Rome Honeymoon – Day 5

Today was another early start and jam packed day of sightseeing with a 45 minute journey to today’s first activity. I had booked us tickets for the Colosseum for 10:30, again somewhere I was recommended to book skip the line tickets for. Rome really wasn't as busy this time of year as some of the photos I have seen so it wasn't really necessary as there was barely a queue anyway.

We got in and had a look around and walked around the whole Colosseum. In hindsight, I wish I had paid for a tour here as it gives you access to extra areas and we would have had a better idea of what we were looking at but it was still great to see all the same. I remember when I went to see the Statue of Liberty and was very underwhelmed, it looked tiny compared to what I expected. The Colosseum was not like that, it was huge and was exactly what I had hoped it would be.

Our ticket also included access to the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill so afterwards we headed across the road here. There was quite a big queue for this and it was really warm and there wasn't any shade. An attendant came up to us and said we could skip the queue as I was pregnant, so she let me in a side gate and then James got to go to a shorter queue. It was a bit pointless really as I still had to then wait about 15 minutes in the blazing sun for James to get through. It would have been better if we had gone in together but it saved us a bit of time anyway. In here, it was really nice looking around at various ruins and climbing up high to get a great view over the city. By this point through we hadn't eaten or had anything to drink for hours so we were getting a bit tired.

We left the area and went to find food and found a place called Pizza Forum. I had risotto and James tried Gnocci for the first time. I think this place was a chain restaurant but it did the trick and we could finally have a drink and a sit down. 

I really wanted to visit the ‘mouth of truth’ or Bocca della Veritá so looking on the map this wasn’t too far from where we were. We hopped on a bus and found the church. There was a queue for a photo but we must have only waited about 15 minutes in total and it was shaded. You could pop a donation in the pot if you wanted, but essentially this attraction was free and it was fun to get a photo.

We still had some time to kill in the afternoon so we headed to the Baths of Caracalla. We only had about an hour here as they closed but it was quite cheap to get in and was good to see a proper Roman Bath set up.

This put us at about an hour from our apartment, so we made the journey back and got freshened up for dinner. James found a place on Tripadvisor called Tommi's Burger Joint so we thought we would give it a try. It was really good. Similar to Five Guys I would say. Service was fast and there was loads of different sauces and toppings you could add to your burger free of charge, Probably one of the best burgers I have had in a while and a great atmosphere too.

Rome Honeymoon – Day 3

After a busy first full day in Rome, today was about to get busier! I have always wanted to go to Pompeii but thought it was miles from Rome. When I found out you can do a day trip there, I had to get us some tickets. I am very thankful to everyone that donated to our honeymoon fund at the wedding, the generosity of our friends and family meant that we had a bit of extra money to book excursions and things that we could only dream of doing. Due to the time of year, this actually included a visit to Naples instead of Mt. Vesuvius, which suited me just fine as I don’t think I fancied a long climb/walk up a volcano!

A 7:30am start meant getting up early for us as the meeting point was about half an hour from our apartment on public transport. Luckily the buses and metro start really early so we didn’t have any problems planning out routes and I wrote down the names of all the stops we needed to take before we went. We left in plenty of time just in case there was cancellations or no bus came and we had to walk but we still managed to be late as the metro station was closed. We couldn't actually find the meeting point. We literally ran from the metro and still didn't know where we were going. Google maps was rubbish. James called the tour operator and the lady on the phone directed us to the office. We got in and showed our ticket. At this point we were 20 minutes late. They spoke in Italian to each other and looked at their watches concerned. Thankfully the bus was still waiting as another family was running late. We got dropped off at the coach and got on (it was packed as everyone was waiting for us) but I am so thankful we got on or I would have been devastated!

The tour began with a coach journey to Naples. We got to stop off at Naples Bay and it was beautiful. I would love to come back to Italy and stay this side one day. We then made our way to Pompeii, it took just over 3 hours. When we arrived in Pompeii we were treated to a pizza lunch before starting our tour. We then made our way to the ruins and another tour guide took over from there.

Pompeii was absolutely massive, you would need a whole day to properly look around the ruins here and I'd love to come back. It's very eerie seeing the ruins and then seeing Mt. Vesuvius leering over you in the background thinking it could technically erupt at any given moment. We had around 2 hours in Pompeii to explore with our guide. He really brought Pompeii to life, if we were here alone we wouldn't have really known what we were looking at but it was great to see what used to be shops, homes and even a brothel.

I found it fascinating that you could even see marks in the road where the chariots used to drive, over many years they have left lines in the road. It was great to see all this preserved history.

After a long day we headed back to our apartment, we grabbed a takeaway from a local place called Mama Eats and took it back to the apartment to eat. We then went to bed ready for another day.

Rome Honeymoon – Days 1 & 2

It’s been a while since I’ve done any form of travel post (or post at all for that matter -oops!) so I thought I would share some of the highlights from our recent Honeymoon to Rome. Neither of us had been to Italy before and we were both excited to explore. We got married in December and originally I wanted our honeymoon to be a ‘lay on a beach and do nothing’ kind of holiday, however my husband is better suited to having things to do. Looking at anywhere warm in December was proving difficult, most places across the equator were lovely and hot but either cost an absolute fortune or there was a risk of the Zika virus, no good for travelling when pregnant.

Photo by Dan Sunderland

Eventually we decided to go a few months later, to give ourselves something to look forward to. We chose Rome as we knew there would be plenty to do, on what is probably our last ever child free holiday together for a long time! I anticipated it would be cold, but it’s not the type of sunbathing holiday anyway so none of that mattered. As it happens, the weather was pretty good most days, lovely and sunny in the afternoons.

Our flight was on a Monday, so to save us time and stress I booked us in to a hotel at Gatwick for the Sunday night where we had a picnic in the room and got a nice early night. Breakfast was included the next day and after that we headed to our Purple Parking carpark and got a shuttle bus to the airport.

Our flight was lunch time, so we got some snacks/drinks for the flight and off we went! We arrived in Rome around 4pm. I hadn’t booked any transport to the hotel so hoped we would find a reputable taxi rank but being flustered when we got there with no clue where to go, we got in a taxi with a company that ended up costing nearly 3x the price it should have done. Lesson learned, we arrived safely at the apartment and to be fair to the taxi driver he did give us a tour and explain what we were seeing for the 45 minute journey.

Our apartment was one that I found on Airbnb and very reasonably priced. The location was near to Vatican City and also close to Metro and bus routes. When we arrived we got settled in before deciding to head to a nearby supermarket to get a few bits for the room. The good thing about having an Airbnb was that we had a kitchen area so we knew we could prepare some food at home which was a bonus, and a money saver. We stocked up on snacks and breakfast foods and then came back to the apartment to rest ahead of our first full day.

Day 2 we woke up early and got ourselves ready. I booked us in for a free tour at 9:20am and it was about a half an hour journey to the start point. I am pleased I booked this as it gave us a chance to familiarise ourselves with the location and we also got to learn a bit about the history of Rome. The tour was really good and lasted a good 2-3 hours. There was no obligation to tip at the end however we did because we thought it was fantastic and really well organised. We visited Spanish Square and Spanish Steps, Immaculate Conception Column, The house of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Saint Andrew Church, Bernini’s Angels, The famous “Galleria”, Column of Marcus Aurelius, Prime Ministers House, Temple of Hadrian, Pantheon, The Tomb of the Kings, Tomb of Raphael, Saint Ignatius Church, Andrea Pozzo’s Tromp l’oeil and finally the Trevi Fountain.

After the tour we decided to find somewhere for lunch. We ended up at McDonalds as the area we finished the tour in was a little bit busy and it was harder than we thought just to find somewhere for lunch. It's all very well finding a nice place for a slice of pizza but these places don't have any seating so it was sometimes easier to pop into a McDonalds just for a sit down.

After lunch we headed towards Castel Sant'Angelo. I had planned both bus routes and walking routes so we could play it by ear and see how I felt. Castel Sant'Angelo was right near to our apartment, so luckily for us afterwards it was easy to stagger back home and freshen up.

For dinner, we tried to find somewhere nearby on Tripadvisor. The 3 places we picked out we couldn't actually find - we found this a lot, the names had changed on some of them. We walked around and finally found a little pizza restaurant and sat outside under giant patio heaters. I really felt like I was on holiday and the pizza was great - first full day was a success.

My Surprise Hen Party

Well where do I start with this post – I am still in shock! So a couple of weeks ago was my surprise Hen Party. Remember in my Christies Love’s Box review I mentioned that Kim had given me a Save The Date for a blog event in September? Turns out this wasn’t a blog event after all and in fact she had been plotting a hen party for me with some of my friends and family.

The day of the ‘blog event’ arrived and I had packed my camera, purse, phone and all the essentials. I was told the event was overnight so I had an overnight bag and I was also told to bring my passport too but turns out this was all to throw me off! I spent ages picking what to wear in the morning and waited for Kim to pick me up. Usually I wait for Kim in my garden and lock the back door, but this time Kim called ahead and said she needed the loo and to fill up my water bottle so I waited indoors – again, all part of her plan!

When Kim arrived, she told me to come outside. In my mind I was thinking oh god, has she crashed into my car/fence? Ran Biscuit over? Why does she need me to come outside so soon! I’ve barely had time to get my bags! And as I walked out, on my driveway were lots of my friends and family, all wearing matching Bride Tribe Tshirts. They looked fantastic! I was then given my own Tshirt to wear, a veil and a garter. In the front seat of the car was a blow up man too, which I was rather amused by.

We got into 3 cars and drove to a secret location. On the way there Kim mentioned we were running late and my nanny mentioned we had chartered the boat for the day so I then knew we were going on a boat. I assumed it would be one of those little ones you get on the broads, but I was very wrong. As we drove to the location I had to ask who was actually here, because I hadn’t even taken in the faces I had seen and having not given any guestless to Kim I had no idea who had come to celebrate. We got to the location and we were greeted by one of the boat crew. He said to me “ so you’ve never tried water skiing before?” and I started to panic. I thought oh god, I’ve done all my hair and makeup and it will be ruined! Luckily he was joking! We got to the boat and it was massive, not like I expected at all. We all sort of looked at each other and thought where on earth do we sit?! But once we got our lifejackets on and got moving it was really fun and we had great weather.

We played a couple of games on the boat, James my fiancé had answered some questions about me and I had to guess what he had said. We also played a game with underwear in which my guests had drawn a picture on them and I had to describe a funny story that related to it. At around 1pm, we moored up for lunch at The Maltsters at Ranworth and had a meal and some much needed prosecco and shots! After lunch we got back on the boat and headed back again. Chloe even had a go at driving the boat which was funny, then Kim and Daisy helped with getting it back in again.

We then got back into the cars and headed for the final location. A few people went home at this point and the remainder then went back to Kims where she had set out her living room and kitchen with lots of Hen Party décor. There was even a large banner hanging from the house! The kitchen was decorated with balloons, bunting and food. Costessey Cakes had provided a wedding dress made of cupcakes and also some amazing biscuits – including flip flops (an inside joke for me and Kim!). she had even gone to the effort of making sure that all of the food was suitable for coeliacs and was also egg free to cater for everyone who had came back. We had some nibbles and Kim also cooked some pizzas.

I was also presented with a Christie Loves Box – The wedding edition in collaborating with my mum who helped buy some of the items inside.

Back at Kim’s we played some more games, one was called “junk in the trunk” which I was really bad at, and we also played pass the parcel where there was funny forfeits/truths inside. I really enjoyed it. Afterwards, the rest of my guests headed home it was just me and Kim left. We watched a funny film “The First Wives Club” and went to sleep. It had been a really long day, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was so nice to see lots of my friends I hadn’t seen for a while and who made the effort to come out despite having children and busy lives. Thank you to Kim for helping to organise and host such a great event, and for all of the other ladies who came along and some of which contributed but didn’t get a chance to come. It was really nice of them!

The countdown to the wedding is officially on!

Wedding Planning Update*

It’s been a while since I posted about my engagement and I thought I would update you with some of the things I have planned, and what I still have to do before the big day, which is just over 10 months away now!

Venue
One of the first things I sorted was my venue, as there was no point in having a wedding without somewhere to go! I looked online to find the perfect place and browsed countless websites and price lists trying to find somewhere that stood out to me. In the end we narrowed it down to just a few and decided to go and look at them in person. When we found the one, we instantly knew it was perfect for us. Our first date was at the zoo, so we chose somewhere that was right next door to one – convenient or what!

Centrepieces
Carrying on from the zoo theme, we thought we would make our centrepieces to fit in with different animals. I started to source plastic animals and then spray painted them with gold. We are having a red/gold/silver festive type theme so thought they would go quite well in the middle of the tables. I still have a few different animals to get but I am getting there slowly. We will have these alongside some poinsettias which are really good value for money and readily available at that time of the year.

Dress
The dress was also up there with one of the first things I sorted and I am so pleased this is out of the way. I will talk more about my dress after the big day but for now I will say I have bought it, it is ready and waiting for my first fitting in April. Luckily this is only a length fitting so I still have some time to get to the weight I want to be before they start doing the width. I will be wearing converse on the day which I haven’t yet bought but will wear an older pair for my fitting to get the correct height.

Hair
Although I have no idea what I am going to do with my hair yet, I have got my hairpiece. My mum bought me this gorgeous winter flower arrangement from Etsy which will go perfectly with my theme. I also have a veil, so this will clip onto the top of that nicely.

Invites
This is something I have only just started as I wanted to make all of my invites from scratch. I have bought all of the materials from various places such as The Range and Hobbycraft and have officially made about 3. There are still a lot more to go but this is something I aim to do over the next few months so they are ready to go out at the end of the summer season.

Finishing Touches
Next on my list are a few finishing touches including, signs, banners and favours. These little things are all available in one place on the confetti website, which is really convenient for me. I think it is important to have little bits and pieces here and there to really set off a theme. It’s the finishing touches that can really make a difference on the day!

Are you getting married? What plans have you made?

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Martha Jackson Locket Review*

I don’t own a lot of jewellery that I wear every day and I always wished that I had something I could put on that would go with most outfits as well as having meaning to me. When I was offered the chance to review an item from Martha Jackson, I had a look through their website and saw that there were plenty of beautiful pieces available. I knew I would be able to find something special here.

I received the Silver Vintage Heart Locket which retails at £37.00 on their website with free UK shipping. This sterling silver locket is a fantastic keepsake and is of beautiful quality. The detailing is fantastic. It came packaged in a little cardboard box with the Martha Jackson logo on the front and inside the locket was wrapped in delicate tissue paper.

 

The locket has wonderful cut out detailing, it really is a stylish item and something that I was looking for. Martha Jackson give you plenty of options to really make this piece of jewellery unique to you or your recipient. Firstly, there is the option to have the locket engraved. I had ‘Forever Begins 01/12/2018’ put onto the back of mine which signifies my wedding date, the most special date still to come in my life.

You can also add charms such as a key, a gold or silver letter to really make this unique and you can also customise the length of your chain for an additional charge. If you are buying this as a gift for a friend or loved one you have the option to add a personalised message in the box free of charge.

In the centre of the locket is some space to add a photo, or something of meaning. I have added a photo of my fiancé (and my cat!), and a small piece of material from my wedding dress. Things that have a lot of meaning to me, and something I can now keep close to my heart leading up to our wedding, and forever after. There are plenty of beautiful pieces on the Martha Jackson website, so if you are looking for that perfect keepsake or gift idea, please check them out.

What do you think of this gorgeous locket?

*I received this product free of charge in exchange for review. All opinions are my own and I was not influenced in any way. Please see my disclaimer for more information.

Being Engaged and How to Find the One?*

If you don’t already know, I recently got engaged and thought I would put into words a few things that I have noticed along the way over the past few weeks.

Firstly for the first week at LEAST you will not be able to stop staring at your hand. I found myself looking at my ring at every opportunity. Driving home I’d catch a glance at it, even at the printer at work I would be standing there admiring it. Everyone else will want to look at it too, I had to get my nails done purely as so many people were looking at my hands. You’ll think it’s fallen off so you’ll have to keep looking to reassure yourself. For the first week I would wake up in the night and check it was still on my finger! The first question people will ask is “how did they propose?” so be prepared to tell your story over and over again. I think in the end I copied and pasted it onto a word document so I could send it on if anyone asked.

Not my actual ring!

Everyone will want to know if you’ve set a date before you’ve barely settled into the idea. If anyone you know gets engaged and you are reading this, please just let them enjoy the moment and don’t pester them for dates! Saying that we booked ours after just a few weeks, but I had been secretly browsing for months so had a few ideas. People will also have an opinion on how you should do things. Just remember it is YOUR day, what you do is completely up to you. I only want one bridesmaid as I can’t afford to have more and don’t want to cause arguments amongst friends and whilst this is not particularly traditional I have to think it is not about anyone else. Don’t feel the need to invite people that you haven’t seen or spoken to in years even if they are family, at £45 a head on average it’s not cheap and I can’t afford to have anyone and everyone attend. You do what you want to do. I have started planning some of the finer details using my gorgeous Jardine of London Suffolk Leather Journal. I was lucky enough to win this journal in the East Anglian Wedding Magazine Giveaway! I am in love with it. It fits my wedding theme perfectly and retails at £75 if you were looking to get one for yourself.

Friends that are married (especially recently married) will become a god send for advice and tips. I wouldn’t have known where to start if it wasn’t for a couple of people who’ve just got married telling me all of the tips and tricks. Take all of their advice on board, it really is useful. Find out what they thought was worth the money and things that were not so worth getting. You will feel a different kind of love for your partner. No matter how long you have been together, being engaged means this shit is real. Someone actually wants to be with you for life. I felt a massive surge of love after I got engaged, I was on cloud 9 and felt like the luckiest girl alive. There’s no feeling quite like it.

Weddings are expensive. When you do start looking at different venues you will be shocked at how expensive weddings really are. I mean, sure they can be done on a budget so shop around where you can. I find myself thinking, do I have beans on toast for a year so I can afford flowers for my wedding? And it is a tempting option! You will find that friends and family with certain skills will be very generous in offering their services so grab the offer with both hands. I really do feel grateful for people that are willing to help.

Me and my fiancé know each other by association at sixth form but rekindled our friendship online. I think it can be a really effective way to meet someone, especially if you lack confidence talking to people face to face like me. If you are looking for the one then why not try out a dating site? Depending on where you live there are plenty of sites available such as Exeter dating, Highlands dating, Plymouth dating, Birmingham dating and for the more mature audience there is over 50s dating.

For those who want a ‘no strings attached’ relationship there is the option to sign up to an adult dating site. This site is more suited for people who want a quick fling rather than a long term relationship. It then leaves room for people who are serious about the long term to join the other sites I mentioned above. Why don’t you give it a go - you never know where it may lead!

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