INTERRAILING PHOTO DIARY

If you follow me on social media, you will of probably seen that for five weeks during the summer I went Interrailing, you can find out more about it on their website but summarised, they enable you to purchase one train ticket that is valid on near enough any train within Europe for the length of time that you have chosen. I chose the one month global pass, and for two weeks I was with my parents; mostly staying in apartments, and then for the next three weeks I was 100% on my own, doing my own thing and staying in hostels! Pretty much anybody that I met during the trip, or that I spoke to before or after it was so surprised that I did it alone, however it is probably one of the best things I have ever chosen to do! I could stick to my own schedule, do my own thing, meet so many new and exciting people and just have things completely my own way for three whole weeks.

If you would like a much more detailed post with more information on how the actual trip was, my experiences, packing tips, advice on trains or anything along those lines, please do let me know! But for now, here are some of my favourite photos from my trip! I wanted to split it up into separate posts for each county but seeing as I visited 12 countries it would take much too long!

In case you were wondering, I would have to say that my favourite cities were Berlin, Ljubljana and Budapest, however I loved them all for a different reasons!

Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

Berlin (Germany)

Warsaw (Poland)

Prague (Czech Republic)

 Bratislava (Slovakia)

Vienna (Austria)

 Budapest (Hungary)

Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Lake Bled (Slovenia)

Zagreb (Croatia)

Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Belgrade (Serbia)

Sofia (Bulgaria)

Again, please let me know if there was anything you would like to know about in a more detailed post, or feel free to tweet me. If you wanted to see any more photos, have a look on my Instagram account.

UPDATES

I realise I have highly neglected my blog with the fact that I haven't posted since March... oops... the only excuse I can give is the same one that everybody else seems to give, in that I was extremely busy and hadn't had the time to fit blogging into my schedule. I took a year out of education before going to university; where I am now, and I squeezed a lot into that year! I was working full time in Russell and Bromley, as well as working nine hours a week in Waitrose, doing a marketing internship which took up another eight hours a week, doing a qualification in marketing and trying to have somewhat of a social life! I was literally often going for a month at a time without having a single day off and often being having 16 hour days by the time I had left for work, finished one shift and then started at my other job and arrived back home. 

This all lead to me becoming stressed and ill and having to be referred to multiple specialists after visiting the doctors and having multiple blood tests done it was noticed that I had levels of stress hormones in my blood that were way above anything the specialist had ever seen before!

If you follow me on social media, you will of seen that I also went travelling for five weeks during the summer (three of those weeks I was completely alone - blog posts to follow!) and you'll also of seen that I have recently move 300 miles away from home to start studying Marketing at Lancaster University, which so far I am loving!

I really missed blogging and being able to have my little portion of the Internet to just be able to share whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I feel like this is somewhat achievable on just social media, however it couldn't do it for me in the way that blogging could, so, I'm back! I'm not going to stress myself out with trying to stick to a schedule, or focus on the comments or page views or anything like I used to, I will be using islaay.com as more of a creative outlet that I can post on and share my opinions!

NAILS INC VVB VICTORIA BECKHAM

My favourite nail polish brand, Nails Inc has done a collaboration with Victoria Beckham to bring a unique duo of polishes in the colours 'Bamboo White' and 'Judo Red'. I love the chic glass packaging which they come in, it feels very luxurious and will look gorgeous on any dressing table - as well as the simple white box which would make them a perfect gift. 

As for the formula, it is formulated with a new stretch-to-fit technology which apparently makes them easier to apply with a glide on application, whilst nourishing your nails with Bamboo Extract. I never tend to believe these sort of claims that brands make - as far as I'm concerned it's a nice nail polish but nothing groundbreaking. To be honest, I don't think I'll be entirely satisfied until I find a nail polish that isn't gel which lasts on my nails for weeks on end!

The 'Bamboo White' shade is an off white pinky nude colour which I found to be glossy and opaque in three coats. 'Judo Red' is a bright reddy-orange shade which will be perfect for summer, I found it to be opaque in two coats and it dried especially quickly!

Overall, I think the VVB polishes by Nails Inc are nice quality - however they have a very high price tag which I'm not sure is entirely justified.

The VVB Nails Inc nail polish set is available from John Lewis for £45

I was sent the Nails Inc VVB gift set from John Lewis to review on islaay.com however this does

not influence my opinion, all opinions are honest and my own

MOTHER'S DAY

For Mother's Day, I decided to buy Mum some of her favourite orange and red tulips, I toasted some hot crossed buns and made her some of her favourite tea so that she could have the morning off and have breakfast in bed! We're also going to London for the day, I'll be posting about it after we're been - but I've got some good plans of what we're going to get up to! This is her last Mother's Day of me being a teenager, the next one I will be 20 which I think is hard for both of us to imagine - turns out that life flies by pretty quickly!

Debenhams kindly sent me this Morphy Richards toaster and Kettle from their new Aspects range so that I could make Mum a lovely Mother's Day breakfast, I love their classic chic design and they fit in perfectly with our kitchen so I'm sure they will be being used for ages to come!

What did you do to celebrate Mother's Day? If you were still looking for some inspiration, you can check out the Mother's Day section on Debenhams!

By the way, those hot crossed buns are the toffee and chocolate chip ones from M&S and they are absolutely delicious!

HEALTHY DATE POWER BALL RECIPE

I'm back with another recipe post (it's been stupidly long since my last one - sorry!) and this time I'm going to show you how to make these yummy date and nut truffle balls. They are pretty addictive to make - I've made three batches in the past four days, and they're perfect to curve any chocolate cravings without any chocolate in sight! They're still quite high in sugar and fat, but it's natural and slow releasing, so a lot better for you than eating actual truffles. I first saw this idea on Pinterest probably a year ago, and I wish I had started making them sooner! They're quite similar to the Bounce Balls which you can buy in supermarkets for £1.50-£2 each (absolute rip off) so I recommend making a batch of these and taking them with you to snack on throughout the day!

Firstly gather your ingredients. I used ground almonds, flaxseeds, cashew butter, chia seeds, cashew nuts, desiccated coconut, honey, dates and bircher but what you use it totally up to you. Cranberries, almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts are all really nice in these too!

I'd say there's five main ingredient groups you can use, and just mix and match with anything you like -

Dates these add the sweetness

Some sort of nut butter and honey these help to bind it all together and make them nice and sticky - cashew butter can be swapped for almond butter or peanut butter and honey can be swapped for agave 

Nuts and seeds of your choice 

Something to roll on the outside such as coconut or crushed nuts

Optional extras such as oats, cinnamon and cocoa powder

Firstly remove the stones from the dates (unless you're clever enough to buy the ones with the stones already removed!)

Combine your selection of nuts, oats and seeds (remember to leave out the coconut/crushed nuts which you will be rolling on the outside

Add the honey and the nut butter

 Now the fun part, use your blender to blitz everything up!

When it gets to this stage, keep going and it will eventually form a paste

When it gets to this stage it is done

Roll into your truffle shaped balls, as a rough rule it will make aprox. two times the amount of dates that you used, e.g. I used 8 dates and I made 15 truffles

Roll in the coconut/crushed nuts and then leave to cool in the fridge for half an hour (or in the freezer for five minutes, or if you're super impatient like me - just eat them how they are!)

I would love to see your creations - if you make them please send me a photo on Twitter/Instagram as I absolutely love it when you do!! (@islaay)