her as that little puppy but this year we’ve had some lovely moments that I thought I would share with you guys!
Let me know in the comments what you have gotten up to this year for Christmas ❤️
xxxxxxxxxx
I saw this challenge on TikTok and my family, friends and I are always joking that Maya is the most spoilt puppy ever so I thought I would go through these questions and actually see how spoilt she is 🙂
Maya got 8/10 on this spoilt dog test which means she is definitely a spoilt pooch!!
xxxxxxxxxx
On Saturday 12th of March I went round to my Aunts house in the afternoon to meet her 4 week old puppies! They were absolutely gorgeous and beautiful and so cute so I thought I would show you guys ❤️ I only managed to get photos while they were sleeping because otherwise they were running around like lunatics!
My aunt then dropped me home with one of her dogs in the car Luna who I have looked after before and she is gorgeous so I looked after her for the afternoon/evening 😊
On the Sunday we then had a BBQ cooked by my friend Barghavi who was round for the weekend and my aunt popped round with some of her agility stuff so that we could work together on some agility 😊 I’m relatively new to agility training but my aunt has trained agility dogs for a while so was teaching me the basics and practising with her dog Mitch who so happens to be Maya’s dad and also the dad to the 4 week old puppies!
Let me know in the comments if you are a dog lover or a cat lover 😊
xxxxxxxxxx
Maya is now 18 months old which is crazy as it feels like only yesterday she was a tiny puppy and one of the things that I have absolutely loved doing with her is training 🙂 She is a really well behaved dog when she wants to be and one of my goals for the month is to improve my dog training so I have compiled some of the training videos that I have of Maya 🙂
Sit, Down and Stand
Paw– This is one that I absolutely love and definitely comes in handy when trying to put on her harness as you can just ask for her paw in order to slip the harness on 🙂
Bed – This is a relatively new one for Maya and I think she has come on leaps and bounds since we first started learning it 🙂 She can now go to her bed from about 6 steps away otherwise she gets distracted but we’re getting there 🙂
Hold – This is a new trick that she has been learning where she has to hold an object in her mouth which I’m hoping I will be able to expand into a fetch/retrieve 🙂
Stay- Maya can stand, sit and down stay and I would say stand stay is her worst one because we have only just started learning it however with a down stay she will stay there for around 4 minutes without moving 🙂
Leave– Maya is not very food orientated so leaving food isn’t too much of a chore for her however making her leave a toy in the middle of a game is a struggle because she is always wanting to play!
Touch– I use touch for Maya to mean that she has to touch her nose to my hand and Maya learnt touch relatively early on and it has come in really handy with learning heel-work 🙂
Twist + Spin- Twist and spin was again something Maya learnt relatively early on pretty much straight after Sit and Down and it has always been one of my favourites 🙂 I usually do it near the start of a training session to get her excited and motivated 🙂
Maya also knows Middle where she will run to the middle of your legs, heel-work + close where she will stay close to you while you walk or go to the heel-work position and is learning weave where she will weave in-between your legs and tunnel where she goes through an agility tunnel 🙂
Let me know in the comments if you have a dog and some of the tricks they can do ❤
xxxxxxxxxx
As many of you will already know I am a huge animal lover so on the 9th of September my family and I went to Whipsnade Zoo for the day which is a part of the ZSL family. I have been once before and it was so lovely, the zoo is huge and this time I got to see the baby tigers which were only a few months old!! I thought I would show you guys some of the photos that I took while I was where 🙂
Let me know in the comments if you have ever been to Whipsnade zoo 🙂
xxxxx
Focus: Food and University
Food is so important to your health and wellbeing but during exam season I was definitely guilty of eating a few too many snacks. This month also involved finishing off my dissertation which is worth 50% of my final year university grade!!!! My two mini aims for the end of the month of may were:
Favourite quote of the month: when life hands you lemons, ditch them and grab a latte.
On the 11th of May I had my last exam in the afternoon and then came back to my flat and went to see the new Avengers film Infinity war with two of my flatmates as a celebration for finishing exams ❤ It was so much fun because we got free popcorn and are all massive Marvel nerds 🙂
The Saturday started off with me going to a local cupcake shop called Bea of Bloomsbury which was so much fun and I go past it most days on my way to uni so it was nice to finally go in 🙂 I then bought some flowers from Sainsburys to brighten up my room ❤
I met my mum on the Sunday for some lunch and a little bit of shopping which was so nice because I hadn’t seen her in ages as I had been revising at my London flat 🙂
On the 15th of May I met my friend Hannah for dinner at a vegan restaurant called The Blacksmith and the Toffeemaker which was so lovely and then came back to my flat and had a movie night with two of my flatmates because I had recently bought The Greatest Showman DVD 🙂
On the 16th of May I met one of my friends who I met in first year in halls but hadn’t seen for ages for lunch and then in the evening went out with my flatmate Su to see The Phantom of the Opera!!!! It was such a good show and the scenery and costumes were incredible 🙂
On the 17th I went out for dinner with my two flatmates Poon and Su to a restaurant called Roti King which was so nice because it is malaysian and singaporean street food which I had never tried before but it was absolutely delicious 🙂
I woke up on the 18th and decided to make chocolate brownies because it is my Dad’s birthday on the 20th of May, after making the brownies my flat decided to take a flat photo because we did not have a flat photo yet despite living together for three years 🙂 I then decided to make a Thai fried prawn and pineapple rice dish as one of my two new meals which was so nice ❤
On the weekend of the 19th I went home for my dad’s birthday which was really fun because I surprised him by going home as he thought I had to stay in London to work 🙂 I got to see my dog which was really nice and the whole family went out for food, chilled and had a laugh 🙂
The day I came back to London I started work on my Dissertation and then decided to make chicken tacos which were so delicious and were my second new meal 🙂
Between the 22nd and the 29th I was mainly working on my dissertation which was really stressful and then finally gave it in on the 29th ❤
The last few days of May were spent going to GBK on the 30th and then making salmon and scrambled eggs on toast for lunch on the 31st and then Poon made Mac and Cheese for dinner on the 31st 🙂
Let me know in the comments what you guys got up to for the end of the month of May 🙂
xxxxxxxxxx
In October 2013 I went on a dairy farming placement which was so much fun 🙂 I got to help with feeding the calves, helped with the milking process, saw the procedure following the birth of a calf and finally helped with disbudding over 50 calves which is where the horn bud is removed. This is done to avoid the horns developing at a later age as if the horns develop then this means dehorning would need to be done as the horns can be very dangerous. Dehorning is a lot harder to do and also causes a lot more stress to the animal which is why disbudding is done at an early age to avoid this procedure.
The farm that I went to was called St Joans Farm, they use the milk they gather from the cattle to make ice cream which is then sold to local businesses and people passing by 🙂 I got to try a few ice cream flavours whilst I was there and they were absolutely delicious I would highly recommend.
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or if you have ever been on a Dairy Cattle placement 🙂
xxxxxxxxxx
On the 11th of May I had my last university exam – I might not have to do exams ever again which feels really weird to say. I have had many exams over the years from sats to GCSEs to A-levels and have developed some tips and tricks for when the stress starts to get to you ❤
Let me know in the comments if you have any tips and tricks for getting through exams and good luck to anyone sitting exams over the next few weeks 🙂
xxxxxxxxxx
In 2014/15 I did an eight day course at London Zoo called Zoo Academy where I got to interact with some of the animals, learn lots of new skills involved in Animal Welfare and Behaviour and I also learnt lots of new information about the vast number of interesting species they house at London Zoo 🙂 The first week focused on Invertebrates and we got to clean out some of the invertebrates from the BUG house at London Zoo including giant cockroaches, millipedes and Large Snails 🙂 The next week was focused on Reptiles so we got to say hello to some of the reptiles and got the opportunity to handle one of the snakes and feed the Giant Galapogos Tortoises which was so cool! One of the Giant Galapogos tortoises rested its head on my knee and my heart melted 🙂 Some of the other Practical tasks during the eight weeks included cleaning out the reindeer enclosure, meeting the penguins and cleaning them out, preparing food for a variety of species, making enrichment for carnivores and completing a behaviour study of squirrel monkeys. It was such a fun experience being able to do this course because although I have been to lots of zoos before it was so interesting seeing behind the scenes of Wild animal care and also learning about the conservation of some very endangered species 🙂
Let me know in the comments if you have ever been to London Zoo before and what your favourite wild animal species is 🙂
xxxxxxxxxx
On the 19th of March I had my last day of university lectures ever which was such a weird experience! Part of me was relieved that assignments and exams would soon be over and part of me was sad that soon my education would be at an end and certain people that I am used to seeing on a regular basis wouldn’t be around anymore 😦 With this in mind I was looking through my laptop and came across my Senior Year Bucketlist that I wrote at the start of the year 🙂 Some of these things I have done and some I have yet to do so I thought it would be cool to document the list here as a reminder to myself to complete the list before I graduate on the 6th of July 🙂
Let me know in the comments whats on your Senior Year bucketlist 🙂
xxxxxxxxxx
gracethoroughgoodbeauty 