Being In Bruges :: Photo Diary

It's only been a week since I was in Bruges but it feels like an absolute age ago already. I've been rushing around seeing friends and family, bumbling along with my 9-5 and have overall been trying to organise myself creativity-wise and about the house - it's not 'really busy' but it's busy enough.

I'm still riding high on it all though and I had a truly wonderful time. It was mainly just really nice to spend some quality time with my Gran and sister, something we don't get to do so often any more.




♥
Bruges is a beautiful city, like a chocolate box, around every corner is another picture-perfect scene. We were able to fit in every 'touristy' thing we could in our short 4-day stay and we weren't rushed for time either, with plenty of allowance for cheeky afternoon naps.



We found it very easy to navigate and managed to find the 2be in Bruges Beer Wall and take ourselves on a horse and cart ride all by ourselves. The downtime we had between the tour operator's walking tour, brewery trip and a day excursion to Ypres meant that we never found ourselves twiddling our thumbs when we didn't want to.



View from the top of the Half Moon Brewery.








It would be rude not to try a selection of Belgian beer.





With our horse, Manuel, 21 years old and still going!


We were told Bruges at night was beautiful but only made it out on our last night, it's pretty special what some simple floodlights can do.











I couldn't recommend Bruges any more for a city break and despite the fact that I wasn't able to practice any Dutch on anyone and everyone in our tour party thought my sister and I were super-young and had been dragged there (ridiculous), I had a really great time.

One of my favourites was quoting In Bruges while exploring the more well-known landmarks in the city. If you haven't already, I suggest you watch it.

"The view of what? The view of down here? I can see that from down here..!"

Smiling on Sunday | What a Week!

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This time last week I was psyching myself up for a mini-break to Bruges after the most beautiful Saturday evening with my sweet boy at Secret Cinema's showing of Back to the Future.

Today we're having a family leaving party for my sister who is off to Hong Kong in just 10 days! After spending a lovely day and a half with our friend's Tom and Matt, this whole week will really have been a great one. Even the Thursday down time where I took the day off to get my life together post-holiday before popping out in the evening for a lovely collegue's leaving do and a pulled pork burger.

As action-packed weeks go, I think this was one of them and I feel like I'll be finishing Sunday up feeling rather blessed indeed - not a bad way to go in to my birthday week even if I do say so myself - just under 6 days until I join The 25 Club!

I'm kind of aware that I'm a bit behind on things as far as posting photos and stuff goes, I haven't even shared my Bruges photos with Moon yet, but I needed to get some words out there, you know... to let you know that I'm doing pretty darn well, actually.

Here are some other nice things from real-life and the Internet.

IRL:

• Starting a fresh, new notebook ♥ - I'm well and truly converted to bullet journalling and it's the way forward for me as far as keeping myself productive goes. This time I've gone against Moleskine for something a bit more purse-friendly but I can tell we're going to get along just fine
• The return of Great British Bake Off - I missed the first half on Wednesday as I was still on my way back from Bruges via London but was able to insta-catch up as soon as it was over. So sad that Iain isn't nearly as good a baker as he is a beard grower but I guess time will tell. Do you have a favourite yet?
  
• Seeing Moon get a bit excited about my birthday - Because we've been together since we were quite young, have been together for quite a long time and now live together, I sometimes feel like there's less room for elements of mystery and surprises - Moon has proved me wrong. I wouldn't at all call him romantic and I quite like him the way he is but to see him get all giddy about the place he's booked for us to go to dinner on my birthday and be completely schtum about what we're doing during the day does kind of set my heart into a flutter
  

Must-Try Recipes:

• Lemonade Cucumber Spa Pops - Having just discovered the delights of Qcumber water, these really sound good to me, so easy too!
• Rosie's River Cottage Soda Bread - I just picked up a new recipe book about baking bread last week - Rosie's recipe is a bit simpler than the one in the book, I can't wait to give it a go.
• Salted Caramel Rice Krispy Squares - I'm obsessed with salted caramel lately, I blame Haagen Dazs.
• Rhubarb Upside-Down Yoghurt Cake - I've never made a yoghurt cake before and I think this one would be a good one to start with, not sure I could make one quite as beautiful though.

Lovely Links:

Kaylah's birthday posts always bring a smile to my face, such beautiful bright colours.

Rosie's short but sweet post about her and her fiancé reading together is so nice. Moon and I have been reading a lot more recently so this might be something to try when we finish our current books, makes a nice change from staying up and watching TV.

I really liked Clare's golden hour photographs of her allotment, something I love about this time of year. Even as a Photography graduate though, lighting's never really been my strongest point I wouldn't say but Clare has nailed it - her blog has also had a cheeky makeover too, which is really nice to see.

50 Songs from the 2000s That Will Instantly Put You in a Good Mood - Go for it, there are some real gems there.

Hope you have a fun-filled, relaxing Sunday. x

Long Weekend Plans.

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The next few days are looking to be good ones.

Tomorrow, if I keep my fingers and toes crossed, I'll be heading to Secret Cinema's Back to the Future, 50's costume at the ready, and on Sunday, I'll be off for a mini-break to Bruges.

Since coming back from Portugal, I've realised I'd like to do a bit more of seeing the world and even though it's only Belgium and I'm also working at saving to buy a house, amongst other things, it's a small step towards that. Plus, going abroad twice in almost as many months is pretty lucky and I'm quite grateful.

I'm still hunting around for Bruges travel tips, but I've seen 'In Bruges' a couple of times so that's a pretty good start, right? Mainly I'm looking forward to taking photos of the architecture, spending some quality time with my Gran and sister and making use of some of the Dutch that's been floating around the office in the last couple of weeks.

Tot ziens ♥!