Thursday 9 June 2016

My 18th Birthday!

Hello everyone I hope you are all well and enjoying the lovely weather. To anyone who is doing exams I hope they went/are going well. So a few weeks ago on the 25th of May I turnt 18 so I thought I would do a post about it so that I can remember and look back at this in years to come. Unfortunately since my birthday was on a Wednesday it meant I had to go school but it did mean that I got to spend some of the day with my friends and they gave me their gifts which were lovely and so thoughtful. I then got home from school to find that the house had been decorated with banners, little decorations here and there and of course lots of balloons! I opened my cards and my presents and was so so lucky and grateful for everything I received. (If you want to know what I got you can go and watch my What I got for my 18th Birthday video over on my YouTube channel) I mainly received money from the majority of my family which I was very grateful for as it is much needed as I'm going on two holidays in the summer and I also need to get stuff for uni! Then I got presents from my parents, my sister and her boyfriend and my friends all of which I absolutely loved and I was incredibly grateful to receive. 




Here is a birthday selfie as well as one I took with my sister Louise, both of which I uploaded to Instagram. Its become a bit of a tradition for me and my sister to take a selfie on my birthday so I thought I would include it here as its an important part of the day! ;) And yes I'm aware it looks like the balloon and cards say i'm 81 :D


My sister very kindly made me a lovely cake which was very tasty and you can kind of see it in the photo but the candles actually have coloured flames which looked so pretty in person. My sisters boyfriend also let of a confetti canon as I blew out the candles which as you can imagine made a mess and we are still finding bits of confetti even now haha. As for tea my mum made a spread of picnicy foods (vegetarian of course) and we also had a bit of bubbly to celebrate the occasion, I mean it was my eighteenth after all ;)  

So on the Saturday after my birthday (the 28th May) we went to Longleat Safari Park as I absolutely love it there and we hadn't been for years. It has a bit of everything as there's a drive through safari, rides and a beautiful house and gardens. There's plenty of places to get lunch and snacks throughout the day and a variety of different gift shops dotted throughout the park. Also there is a huge maze in the park but unfortunately this was closed due to maintenance work but I have done it a few times on previous visits and what I will say is its very easy to get lost in there haha. I would definitely recommend going to Longleat if you are ever in the area. It was a lovely hot, sunny day as well, even though it was meant to rain, which was very appreciated. For lunch we brought a picnic with us and sat in the sun and later in the afternoon we got and ice cream as it was much needed after being in the sun all day which was extremely tasty. 

Here are a few pictures I took to mark the occasion using my new camera I received from my mum and dad.


Longleat House and in front of it a huge lion statue to celebrate their 50th anniversary. 


One of the red pandas at the park; so cute :)


Some pretty flowers, which smelled amazing.


One of their stunning Macaws.


Some more pretty flowers.


A view of the House from the beautiful gardens.

After an amazing day at Longleat we went to Heaven's Gate for a little wonder which is literally a 5 minute drive from Longleat. This again provided some good photo opportunities as it was a beautiful evening. 



There were loads of beautiful Rhododendrons and Azaleas in a vast array of colours which I couldn't resist taking some pictures of (plus I wanted to test out the macro setting on my camera haha).


This is me and my sister sat in Heaven's Gate itself, its essentially a big concrete hoop which you have to do a short walk through a stunning beech wood to get to.


This is the view from Heaven's Gate (and my sister taking a picture of that view) it looks over the Longleat Estate and in the distance on the right hand side you can see Longleat House.


This is a picture my dad took of me, my sister Louise and her boyfriend Tony. We were laughing at some pictures I took of my sister and her boyfriend, in which some very funny faces were pulled. 

I had a great birthday and day at Longleat and Heaven's Gate spending it with my family and I'm incredibly grateful for everything. Thank you to anyone who gave me a present, money, card or just wished me a happy birthday :) And thank you to you for taking the time to read my post I hope you enjoyed it and I will speak to you soon. JustClare :) x

All photos and opinions are my own.