Starbucks Night at Broadgate Coventry – Review*

Ever since I’ve been a student back in 2008 I have LOVED Starbucks. I would spend days off in Birmingham town centre stores (that are sadly no longer there) with books reading, and on my phone talking to friends. I loved it and I wish I could go back to that time where I had time to waste!

If I had told my 18-21 year old self that in 10 years time I would be attending a blog event at Starbucks, she would tell me to piss off. 😛

I was recently invited along by Cov Bloggers to attend Starbucks night at the Broadgate store in Coventry – the one near the Godiva statue.

This was a gifted event for promotional and reviewing purposes, so all views on this post are entirely my own.

The evening event was lovely and just what I needed after a busy day at work. On arrival we grabbed ourselves a drink and sat down to kick start our evening. I opted for an iced matcha latte, which I wasn’t keen on. I’m used to matcha latte from Starbucks being sweet, which this wasn’t. It was good, don’t get me wrong but I would have liked it a smidgen sweeter.

Clare the store manager of the up and coming Binley Woods drive thru store was there to talk to us about the different types of coffee that Starbucks brew to put in our drinks, as well as sell to customers. We got to try all three of these, which was really yummy! I love coffee so this part of the evening was definitely my favourite.

Blonde Espresso Roast – Incredibly smooth and subtly sweet, with a creamy mouthfeel.

Ethiopia – Soft and velvety with notes of dark chocolate, peppery spice and sweet…

The Story of Ethiopia Single-Origin:

On the ancient slopes flanking Africa’s Great Rift Valley, coffee trees first emerged from the rich, volcanic soil. From these ninth-century highlands, arabica coffee beans began their long journey from Ethiopia to the rest of the world. Today our master roasters have created an entirely new way to experience these treasured beans. An exquisite blend with a reverence for the ritual of coffee, honoring Ethiopia’s bountiful legacy. With a velvety soft texture and floral, peppery spice notes, this is our tribute to the birthplace of coffee.

Caffè Verona:

Caffè Verona is a seductive blend of beans from Latin America and Indonesia, with a gentle touch of Italian Roast lending depth, soul and sweetness.

Because this delectable combination pairs so very well with chocolate, it has become a Valentine’s Day favourite – and the coffee we most associate with romance. Bella, Bella!

P.S.: Literature lovers out there will recognise Verona as the city where Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet. Although the play ends in tragedy, we’d like you to know that every cup of this coffee has a happy ending.

It was great to be able to taste all the different coffees that Starbucks have on offer, because to be honest with you I didn’t quite realise how many there were!

Alongside tasting the coffee, we were able to taste some food that compliment the flavours of the coffee too! For example with Blonde Espresso Roast the Starbucks caramel shortbread was recommended, whilst with the Ethiopia roast Starbucks recommend their lemon cake.

I’d have to say my favourite was definitely the Ethiopia coffee, as it was just a happy medium for me, but overall I loved them all!

After we tried the coffees our food came out. We were allowed to select something from the Starbucks lunch menu. I opted for the BBQ Chicken & Bacon Toastie (Starbucks® signature cheese topped sourdough filled with chicken breast, mature cheddar, mozzarella, cheese & Dijon Mustard sauce and hickory smoked bacon with a Texas BBQ sauce.).

It was so bloody yummy and I can’t express enough how much I enjoyed it! I will definitely be picking one up when I next visit Starbucks in the future. It shocked me that it had Dijon Mustard sauce on it, I didn’t notice but I wonder if I did… I’m not a HUGE mustard fan, but I do rather enjoy it with ham.

One of the items on the lunch menu that I know a fair few Cov Bloggers were talking about (and tasting) is the Vegan Mac (Macaroni with vegan butternut squash sauce, spinach and parsley crumb.). I LOVE macaroni cheese but I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy this or not, so I left it. I don’t regret what I had but when I tried some of the vegan mac… A part of me wished I’d picked this instead.

When I tried it I couldn’t quite believe how this was made to make it vegan, considering it is made with butternut squash sauce and spinach, two foods I HATE. I’ll definitely pick it up to try in the future with Dane, who I can definitely see loving this.

After food we were given some latte art demonstrations by Matt, one of the supervisors at the Broadgate store. I’m going to be honest here, bless Matt he clearly had a bit of show nerves and I get that. I used to be a barista at Costa and I LOVED doing flat white art when I made people’s coffees. I wasn’t amazing but I could do the odd heart and fern. Matt was great, he made some lovely patterns, but the whole section of the evening was messy. It made me cringe every time he poured milk on the table. It was unnecessary to put it bluntly and it was a shame. Due to this, I just didn’t enjoy this part of the evening and sadly I deleted any photos or videos I took during the latte art being made and stopped taking photos. I did of course take some photos after of the gorgeous artwork he made! This being said the latte art that Matt did is so pretty, as you will see from the image above.

After this Hardy, another of the supervisors at the Broadgate store rounded up the evening by talking to us all about the Starbucks Rewards card and how it works. It’s basically a “rewards” card where you need to load money onto it to gain any reward… To be honest that sounds more like a “top up card” rather than  rewards card, to me.

I own a Starbucks Reward card… But I don’t like it and rarely use it because to me it’s “useless”. You have to put money onto it in order to reap any reward. So, you could load £10 onto it and then use say £3 of it and then never pick it up again. You don’t get that money back and if it expires (I don’t know if it does!) you lose that £7 on the card. Who wins? We certainly don’t as the customer.

Hardy was clearly really nervous to tell us about the card and in all fairness she did a good job to tell us all about it and engage with us. Sadly, the Rewards card just isn’t for me. 🙂

Then the evening was over! We were given our goody bags, another free drink for our journey home and of course a group photo!

I LOVE the goody bag! It was full of so many awesome things including a Starbucks takeaway cup (which I have been wanting for ages!), mini caramel waffles, VIA ready brew coffee, a gold coin, vouchers, tea and even a teddy bear gingerbread dressed as a Starbucks barista!

For my drink home I opted for a soya hot chocolate with peppermint. It was glorious and very much enjoyed on my train journey home.

Overall I really enjoyed this event! It was perfect for early in the week after work and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was great learning about the coffee, as well as getting to try some of the food and drinks that I hadn’t tried before.

As always, it was lovely to see some old and new faces at the event too and everyone was lovely, as always who I spoke to. 🙂

A massive thank you to both Starbucks Broadgate, as well as Emily over at Cov Bloggers for inviting me to the event! I hope I can attend any future events at Starbucks Broadgate in the future too.

Make sure to check out the Starbucks Broadgate store over at their Instagram page here.

Do you like a cheeky Starbucks? If so what do you usually order? Both during the warmer summer and colder winter months? Make sure to let me know in the comments.

Until next time, take care all and I hope you’re having a lovely week so far.

Esquires Coffee Coventry – New Menu Review*

I do apologise for how quiet I have been the past week on my blog! I just feel like I have been so busy throughout March and time for myself just didn’t happen. So I stopped and allowed myself to have that time. 😛

Last week I was invited through Coventry Bloggers to attend Esquires Coffee in Coventry to test their new menu, which launched on the 1st March.

Myself alongside some new and old faces were invited along to trial a dish of our choice from the menu. I’ve been to Esquires Coffee in Coventry a couple of times now and I really love it! The baristas really know their coffee and as someone who used to be a barista, I love when someone is passionate about what their do and has plenty of knowledge behind it.

When I heard there was food on offer, I was in there! What can I say, I love food and especially good food, which I already knew Esquires Coffee would offer.

Myself and the other Coventry Bloggers got the chance to have a look at what the new menu had to offer before the evening at Esquires Coffee. We also got the chance to pre-order food that we wanted to eat and review on the evening too, which I thought was great!

I was so torn with what I wanted to eat, as the menu has loads of yummy dishes on offer! There’s a massive range of breakfast and brunch dishes, as well as deli. I finally settled on something from the breakfast and brunch menu, which was the Eggs royale* [GIFTED].

All the food and drinks I received at Esquires Coffee Coventry were gifted to myself in exchange for a review on my blog, so as always I’ve popped a * in the title of this post, as well as * next to items I was gifted ANNNNND of course [GIFTED] is in here too. 🙂

I travelled straight from work to the event so was ready to fill myself with yummy breakfast foods and coffee! On arrival the staff asked us what we would like to drink. They’d recently released their cortado* [GIFTED] drinks into store, which I was rather excited by. For those of you who may not know a cortado is an espresso sized drink which I’ve always described as a flat white in espresso size. The coffee is strong and the milk is velvet and smooth. I loved drinking them every now and then when I worked at Costa Coffee but since leaving over 3 years ago I’ve not had one until last week at the event.

The cortado I was served at Esquires Coffee was delicious and perfect! I also loved the gorgeous little fern on the top of my drink. I was very happy with my choice of hot drink and after I finished it, I knew I’d be ordering another one before I headed home from the event. Random but I’m sure I ordered a cortado with vanilla syrup… But I cant remember if I did or not! 😛 Either way it was delicious!

Through this event I got to meet some of the new Coventry Bloggers, as well as see some familiar faces! I got to meet some lovely girls, who were all so chatty and bubbly. It’s been nice seeing them again since this event too, as well as talking to them on social media.

After loads of chatting, taking photographs and drinking our coffees our food started to come out one by one to each person. Most people seemed to have the same thing and a pattern of the Esquires full vegan breakfast were starting to emerge. That was one thing I loved the most about this new breakfast menu, the vegan full breakfast being offered!

I know, I’m not vegan but I LOVE when I see places offering these options to people. It’s always good if you’re with someone who IS vegan and even if I’m not vegan now, what if I decide to be in the future? It’s always good to know what my options could be in the future!

The range of breakfast items on this new menu were amazing, which is why I found it so hard to choose something to eat. As I mentioned earlier, I ended up going with the Eggs royale. This includes two eggs, cured smoked salmon, baby spinach and hollandaise sauce on toasted English muffin. Right up my street, I’m a sucker for salmon! This costs £7.45 which I feel is such a reasonable price for how much you get.

By the way, the sausage isn’t included! Emily (The Emily Chapters) asked me if I wanted anything else with my food and for some reason I said, “Erm… A sausage would be good!” and I got one! I don’t know why I wanted a sausage… Maybe I just fancied one? It was yummy. 😛

I couldn’t wait to dig into my eggs royale though! I made sure to film some egg yolk porn over on my Instagram stories the night of the event. It was definitely fun to watch back. 😛 The eggs were perfectly poached and the salmon was thicker than it looked. It was perfect all around and although this is a breakfast meal, I’d gladly eat it at any time of the day!

It was lovely talking to everyone about what food they’d chosen and were eating! Some people also had sandwiches, which looked AMAZING! Alongside people having hot food, there were also some pastries too, one of them being a raspberry/strawberry croissant* [GIFTED]. I can’t remember which it was, but I feel like it was raspberry. It was so pretty to look at (and of course take photos of! :P) but it was so yummy too. It had slight jam in the middle, which I’m never usually a fan of but it was so good! I regret not ordering a pastry to try from the menu to be fair, but I know in future I’ll happily venture to Coventry Bloggers for coffee and pastries in the future!

After the meal I decided to order myself another cortado but this time I had a mocha cortado with coconut milk* [GIFTED].

It was AMAZING and I was so glad I ordered it! Ages ago I tried a mocha with coconut mil and loved it so much. I am a massive soya hot chocolates as I find the soya milk can give them a really nice nutty flavour to the drink. The coconut milk works really well in this drink and if anything compliments both the coffee and chocolate flavours.

This was lovely drink to wrap up the meal and I was so glad I ordered it. I’d definitely order it again in the future from Esquires Coffee!

We had more of a natter at the end of the meal and then headed off home. I had a lovely journey back home and I especially felt great that I’d made some new blogger friends and got to have a catch up with some old faces.

This was one of my first blog events of 2019 and I loved it so much!

So, do you think you’ll venture to Esquires Coffee in Coventry soon to check out and try their new menu? If so what would you order yummy?

I also want to know what drinks you order when you go to coffee shops? I usually order a flat white with vanilla if I want coffee or a soya hot chocolate with marshmallows if I want a treat!

I loved this event so much and now I’m craving eggs royale. 😛

Until next time all, I hope you’re having a lovely weekend!

TV TREV Photography*

Happy New Year! I can’t believe it is now 2019 and what a year I think it’ll be. 😛

Before 2019 came to be I worked with Trevor, an amazing photographer based in the Midlands who has brought out an amazing concept for portrait photography. As it’s now a New Year, I thought it would be great to start my first 2019 post off with a bang and talk about his company, what he does and why YOU need to get yourself a portrait photo and why!

Trevor runs TV TREV Photography, where he provides the service of affordable portrait photography for students, graduates and young professionals. When he shoots his photos he offers a natural approach, which is he speciality.

He states on his website, “I’ve realised that we are increasingly judged by how we present ourselves. This is most true for students, graduates and young professionals who have to navigate the interconnecting paths of social media, dating and job hunting. This is where my style of natural, and authentic photos comes into play.”

On Trevor’s website you can find out more about him, his social media handles, his blog, contact details but most importantly his previous work! This includes various photographs from his event, portrait and street work. There’s loads of photographs to browse through, so depending what you might want from your shoot with him, you can have a peek at what he’s already done. He has loads of variety on his website, which I loved seeing before working with him.

I loved the look and sound of what Trevor was doing with his portrait photography and it is something I really do feel like we’re missing from our social media platforms… A decent photo! We always do selfies, or use photographs from nights out with friends, or events with families. It always looks so much better and professional when you have a professional photo.

I was so excited to work with Trevor, as I wanted to share his amazing work with you guys and encourage you all that getting a portrait photograph taken should be on your goals for 2019, especially if you plan to try for a job, meet someone online or even just want to get something a bit better as your Instagram pic. 😛

Me and Trevor met up in Coventry town centre and headed to a lovely coffee shop near the train station. May I just add what a lovely, patient and funny guy Trevor is! I was running late due to a delay on my train to Birmingham and I felt so guilty. Bless Trevor, he waited for me in the train station and when I arrived we headed to the coffee shop. On the way there we chatted about what my blog and his company are about and Japan. It really relaxed me into the photo shoot, as I was feeling a tad on the nervous side. I’ve only ever had something like this once and that was almost 10 years ago!

Trevor had come up with loads of ideas for photographs, which was amazing! Due to the fact my blog has coffee in the title he suggested the coffee shop and had already come up with loads of prop ideas for the shoot in there, including getting a cup of coffee to drink from and hold. I LOVED this idea! The mini consultation we had previous to the shoot was perfect and as stupid as it sounds, I don’t think I’d have even come up with the whole, “Hey coffee in the blog title? Let’s work with that!” 😛

We sat down at a bar section in the window and I grabbed a coffee. After a bit of thought about how to do the shoot there and getting the camera set up, we were ready.

The coffee shop is a photographers DREAM as in the window there are various lights hanging from above, which make for a gorgeous sight during the winter when the earlier nights are upon us. I’d never ventured to the coffee shop before but I loved it so much! It’s the kind of place I’d venture to for a coffee and to read a good book, or catch up on some blog work.

We took loads of photographs from various positions, including from outside, which was really fun to do but at times I felt unsure what to do with myself but this was just due to the nerves. It’s hard to try and look natural at first when you have a camera pointing at you. We’re all so used to smiling and pulling silly faces!

We used the coffee cup I had my flat white coffee in as a prop and I really love how the photographs turned out for these too! When Trevor originally suggested this idea to me in our consultation I was so excited to try it out. I was meant to take a prop with me, a takeaway coffee cup but I completely forgot it at home, which annoyed me. 😦 We worked with what we had however, which was great.

One of the props we used during the shoot was a pot with some poinsettias in. This is actually one of my favourite photos from the shoot due to that prop, as well as the pose I’m doing. It has now become my blog photograph for social media, as well as for my blog! I’m so thrilled with it. 🙂

As I mentioned earlier Trevor was so patient and very encouraging as to what could be done and how we could do it. I kept smiling and it didn’t look natural so he was great when it came to the sort of photos we could take to get a more natural feel.

After each mini shoot that we did in the coffee shop, Trevor would sit back down with me and show me the photographs, which I think is such a good thing to do! I mean, if you want a surprise of what the photos are like then fair enough, but it’s really nice to see the outcome of a shot! I know whenever I do my photography for people, I always love to show them the shot I’ve taken, especially if it’s a really good one!

I honestly love the outcome of all of the photos we took in the coffee shop as they have such a natural and relaxed feel, which is perfect! You can really get the feeling of me watching the world go by, with one coffee sip at a time. 😛

I absolutely adore this photograph that Trevor took of me and I’ve now started to use it on my personal social media pages, as well as printed it off for my parents as it’s such a gorgeous picture for them to both have.

The coffee shop was pretty busy and we felt we’d taken enough photographs there, so we left and headed for the town centre to try and get some more photos. I had taken my Elodie light up umbrella with me to try and get some photographs with it, but due to it still being light and not being able to find any super dark places to shoot, it wasn’t as successful as we’d hoped.

Instead we ventured into the new eateries in Cathedral Lanes, including Cosy Club and The Botanist. There were very relaxed and fun shoots to do! We did various different things, including posing with the Christmas tree inside Cosy Club, me playing on my phone and answering messages, to me watching the people of Coventry start their Christmas shopping!

The German Market was also on in Coventry town centre, which was really cute and if it had of been darker, we would have got some awesome shots there too.

Oh by the way, it was bloody freezing sitting on the metal chairs outside The Botanist! My bum was very, VERY cold! xD

After an hour and a half, me and Trevor decided we had taken enough photographs and it was time to end the photo shoot. I had such an amazing time throughout the shoot and was so excited for the finished photographs to be sent over to me from Trevor. They arrived during my work Christmas party and I was so excited to see them!

I’m so chuffed with all the photographs that Trevor took and the amazing job he did on them. He’s such a star and I honestly can’t thank him enough. He was such a friendly and approachable guy and if you’d like to do something like this, but feel anxious or nervous, honestly don’t! Trevor is so down to earth, a laugh and just a great photographer to work with.

So, down to the pricing information and how it all works!

Pricing starts from £25 for 3 finished photographs after a consultation to find out what you would want out of the shoot and determining what location would work best for yourself. Of course there would also be a non refundable deposit, this you would of course discuss with Trevor.

If I had of paid for my shoot it would have cost me £25 with my 3 finished photographs*. There would be a £5 deposit and the price is based off the fact it was shot in Coventry.

As someone who has charged for their photography in the past, this is such an amazing price to be honest with you and is such a friendly and affordable price for students and graduates! I spoke with Trevor about getting a couples natural photo shoot done in the future for either mine and Dane’s anniversary or his birthday.

I know Trevor expressed how much he would love to do a shoot in the snow, SO if you’re based in the Midlands and it snows soon, get in touch with him! 😛

I’ll pop all of Trevor’s social media handles down below, and although I linked it at the start of this post I will also include his website again! You can also find his email and telephone number on his website. I won’t link them here due to privacy.

Website

LinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

What do you think of the photoshoot I had with TV TREV Photography? Would you look into getting yourself some portrait photography done for the New Year? If so what would you want it for? Social media, personal? Let me know in the comments!

I hope everyone had a fabulous New Year’s Eve and I hope everyone the best year for 2019!

14 Things I Love

Today is the soppiest day of the year, of course it’s Valentine’s Day and it’s definitely like Marmite… You either love it or you hate it, there is no in between really. Well I say that but I’m one of those in between people… I hate Valentine’s Day for various reasons, but I don’t love it. The only thing I like about it is being able to buy Dane a card and write a soppy as fuck message inside for him. I wasn’t going to this year, but alas on a mini food shop I ended up picking up a card. DAMN!

So instead of a soppy post like some people may be posting today, I decided to write about 14 things I love instead… 14 stands for the date by the way. 😛

1. Pokemon – Everyone knows this is one of the things I love and I have done for nearly twenty years now! I love every aspect about it including the games, anime, the figures, etc etc. I could go on about what I love about it. It’s just such an interesting series and is one of the many things that takes me back to my childhood. Mornings spent watching the anime on SM:TV Live, as well as playing the first and second generations on my Game Boy Color during the weekends off school and summer holidays.
2. Perfume/fragrance – I love wearing perfume, even though on the rare occasion I won’t be in the mood for it, so I won’t wear it. I wear all sorts of different ones, but some of my favourites to name are Thierry Muglar Alien, Britney Spears Midnight Fantasy, DKNY Red Delicious, Gucci Envy Me and Dior Addict. I’m sure I can think of more than this mind!
3. Food – I have always loved food, especially savory food. I would eat bags of crisps over a bar of chocolate any day! I love to eat food, cook food, watch food being cooked, thinking about food, everything you can think of to be honest. I especially love Japanese food, as well as Italian food as well. OH and you can never go wrong with American food as well. One of my favourite things to cook is probably my homemade piri piri fries, just because I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love them.
4. Lipstick – As the only make up I wear is lipstick I love them so damn much. I love all sorts of lipsticks of course, especially liquid lipsticks. When I first starting to wear lipstick properly I opted for dark pink shades, which moved onto red, then various pink shades and lately I wear a lot of dark shades such as dark raspberry pink, various purple shades and even a dark purple/navy shade lately. I can only see me going darker too! I can’t stand nude shades or light pink, they don’t suit me at all and look awful on me.
5. Holographic – I am a holosexual through and through and it reminds me of growing up as a teenager and wanting all these things… But sadly I wasn’t able to have them. Due to the whole 90’s trend coming back, of course holographic stuff has too. I only really pick up any holographic goodies if I really like the look of the, and I don’t know why but the holographic look just makes me so happy!
6. Foxes – These are my favourite animals with dogs and otters coming second and third. I don’t know what it is about them that I love, maybe it’s that they’re ginger… Maybe it’s that they’re cunning… Maybe it’s because they’re fluffy? I don’t know but I think they’re beautiful animals!
7. Studio Ghibli – One of my favourite anime film studios and the same place that has made one of my favourite films, Spirited Away. I love how creative and unique the stories and characters are that come out of Studio Ghibli, as well as how beautiful the art style is as well. Me and Dane own all of the Ghibli movies to date and I love watching them throughout the year, but especially with people who have never seen them before. I love seeing people fall in love with them.
8. Lady and The Tramp – I do like Disney but there’s only a handful of the films that I really love and fan over. Lady and The Tramp is my favourite Disney film and one I’ll always keep close to my heart. I just remember watching it when I was a little girl and falling in love with Lady, Tramp and the other dogs. Jock is definitely one of my favourites too! The story is just beautiful and at the time was probably a story line seen in romantic movies, so the fact they brought it to a children’s film was so good.
9. Goodsmile Company Nendoroid’s – These are little figures based on Japanese anime and manga series, however it has shifted more over to the Western trends such as Disney movie characters (Frozen, Star Wars, Marvel etc) and even some game characters (Animal Crossing, Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted, etc). Both me and Dane LOVE Nendoroid’s and we are constantly eyeing up new ones to buy… They’re not cheap though so they’re definitely a treat whenever we get any. I need to do a post soon about which ones we’re both lusting after.
10. Duvet Days – This is definitely something I love! I don’t get them as much as I used to due to being busy with work, or the house, or other things. BUT saying this I am currently sat up in bed typing up this post, watching The Last Leg. At this moment in time I cannot possibly complain. 😛 I just love duvet days where I can lie in bed for at least 3 hours on my iPhone scrolling through YouTube and Instagram. These make perfect weekend mornings for me.
11. Coffee – As a trained barista I love knowing how to make a perfect cup of coffee, but do you know what is even better? Having my own coffee machine to make coffee shop style coffee at home! I LOVE IT! Apart from loving coffee in that way, I also love coffee flavoured things, as well as coffee beans covered in chocolate. I am that weirdo who loves the coffee Revels and Roses. 😛
12. Bubble baths – I swear I was a mermaid in a previous life! Before all these trends of “being a mermaid” came around I always joked about this. I LOVE baths and I could spend hours in the bath reading books, scrolling through YouTube and Instagram on my phone, and even doing some writing in my journal. Even as a child and teenager I would sit in the bath for hours on end and just add more hot water whenever I felt chilly. Showers I’m not so arsed about, but baths are just heaven to me! I’ve always had a fascination with water too and I don’t know why to be honest, so much so I’ve written stories about water before and various novels as well.
13. My best friend Gabriella – I mentioned her recently on my Galentine’s Day post, which you can read here. I’ve known Gabriella for nearly 10 years now and I tell you it has FLOWN by! But I love her so much, she is like a sister to me and we get on so well. We talk daily and whether we’re feeling great or like shit we’re always there for each other no matter what. We’ve both supported each other the past month about different things and if I’m ever in the shit and need someone and Dane isn’t around, I know she’ll be there for me no matter what. I love her so much. :’)
14. Dane – I said Valentine’s Day is soppy but I don’t recall saying there wouldn’t be any on here… 😛 But of course I love Dane. He’s my boyfriend, my best friend, my soul mate and the best person I have ever met. He’s always there for me no matter what and even when I’m a miserable bitch and take stuff out on him, he’s always there to give me a cuddle and be understanding of whatever has happened. I just love him so much, I can’t even describe it. He’s my light in the dark, the apple to my pie and as I’ve started to joke, the stink to my fart. 😛

So those were 14 things I love! I’m sorry this post isn’t anything special but I wanted to do something for today but only worked something out at the last minute. 😛

What 14 things do you love? Please make sure to let me know in the comments down below!

Until next time all, take care and whatever you’re doing today, have a lovely day. ^_^

The Chocolate Quarter – Review*

This review is way overdue on my blog and I feel bad for only getting around to writing it now. To be honest I wanted to save eating all these yummy chocolates that I’ll be talking about today for a rainy day… Today isn’t a rainy day, but I am in the mood for something sweet, and so is Dane who will help me try these chocolates today.

Back at the start of the month I attended a blog event at The Chocolate Quarter, down in the jewellery quarter in Birmingham. The event was amazing, and one of my favourites to date. We go to learn about chocolate, sample some of their goodies, as well as make some chocolates of our own! You can read all about the event here.

At the end of the event we were offered 10% a box of chocolates, so instead of £6.00 they only cost us £5.00. This including the four we made during the event, AND a special Star Wars chocolate to celebrate May 4th (or May the fourth be with you – AKA Star Wars Day) I thought this was a complete bargain for 10 chocolates.

From top to bottom I’ll talk about the chocolates I bought with a description from The Chocolate Quarter website, and then do a small review of each. Oh hello sugar rush! 😛

From L-R:

Coffee & Cardamon – A lot of cardamom and little coffee. Our new mashup.

Chocolate caramel truffle with chocolate powder coating which I made.

Chocolate caramel truffle with icing sugar-coating which I made.

From L-R:

Sea Salt Caramel – Firm caramel seasoned with fleur de sel salt.

Cappuccino – Coffee caramel topped with white chocolate “foam” in a dark cup.

Irish Cream – Irish Cream liqueur drenched in gorgeous milk chocolate.

From L-R:

Chocolate caramel truffle which I made.

Freshy – Refreshing zesty lemon and lime in sweet white chocolate.

Now that I have shown them off with their descriptions, it’s onto the reviews! I will be reviewing them in the order that I have shown them above.

Coffee & Cardamom – I LOVE coffee chocolates so I knew I had to pick this one up when I read that it contained coffee… However I was slightly disappointed because I couldn’t take any coffee! Dane could however, so maybe my taste buds just aren’t doing as good today. The centre was a nice creamy/gooey consistency, but not the sort of gooey that goes all over your chin and down your favourite t-shirt. I liked that! The look of this one was plain but also really cute with the little gold coffee bean design on top. I would buy this again, as although I couldn’t taste the coffee, it was still lovely due to the creamy centre.

Sea Salt Caramel – I love salted caramel flavoured things. The nicest salted caramel chocolate I ever tried was some that my friend Gabriella bought me from Thorntons for my birthday last year. Well I can’t decide which I like best! They’re both nice in different ways to be honest. Thorntons has a gooey centre, whilst this one is a chewy caramel centre which has chunks of salt inside. To be honest I think I do prefer Thorntons for various different reasons, but this just ticks all the boxes for me and I would definitely buy this again! The salt is really salty tasting and I bloody love it!

Cappuccino – I have so much to say about this chocolate. It is the best one in the box, both for appearance and for how it tastes. As you can see this is in the shape of a gorgeous little coffee cup with cappuccino inside. It’s dark chocolate which makes the cup itself, and white chocolate to make the foam. However when I bit into this it also had some caramel at the bottom of the white chocolate, whether this was to hold it in place (which I’m sure it was…) I don’t know, but damn it was a nice surprise! I shared these chocolates with Dane, but I really wish I didn’t have to because I could have eaten this all to myself. I will be buying this one again in the future! Especially for my dad as he loves chocolate, novelty things like this, and he drinks cappuccino so it’s a win win situation!

Irish Cream – This is definitely one of my favourites from the bunch. Oh boy do I love this chocolate! It’s got a lovely strong taste of Irish Cream in there, alongside the smooth and creamy centre. If you love alcoholic chocolates, and especially love chocolate such as Bailey’s (which for the record is one of  my favourites!) then you will love this! The look of it is simple with some white chocolate on top, but I like how simplistic it is, considering it packs a punch when you eat it! Gold stars to The Chocolate Quarter for this beauty.

Freshy – This was one that I pondered over buying for quite some time. I love my lemon and lime tasting things due to how refreshing they are. This is a white chocolate with a lemon and lime citrus mousse in the centre. We liked this one but we weren’t overly keen. Personally I found it was a little sickly due to the white chocolate, but I’m more of a dark chocolate lover so this is probably why. Dane commented saying that he wasn’t sure if the lemon and lime worked with the white chocolate. The one thing I like about this however is how it looked. It reminded me of a marble effect which I thought was really clever. If I was offered this I would eat it, but to buy it again myself… I would prefer to pick up something else.

Another one of the chocolates I mentioned I was given after the event was a Star Wars one, and out of the four we could choose, I decided on a Stormtrooper. This was your bog standard milk chocolate, nothing in the centre etc. It was yummy and I would buy these on their own to be honest, and keep them in a jar in the fridge for rainy days.

So what did I think of all the chocolates overall?

Like? Cappuccino and Irish Cream. These two were perfect chocolates for me, and I adored them so damn much.

Dislike? Freshy. What a massive let down in comparison to the others. I’m glad this was the first one I tried because it set me up for some amazing goodies later on.

Would I go to The Chocolate Quarter and buy from them again? A definite yes! I really want to buy the two I liked again, as well as try some of the other ones they have up for grabs, oh and the ones I got to try for Father’s Day at the event.

Here is a list of ones I want to try next time; Jewellery Porter, Smoked Bacon, Dairy Free Peppermint, Pistachio Halva, and Sea Salt Praline.

Overall I really do love the chocolates I bought! They were all yummy, and are now in a happy place in mine and Dane’s bellies.

Will you be checking out The Chocolate Quarter anytime soon? If so which chocolates do you have your eyes on buying? Make sure to let me know in the comments down below!

Until next time, take care all and I hope you’re having a great week.

A-Z: Get To Know Me!

I recently found a post of the same title by Be over at Love From Be (link) and I just loved the post so much. It was just a nice and different way of getting to know the blogger you enjoy reading, or have just discovered. So I thought I would give it a go myself! Make sure to go and check out Be’s blog, as she’s so lovely and down to Earth.

Anime – I love anime so much, it’s something I have enjoyed watching from a young age, and the older I’ve got the more anime shows I have found myself watching. Some of my favourites are Elfen Lied, Nana, Azumanga Daioh, Himouto! Umaru-Chan, Sword Art Online, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

Blogging – I didn’t want to have to use this as the letter B, but I really couldn’t think of anything else! I love my blog. It’s my number one hobby, and something I would love to turn into my job in the future. I’ve been running my blog for four years now, and I continue to carry on with it for as long as possible.

Coffee – Well, the title of my blog does have the word coffee in it! I do really like coffee, so much so I worked in Costa Coffee for nearly three years. That is probably the first time I’ve admitted to working in Costa on my blog. 😛 My favourite coffee is vanilla flat white. I love my coffee strong! 😛

Dirty Sanchez – One of my favourite shows has to be this. I love not only that the guys are from the UK, but I also love how they do some worse off stuff than what Jackass have ever done. I’m sad that they aren’t still around, but I’ll always think of Dirty Sanchez as one of the shows I grew up watching and loving.

Evanescence – My favourite band for over ten years now. I fell in love with them when I first heard “Bring Me To Life” on KERRANG! Radio. I ended up buying their first album Fallen and listening to it none stop. I still have that album to this day! I have seen them live twice, and hope to go again in the future. I’ve also met all the band mates (apart from Amy!) from the Evanescence album days. My favourite song is “Imaginary”.

Fuerteventura – This place is legit my second home. I’ve been going there since the age of 5 and I love it. I didn’t go for 10 years and it broke my heart, I forgot how much I loved it and how amazing it was there. I really want to live there one day… But we shall see. I would want to work in a cocktail bar, or hell even run my own on the beach! 😛

Gaming – I’m a gamer. Not a hardcore one, but I still love to play my games! I’m also a console collector too, and I currently own 7 consoles (Nintendo SNES and GameCube, Playstation, PS2, PS3, and PS4, and an Xbox 360), as well as my handheld collection of the original Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS Lite, and my Nintendo 2DS. Go me! But I love playing games. Currently obsessed with the LEGO games. I can’t wait for the Star Wars one to come out.

Hyper Japan – I went to my first Hyper Japan convention last summer in London and I loved it so damn much! It wasn’t as good as I was hoping it was going to be, but I still enjoyed myself. I really hope that me and Dane can attend the winter one this year, seeing as we went to the summer one last year.

iPhone – I own an iPhone 6 and I love it to bits! It’s by far the best phone I have owned to date, and I just love it. It feels nice to hold, is great to look at, and to be honest my new phone case just makes me happy. I only got it in the post yesterday when I got home from work and it’s just so adorable. Who can say no to a sleeping Mew, huh?

Jackass – Another one of my favourite shows. I grew up watching this too funnily enough! I would skip school to stay at home eating toast and watching TV shows on MTV. Or I would stay awake all night watching them on Viva. God those were the days! I was gutted when Ryan Dunn died too by the way. It really hit home as he was my favourite one on the show. I’m sad that this has also come to an end, but I love Bad Grandpa, it’s amazing!

Kawaii – A Japanese word for cute. I love cute things and often say kawaii about them to try and be cute myself. It rarely works and I end up looking like a complete loser. 😛

Lipstick – This is really the only makeup I wear, and I’m pretty damn proud of that! I love lipstick, and I’ve recently started to get braver in wearing darker lip shades than I already wear. I love liquid lipsticks the most right now. My favourite brand being Jeffree Star Cosmetics. I also love my MAC lipsticks too, my favourite shade will always be Rebel. I love wearing reds, dark pinks, and purples. Can never get enough of them!

Manga – I love reading manga. I started to read it back in 2011 when I finish university and had time on my hands. I started with Elfen Lied, then moved onto Azumanga Daioh, and Nana. I currently have some Nana to finish reading and then I’ll be moving onto the Sword Art Online series. I need to read the Attack On Titan manga too… But I only have enough time on my hands for one thing at a time.

Nendoroid – These are the awesome figures that me and Dane collect, and we really do love them! We have a nice little collection going at the mostly, which are mostly Dane’s. I only have 3 at the moment whilst he has (from memory) 10 figures… My collection is really lame in comparison! Good Smile recently announced they were creating a Deadpool Nendoroid, so me and Dane are really excited for him!

Ocean – I love the ocean. I love how beautiful it looks and sounds with the colours, and the crashing and gentle swishing noises. I finally got to swim in the sea/ocean on my holiday last January with Dane and I loved it so damn much! I can’t wait to do that again someday.

Image taken from We Heart It

Pokemon – Since the age of 6 I have loved Pokemon, and that love is still just as strong now 10 years later. I still play the games, lust after the cute plushies (as you’ll have seen from my recent wish list post here), and get excited when any new news comes out to do with the franchise. I don’t care if I’m a 26-year-old woman, I love Pokemon! 😛

Queens Of The Stone Age – One of my other favourite bands, and one I really want to see soon! I have always ended up not going to see them live due to having no money, no one to go with, or them playing too far away from home. When they tour again however I won’t let the chance slip away!

Red – Not my  favourite colour (that’s purple) but it’s my colour of choice clothing wise! I love the colour red and how bold, and sexy it looks. It also suits me due to my warm yellow skin tone, as well as my brown hair and eyes. I’m after a gorgeous red rain coat at the moment, but alas I haven’t found much.

Studio Ghibli – This is my Disney. You know everyone loves Disney movies? Well I love Studio Ghibli movies. Me and my boyfriend between us have pretty much all of the films on DVD and whenever a new one comes out we try to go and watch it at the cinema. My favourite is Spirited Away, it always has been and I’m pretty sure it always will be. I do rather like Grave of The Fireflies, even though it’s a really sad film.

Teachers – Another TV show I grew up watching! This used to be on Channel 4 back in the day when I was still at school myself! It always made me want to be a teacher deep down due to how much fun all the teachers had both in and outside of school. Alas that hasn’t happened… My favourite season is probably season 2, but I love them all!

Image taken from We Heart It

Umaru – I am legit Umaru… Constantly hermitting away in my room playing games, eating crap, reading manga, and lusting after things I can’t afford to buy. I’m not cute like her though… Just a very sad 16-year-old stuck inside someone 10 years older than herself… Oh dear. 😛

Vitamin D – This is an odd one, but I actually recently found out I have a vitamin D deficiency… Which of course sucks but I’m currently on medication to help it. The little pills I get are tiny blue ones, which remind me of The Matrix. 😛

Writing – I love to write. I do it for my blog, I write books and stories in my spare time, and I even studied critical and creative writing for my masters degree (as well as for my BA too…). So it is safe to say I love writing. 😛 Need I say more than that???

X (I apologise but I couldn’t think of anything with this letter…)

Yankee Candle – I love these candles! They’re my candle of choice whenever I go to buy any new ones, so I’m always burning them at home. I currently have Christmas Eve burning at the moment as I’m trying to use up all my  tea lights and votives. 🙂

Z (I apologise but I couldn’t think of anything with this letter…)

Image taken from We Heart It

So that was my A-Z about me! Thanks again to Be for posting about this, as if she hadn’t I might not have gotten the chance to have a go at it myself. I also apologise if any of my answers were lame… 😛

Will you be having a go at talking about yourself through an A-Z post? Make sure to let me know if you do so I can read yours!

Until next time, take care all and I hope you’re having a great week so far.

October Wish List

Finally after months without one, I finally have a new wish list out!

I’m currently sat in Xscape in Milton Keynes, watching my boyfriend and his friend snowboarding. I’m sad that I’m not able to join them, but my time will come.

So whilst they go off snowboarding, I’m sat in the cafe watching them on the slope and writing up a wish list post. I’m using my boyfriends MacBook Pro, as he has Photoshop, which I lost on my old laptop when it died on me.

So, I have plenty of lovely things to show you, so let’s get on with the post! 😀

• Heart Elbow Patch Jumper from ASOS – £22.00.

I noticed this jumper from ASOS months ago and have been pinning over it ever since. I have pleather skater skirt just like what the model is wearing in the picture, so in the autumn and winter months I’d be wearing that sort of outfit out during the day and in the evening. I think this jumper would also look lovely with a tartan skirt of some skinny fit jeans, teamed with boots of course, or creepers. I love the little heart-shaped elbow patches, they just make it look really girly and cute. You can also get this in black with brown elbow patches, but I didn’t like the black and brown combination.

• Sweetheart Dress by Wal G from Topshop – £30.00.

This lace dress by Wal G comes in loads of different colours, but I opted for the bordeaux shade, as I thought it would look gorgeous throughout the autumn and winter season this year. I love lace dresses for this time of year too. For it being stocked in Topshop I was amazed at how cheap it is and if it wasn’t for being so poor at the moment, I’d have bought it by now. This would look lovely during the day and the evening as it would look great with a pair of boots, creepers or even some spiked flats, of course with my spiked pleather jacket to match. I’d mostly wear this dress with my navy military coat, or what I like to call my Sherlock coat. 😛

• Burgundy Fox Print Jumper from New Look – (Was £24.99 when I wrote this post) £12.00.

When it comes to chilly weather, you can NEVER have enough jumpers and with bonfire night and even the Christmas German Market looming upon us before we know it, I’ll be needing as many snuggly jumpers as possible and as burgundy is one of my favourite colours and foxes one of my favourite animals… It’s as if this jumper was made for me! It looks super soft and snug and as soon as I get spare cash I’m going to go into New Look to try it on. I’d definitely team this with black skinny fit jeans and shorts, as it’ll look and feel lovely. Teamed with boots and a warm coat and I’ll be toasty warm all autumn and winter!

• DC Rebound Hi Se from DC Shoes – £35.00.

I love DC SHoes as a company, so I of course love their footwear! I’ve owned a pair of DC Rebound Hi shoes since I was 18/19 years old and they’re still lasting me now, however they’re white and very much neon and even though I love them so dearly, I would like a darker coloured pair that I can wear throughout the colder months. I’ve been keeping my eye on these since May and every other month the price of these has gone down. Eventually I will buy these, I love the navy and white, but I especially love the red bandana style pattern on the shoe itself. It’s only minor on the shoe but it looks so nice. I saw someone wearing these on a train ride to my boyfriends a couple of weeks back and even though the woman who wore them had smaller feet than me (size 3 at a guess, I’m a 7!) they looked very comfortable and I regret not asking her if they were as comfortable as they looked!

• Cut Out High-Waisted Black Skirt With Shoulder-Strap from Choies – £25.99.

I follow meowismful’s blog via Bloglovin’, but I’m also a subscriber to her YouTube channel and when she spoke about this skirt on one of her haul videos, I just fell in love with it! It’s really grunge and I think it would look beautiful teamed up with jumpers, quirky t-shirts and worn with creepers is a must too! I think I’d be inclined to wear this skirt all year round and as it’s a one size fits all, I’d certainly hope it would fit me, as I have quite a big bum and skirts sometimes ride up, it can depend on the material. This does remind me of something I’d have seen being worn by someone on Tumblr, which gives it a massive thumbs up in my books!

• Pinnafore 2 For Dress from Warehouse  – £35.00.

I saw this dress over on alittleboatsailing’s blog two months ago and just fell in love with it so much! There’s something gothic about it that I like and I think it would be lovely worn in the winter time with my big red coat and my boots, it would give it a bit of edge I think. However I did go into Warehouse to buy this but they didn’t have any left in my size, so I was told, “If you go onto the website you can get Warehouse to send us your size for you to buy from here.” So as soon as I got home I did just that, that was back towards the end of July and my dress still hasn’t been shipped to the stored I needed it to go to, which to me is just wrong and bad customer service. This has put me off buying this dress a little bit, but that being said it’s so damn pretty that I just need it in my life!

• Vans Sk8 Hi Marvel Spider-Man Trainers – £65.00.

When I heard about this I went to go and look at them on Schuh’s website straight away and let’s just say, I fell in love and contemplated getting myself overdrawn… Bu I was smarter than that and have waited patiently for them. I know these are on my Christmas/Birthday list for someone to buy me or for myself to save up for and sadly buy myself as some sort of self present. I heard that the design on these is perfect and that they look better in the flesh than they do on the pictures and they were right. The front of the shoe where its red is suede and has a beautiful web print on them, perfect for any Spider-Man fan, like myself. As you all know I love Spider-Man and to have these to wear out and about would be a dream come true. I love Vans trainers, they’re so comfortable and my 7-year-old Vans trainers haven’t let me down yet and are as comfortable as they were the day I bought them back in 2006. I’d wear these trainers with skinny jeans and maybe baggy jeans. These are what I would wear when I’m not feeling up to making an effort or if I’m walking around a lot. I wonder if I’ll get them for Christmas… *hint hint* 😉

• Natural Bamboo Cute Fawn Handmade Phone Cover from and by Little Doe – £18.99.

I’m a fan of Little Doe’s jewellery, she likes foxes and deers like myself and when Scarlet posted a picture of this phone case on her Facebook page, I was hooked instantly and knew I just needed this cover for my iPhone! It’s made out of natural bamboo and has a gorgeous picture of a female fawn on it. You can have it customised too by picking from a selection of colours (pink, black, red, lavender, yellow & mint green) that you would like to have for the fawns rose, I’ve already decided that I would like mint green for mine. You also don’t have to own and iPhone 5 to become an owner of this gorgeous case, it’s also available for the iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, Samsung Galaxy S3 and Samsung Galaxy S4. I can’t wait to get my hands on one and when Scarlet announced she would be bringing out designs with foxes on, I felt ecstatic! I can’t wait! 😀

• Barry M Matte Nail Paints from Barry M’s website, Superdrug & Boots – £3.99 each.

When I heard that Barry M were bringing out matte nail paints I was pretty excited about it and the fact that they’re all named after coffee related things just made me laugh… Because I work in a coffee shop of course! So anyway, you get five different shades to choose from and whilst I don’t want all of them, I probably want most! You have Espresso (matte black), Crush (red wine), Caramel (coffee brown), Vanilla (light grey) and Mocha (a dark brown). All the shades are beautiful but the ones that are catching my eyes the most are definitely Espresso, Crush and Vanilla. I could see me wearing Espresso to death over the winter period as I love wearing black nail polish and for Espresso to look matte and leather like when you wear it, it appeals to me a lot. By the time this post goes live, these polishes will be available to purchase in both Superdrug and Boots stores.

Well that was my wish list for this month! I’ve really missed making wish lists and as my boyfriend is lovely enough to let me use his MacBook Pro to write-up and edit posts together for images, I think my wish lists will see a quick return to my blog!

What have you seen that you hope to add to your wish list for October? Let me know in the comments down below!

Until next time, take care all and I hope you have a good weekend.