A Date at the Llama Park, OOTD and New Slippers!

Today, the boyfriend and I went to the Llama Park situated near the Ashdown Forest outside of Crowborough. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but it truly is a nice place. They even have their own publicity llama called Tom (picture below, a very handsome fella'). I love llamas, I think they're so cute. <3


This little farm hosts llamas, alpacas, donkeys, reindeer, chickens and roosters, and even have their own shop. All of the clothes, shoes and hats bought in the shop are either made from leather or alpaca wool and I must say, alpaca wool is incredibly soft, even softer than sheep wool.

I went to the shop a few months back and eyed up (felt up) a pair of slippers. They were incredibly soft! I think they were £30 at the time and I really wanted to take them home with me, but alas, it was not meant to be.

OR SO I THOUGHT.

Today we went back to actually explore around the park because last time we couldn't due to bad weather. We went into the shop, I didn't know if they still stocked them or not because the Christmas period is over and they would start to bring in the new stock. Then, I saw them, sitting on the cabinet, calling out to me. I begged (commanded) that Garrie get them for me, which he very politely did. And guess what? They were on SALE! For £23.89, I just had to have them. It was fate. I have to say, that they are a very good investment. They are sooo comfy! I'll never take them off.

Now time for some slipper porn. ohyeah...

 They're so purdy.

 It seems they are made by a brand called Jyoti. Never heard of them, but I like the slippers.

The soles are made from rubber, very sturdy.

Here is me modeling the slippers. Oh so chic.

This is what I'm wearing today. I didn't include the boots because they are so muddy after walking around the llama park, so instead, I included the slippers. ;)

The dress is from H&M and the cardigan is from Dorothy Perkins.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to wear a dress today due to the high winds, but I felt pretty today so I wanted to wear a dress. And I was told by Garrie that I flashed a little boy whilst washing my hands after touching a donkey. Oops. Poor boy. Scarred for life.

But anyway, onto the story! Due to the very bad weather we have been having, it was very muddy inside the park. We were given a map to navigate the area.

The green lines are the safe paths with little mud, and the red lines indicate the paths that you should go down AT YOUR OWN PERIL. Since Garrie and I are such rebel badasses, we went down them. What a mistake. We almost fell over a few times. I had to hold onto the wire fence to stop myself from slipping. A donkey ran over to tell me off and to get off his land. :( I thought he was being nice at first, wanting to be stroked. I stroked him, then he buggered off and wouldn't come back! It was probably a warning.

We also saw some reindeer, they weren't too exciting since none of them wouldn't come over. I bet they have been hardwired to only come over when there are children around. I look like a child. A woman child. ;) They probably knew. Smart asses.

One was falling asleep, it looked like he was the head of the herd. His antlers were huge! I always wonder if they use them other than for fighting, and if they can feel if someone touches them. Well, I got one thing right. This one liked to use his a head rest. I would have got a picture, but I was too busy having fun and keeping myself upright.

Garrie commented on how agile and light footed he was at dodging the stodgy mud. I quickly came back with "Yeah, like an elephant." It's so great that he has a great sense of humour, and it was such a great day, I had so much fun. We were laughing together a lot. Honestly, if he brought me here on our first date, I would have been so impressed. I don't like "romantic" dates of going to a restaurant, you can't really act like yourself. I find those sort of dates too stuffy and so many girls dress up too much and wear so much makeup, more so than they usually would. It kind of defeats the purpose of dating to find the right person, because you want the person to know who you really are, not a fake persona to impress. It's false advertising; like a push-up bra. ;)

When Garrie and I went on our first date, it was at the pier in Brighton and we both wore very casual clothing. I wore jeans, a t-shirt and flat shoes. I only wore as much makeup as I usually would (light foundation and mascara). I wanted to impress him, but didn't want to look like a made up doll because that's not how I usually look. I wanted him to like me for how I look normally. Which he did like me for.

I also acted like myself. I was making jokes because I think I'm hilarious (which I AM), but he didn't laugh that much. I commented on it later and he replied, with the EXACT words: "I didn't know you were making jokes. Or maybe you're just not that funny?" Luckily for me, I can tell a joke when it was being told, and I found it hilarious.

On that day I tried out bubble tea for the second time. I didn't like it very much on the first try, so I thought I'd try it again. He paid for it, which was nice, but I ended up hating it. I'm not a bubble tea fan. Those tapioca balls make me feel a bit sick. He tried some too and said it was vile. Oh well.

We then went to the American candy shop in The Laines and bought some of the Toxic Waste sour sweets. We both tried them and OHMYGAWD they were horrible. So sour! We both made really funny faces and ended up spitting them out. He commented on me wasting his hard earned money by spitting it out.

We then went to the mini casino near the beach, because he likes gambling. He played on the slot machines and ended up winning nothing. So smooth. We then went to the beach and sat down for an hour or so to talk to watch the ocean. And that was it. He took me home and we said our goodbyes. We didn't kiss on the first date, I find it a bit uncouth. But we set up a few other dates afterwards and on the fourth date, Fathers Day last year, we got together and had our first kiss. Yaaay!

I can't believe it's been almost a year since we got together. It's been so fast. Just a few months now until a full year. 

What is your example of a perfect date and how would you look? If you have a boyfriend, how did your first date go? Was it fun or awkward? Leave a comment below! :)

My Sugar-Free Life So Far

It has been four weeks since I started to quit sugar. It has been hard; but I feel a lot better now. I have more energy, I don't get that 11 o'clock slump anymore and I need less sleep. I can walk down the cake aisle in a shop and not want cake! It's amazing!

Though saying that, I do crave cake a lot. I like the texture of cake; and I think that's what I miss the most, yet whenever I walk down the cake aisle, I still don't buy any. I think it's because I know what the stuff inside the cake will do to me. So instead, I've been frantically trying to find a sugar-free cake recipe. And when I say sugar-free, I mean it. That means no honey, molasses, agave, maple syrup, etc.

When it comes to baking; everything needs to be in equal amounts. That has been the hard part because Stevia weighs nothing, yet tastes 300x sweeter than sugar! It has been racking my brains.

Though thankfully, I have come across some sugar-free recipes to curb my craving and an article on how to Replace Sugar With Stevia, and a good website that specialises in sweet treats without the white stuff, Family Fresh Cooking.


The hardest meal of the day for me is breakfast. Every breakfast cereal, apart from porridge, was laden with sugar. A lot of these quit sugar recipes require a lot of time on hand and expensive ingredients or eggs and bacon (I don't like eggs or bacon). Well, honey, I don't have the time or the money to make these elaborate breakfasts. I wake up at 6:30am and leave the house at 7:30am to get to college by 9am, plus I wander around like a zombie in the morning, AND it somehow takes me 20 minutes to make and eat just a normal breakfast. Maybe I'm just special.

So what I've come to do is either make boring porridge (which takes a bit of time, since I like to make it on a stove, so I've reserved that for weekends) or just grill a bagel with some cheddar cheese and ham for breakfast instead, which I have been doing a lot lately. It's quick. But, what I hate about myself is that I can't stick to one breakfast for a long time. I get bored; and once I get bored, I no longer eat breakfast, which is bad! So now I'm fuddled as to what else I can quickly make.

Everyone says how shakes are a good and quick breakfast to have in the morning, but all of the recipes I've come across use really expensive ingredients. In the UK, food is incredibly expensive, so the idea of using a whole avocado in a shake is terrifying. So, I am still on my search.

But on a good note! I feel healthy! I've also lost some weight too. In four weeks I have lost 7 pounds, I've gone from 12.7 stone to 12 stone. I am so proud of myself, and the fact that I can eat whatever I want as long as it doesn't have sugar, is a bonus!

I've lost this weight without any exercise, apart from the walking that I do to get to college, due to a little experiment I'm having. I'm seeing if quitting sugar actually has any more benefits other than internal health. I believe you can lose weight without doing exercise. You gained the weight through eating, so you can lose it through eating.
Exercise is more for toning and keeping yourself fit, not for losing weight. I still strongly suggest exercising, even if it's just walking, to gain bone strength and to get you outside of the house. It's also good for clearing your head and giving you some alone time in the fresh air. Just going outside is good for you. We spend so much time crammed up inside and worrying about the things in life, just go outside, sit on the grass and let everything go, even if it's just for 30 minutes. It will do you good.


What do you do to feel healthy? Do you think a sugar-free lifestyle is just another hype, do you think it is sustainable? Would you be able to give it up? I would love to know your opinions.

My Story and Inspiration

Since the start of this year I have been trying to get my health, state of mind and weight in check. Since I started puberty, I have been overweight and unable to shift it. My mother had always given me more to eat than a little girl should. At the age of 7; I was eating adult size meals. I thought that was normal back then, I didn't know any different, but looking back now; I realise that I was hugely overfed.

What didn't help was the fact that I was not allowed to leave the table when I was full up, I had to keep on eating to finish what was on my plate, and that has affected my eating habits now. I used to get bullied a lot at school and at home. I looked different from the other children (Half Turkish-Cypriote) and I was shy and quiet, so an easy target. I was often called fat and ugly, and no one wanted to play with me, I was extremely lonely as a child. I was an outcast. And my mother kept on telling me I had to lose weight, that I was fat, yet she wasn't willing to help me lose any of it. She continued to give me huge meals, and so the weight piled on.

I used to comfort eat to make myself feel better, I had no one to talk to, so food was my only way of coping. That and video games. This led me to gain more weight, which got me bullied more and made my self-esteem fly out of the window.
When I was 16 and finally left school, the bullying stopped, but I still had no self esteem. I would wrap myself up in baggy clothes, only have my hair up and wore nothing girly because I thought I was too ugly/manly-looking to wear it. I was overweight for my height, 5'3'' and 13 stone, and not feeling very comfortable in my own skin. I was diagnosed with depression, which I already knew I had, and started my journey towards healing my mental health issues.

My biggest hurdle to healthy living was the "I have asthma" excuse. I do know that doing exercise was always harder for me than it was for everyone else, but I let that excuse stop me from taking the big step to being healthy and happy. This went on for years, I'd always complained that I couldn't do exercise because of my asthma. I power walked everywhere, still do now, but that wasn't enough to shift the weight. I couldn't understand why my body mass wasn't shrinking, I power walked everyday and ate what I thought to be 'healthy'. I ate better than a lot of the people I knew, yet I was the fat one. I was confused and upset.

I was addicted to sugar. If someone put out a cake in front of me, I couldn't just have one piece, I had to have two or three. I just couldn't help myself, I had no willpower. I convinced myself that I was eating healthily when it came to everything else, so having two pieces of cake was justified. Well; it wasn't.
I read an article in a magazine telling how sugar is both addictive (more addictive than cocaine!) and a danger to our health. Whilst reading the article, something clicked in my head, what they were saying just made sense to me. It said that a lot of what we eat is laden with sugar, even the food we think to be savoury. I tracked back to all of the 'healthy' things I usually ate, and found out the sugar content of everything I ate in one day. It was an extortionate amount, it was scary.  Why is the food industry spiking our food with sugar? All of the 'Low-fat' and 'No-fat' food is full of sugar. And do you know why? Because to take the fat out, the flavour, you have to add something back in to make it taste good.

It finally made sense as to why I couldn't shift the unwanted weight. I was eating too much sugar, way too much. I decided to cut down on my sugar intake, and bought a book called "I Quit Sugar" by Sarah Wilson to help me do so. The only downside of this book is the fact that a lot of recipes call for expensive ingredients, or those you can only buy on the internet, and take a lot of time to prepare. In the UK, food is incredibly expensive, so putting a whole avocado into a green smoothie would rack up quite a large food bill. So I am entirely going at this on my own, reading her book to keep myself inspired. I am constantly learning about the things that we eat and find it very interesting.
I am also about to apply for a gym membership to help with the weight loss and overall good health. I like to swim, so I may spend most of the time in the pool. Though, the gym I want to go to is starting a female strength class, so I may do that too, it seems interesting.

Only now am I slowly getting my self-esteem back, it's been too long to be continuously hating how I look. It's time for change.

Why I am creating this blog

I have tried to make a blog once before, but it failed miserably. I didn't keep it up unfortunately. So here, I have started again, but this time I am documenting my progress on my skin and my health.

Recently I have started a new lifestyle change. I have decided to quit sugar.
Why, you are probably thinking?
Well, sugar has been linked to the rise in obesity and cancer, and a book published in 1972, "Pure, White and Deadly", realised this would happen, yet was shortlisted due to the rise of the 'Fat is bad' bandwagon that has plagued the modern diet.

Fat does not make you fat.

Our ancestors ate a high-fat diet yet stayed lean, there was no 'low-fat' alternative and better for it. Anything 'low-fat' or 'no-fat' has had high amounts of sugar added to it to make it taste the same as full fat. Doesn't that sound weird to you? It does to me. We are a nation of sugar addicts, and like any addict, you don't know that you are addicted. When you try to eradicate it from your life, it takes immense willpower, because there are danger zones everywhere that entice you to break away from the diet. No more store bought chocolate, no more ice cream, no more chocolate milkshake, and lastly... No make cake. (Nooooooo!)

It has been a week of no sugar for me, and the signs of addiction are evident. I feel like I need sugar, I need it to make me happy, and if I don't have it, I get moody. I have managed to stay sugar free for a week, surprisingly. I do feel sorry for my boyfriend though, he gets the brunt of my sugar-laden aggression, but he knows not to take it seriously. He gets his revenge by eating a bar of chocolate in front of me. RAAAAGE.

This isn't just a food blog, it is also a beauty blog. I also jumped onto the organic skincare bandwagon too, I started July this year and my skin has become better because of it.

This blog is to track my progress, to share my ups and downs, and my recipes and food choices. If you like what I have to share, then I encourage you to keep on reading.

Toodles!