'Finding your Feet' is filled with faff.

It is three days until move in day!!! Wednesday July 3rd is when I wave goodbye to my student days in York and say hello to my new grown up life in Harrogate. Here is another sneaky peak of our beautiful apartment...

In preparation for the big move, I've been back in Wolverhampton this week with the parentals. They have been helping me out loads with all the really important things I need to get sorted. I am now insured on Mum's (it will be mine once I've paid them back!) Yaris, which I had to drive all the way to York on Friday. It will be perfect for trundling along the country roads to my middle of nowhere job! Good old Fred :)

Now, furnishing the flat hasn't been as easy as comparing the market for car insurance. When you want two bedroom sets, a dining room set, a sofa, an armchair and everything else between you, it's not simple. After money transfers and voucher buying, Argos had stopped delivering our bedroom set in Harrogate due to their catalogue changeover! Luckily Homebase take the same vouchers and sold the beautiful white bedroom set below :) I actually prefer it, despite it working out to be more expensive. So in the end, successful bedroom furniture purchases were made. THEN Tesco decided that our sofa was no longer in stock, a week after we ordered it. Um...WHAT!?! Thankfully we have this cosy looking sofa on it's way from Very.co.uk :) 

It is starting to all come together nicely! But even through the stressful times, it has not quelled our spirit! There is still plenty of housemate banter going on :) especially towards Tom's love of leathery Grandad chairs and his obsession with tools and drills.

Now, you all know I love Penny's apartment from Big Bang theory, well you should, I blabber on about it enough on here. I am so grateful that The Lovely Side (previously Lovely Undergrad) has written a fantastic blog that explains how to get a similar look to Penny's. The bright, bold colours in her apartment are what my interior decor dreams are made of!

I bought some similar blue bedding from the ColourMatch collection in Argos; absolute steal! Then Sam has made me a beautiful quilted blanket that she sent me a sneak peak of so I could match everything up. It will look awesome draped accross the foot of my bed! I'm now on the hunt for some colour pop furniture and decor that will brighten up my neutral furniture. I found an absolute beauty of a chair on Ebay; it's an upcycled vintage chair that's been painted a cute purple berry colour. Even better, it's for collection in Harrogate!! 

I am adding things to my wishlist every day but I've got to get all the sensible things first. Where am I going to put my cute nick-nacks if I haven't got a shelf to put them on? Here are a few bits from my Paperchase basket, so cool!

I have a long week of climbing up and down stairs, putting furniture together, listening to Tom talk about drills and of course drinking lots of wine!! I'm not sure whether I will be able to blog next weekend because I'm going to be so busy but watch this space guys :) x

P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney.

Or maybe I just went to Chester :) but hey I'm imaginative! It was Nikki's 19th birthday on Friday and she decided to visit the Blue Planet Aquarium in Chester to celebrate. I love the Sea Life Centre in Birmingham so it was all very exciting!

There were loads of cool fish there, well obviously :P Some I was familiar with from my many trips round the Sea Life Centre such as the Lion fish and the recognisable Finding Nemo characters. Others, like the funky orange guy below, were really interesting to watch.

 There was a massive tank of PIRANHAS! You could get really close so me and Nikki spent ages looking for their teeth. I didn't realise that they actually have shiny gold specks all over their bodies. They were really creepy because they just stayed really still in the water rather than flitting around like the other fish.

Obviously we took the opportunity to quote Finding Nemo. Quite a few times...

As well as fish, there were lots more creepy creatures to feast your eyes on. I loved seeing the lizards, tarantulas, cockroaches, bugs and crocodiles. It was cool to show my family some of the creatures I actually got to hold when I was on placement. Thanks to our mini-beast topic I knew all about the Giant African Land Snail and wacked out a few cockroach facts.

Some of the animals were soooo friendly and funny. I actually got water splashed on me a few times while picture taking :) definitely made a friend there! I don't think they could see me really but I like to think they were peering through the glass wanting to be my buddy :)

The underwater tunnel was without a doubt, WAY better than the one in Birmingham! Even though I have spent a fair few hours watching Birmingham's giant turtle with awe, it was amazing to see the sharks and the rays in Chester. The tunnel was at least five times as long and there was a conveyor belt type floor so you could move along with the animals swimming past. There was also lots of chance for photos because it didn't get too cramped!

HAPPY 19th BIRTHDAY NIKKI!

Things I owe to Geoff

Now that I'm a lady of leisure, in-between Uni and starting work, I really don't have that many exciting things to blog about! (even though it's late today, oops!) So in the spirit of Father's day I thought I'd dedicate this post to my Padre. Me and Nikki always joke about how he 'damaged' us as children and that's why we are both a bit nutty now!

First of all, you might be wondering why I call him Padre instead of the standard Dad. Well, when you are trying to get his attention when there is a crossword being completed or BBC News 24 is on, you have NO CHANCE. Dad... dad... dad... dad... dad.... dad... dad... does not work. So we got creative and started shouting out different names in hope of a response :P

So Padre, what have you done to your poor children??

Song for everything
It is a firm belief in the Davison household that there is a song for every situation. We have challenged this many times but Dad always manages to best us; I love Kitchen Roll (I love Rock and Roll) being one of his worst.

For years and years me and Nikki thought that Wham sang 'Pick me up before you go go' because that's what got sang to us when we wanted picking up for a hug. Quite a shocking revelation when we got Sing Star for PS2 and sang the wrong words.

I can't watch The Snowman at Christmas and take it seriously any more. Another one of the infamous word change songs that was sang at bedtime. Feel free to try singing this in your highest voice, to the tune of 'we're walking in the air'....

Go and brush your teeeeeeeeeeeeeth...

Go and brush the teeth in your goooooooooooob...

Outdoorsy types
This is actually a nice one and down to both parents really.... don't get me started on your 'off the beaten track' Mother! We have always been encouraged to be outside, walking and visiting places are pretty much a necessity for a Davison weekend or holiday. The Dad mental-ness comes into this when we decide to hang off trees like monkeys, pretend to have wand battles, lean over battlements and maybe sing a little bit of Wuthering Heights.

 

Silly TV quotes
I distinctly remember watching, but not really understanding, TV programmes with my parents. The more memorable being Dad's Army, Blackadder, Ground Force, Top of the Pops, Blind Date, Time Team, and 'Allo 'Allo! However, watching Blackadder with Dad is definitely where my skills in remembering useless TV quotes began...

Hag: Two things, my lord, must ye know of the wise woman. First, she is a woman. And second, she is... 

Edmund: Wise? 

Hag: You know her, then?

and then there is just stuff like this that Dad is also to blame for....

 

Accent Skills

One thing that Dad is really good at is accents and he always says I'm rubbish at them. But years of watching Eurovision and imitating the poor folks from Bosnia Herzegovina and three years of living in Yorkshire has really improved my accents. I swear he will always tell me I'm rubbish just because he doesn't want to admit that I'm actually pretty good! My Scottish imitation of Donna from IG Property is WAY better than his :)

Red Wine
Dad likes to drink red wine. I like to drink red wine. It is my favourite of all the wines. I'm not sure if your taste in alcohol is hereditary but I like to think it is (I also acquired a taste for Strongbow and Malibu thanks to my Mother). Unlike his student daughters, Dad doesn't fare too well with his pints. There is a lovely little story where a slightly tipsy Dad told me and Nikki that Gargamel and Azrael (the old geezer & cat from the smurfs) somehow make Galadriel. Dads be crazy.

Musical Diet
Amidst Mum's Shania, Abba and Cher we also got bought up listening to a mix of Queen and Classical Music. There has often been a Davison car sing-slong to Bohemian Rhapsody which provokes excessive head bobbing from Dad. The most recent musical inheritance is this little gem...

'Spontaneous' Photos
You won't find many smiley family photos in the Davison family album. Dad often insists on spontaneous photos, even though he still pulls out the same Christmas day pose EVERY YEAR. I blame this for my skills in ruining photos with my face. It does make looking back at photos a hilarious event but photo ruining has become a very bad habit that is definitely weaved into most my Uni memories, thanks Dad!

General Insanity

So we definitely get our CEEEEEERAZAAAAAAAY partly mostly from our good ol' Padre. I might joke about being a damaged child but then I probably wouldn't be the mental friend you know and love me as haha.  You know I'm totally hilarious really! 

Like Father like daughter...

Happy Father's day Padre!

<3

I see skies of blue, And clouds of white.

So this week started out with a LOT of excitement for me and the new homies. We fell in love with a duplex apartment in Harrogate, honestly it's goregous! So light, spacious and most definitely a blank canvas. There is even a little man-cave for Tom which is the second floor bedroom with en-suite... we are kind to him! We had booked to see another property so we did the sensible thing and weighed up the pros and cons but the beautiful duplex won hands down! We put in our offer on the day but we had to wait for the Landlady to get back to us; she was in Malaysia and it was past Midnight there :( Tuesday morning was spent in my pyjamas eagerly watching the phone waiting for the good news. I can now introduce you to OUR NEW APARTMENT!!! Here is just a sneak peak courtesy of Right Move...

After the busy start to the week it finally hit me that I now have ridiculous amounts of free time! Uni is over so I don't have all my deadlines looming, I have a car sorted, I move in to the new apartment in July and I have nothing else to do. I've spent lots of time lounging around in the sun and finally getting to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that has been sat patiently on my kindle for ages. Yesterday Tom took us to IKEA in Leeds to look at housey stuff and then we went to his for lunch and to meet his family. It was good to get out of York but still do something nice in the sunshine. Thank you Mrs Cliffe for such a yummy lunch!

I've also got back into my yoga again after bruising my tailbone at the Summer ball. Falling over at the roller rink multiple times is not good for any bottom bones!! Leah moved out on Tuesday waaaa :'( but she is off to have an awesome time in America :) soooo I've stolen her bedroom space for my new yoga room! So much nicer to do headstands on carpet instead of laminate. My school have asked me to start work on July 15th now so I'm going to have to make the most of my last month of free time in the sun.

Homies with our celebratory sparkly pink wine (poor Tom) <3

Reading and coconut ice-cream treats 

York Museum Gardens 

Noggin Power

How awesome is life at the moment!? I'm feeling super positive right now, I've had loads of time to ponder life and get all excited about what my future might hold. As this is quite a short blog, due to all my sunbathing and lack of actual activities, I thought I'd share some inspiring quotes that reflect what I've been feeling this week :) Ciao!