Love from, Florence Grace

Today is National Social Media Day (yes that really does exist!), so I couldn't let the day pass without writing about it!  Social media has quite literally changed my life. It has opened my eyes to so many issues I wasn't aware of, it has connected me with people all over the world, it has strengthened me as a person, made me new friends, given me a voice and, best of all, created my career for me.  I have worked on and off with social media for the last year, and I have been blogging for almost two years. I have had all of my media opportunities presented to me via social media. I have found jobs via social media. I have used my online presence as a portfolio. It has always helped me and never let me down.  Of course, social media hasn't always been my friend. When I was younger, I suffered a lot from online bullying. It really damaged the person that I was, it damaged my confidence, it made me hate myself for a period of time. Now that I'm older, i...

No one likes a holiday to end, knowing they have to go back to their routine of school or work and bad weather (well, if you're from the UK that is!). Having just come back from my holiday and being straight back at work at 9am the following morning, I definitely had a case of the holiday blues, and boy did they hit me hard! Here's some tips on helping to beat them... Make a photo album. Print off all of the photo's from your holiday and collate them into an album. Then, whenever you're feeling down about not being on holiday, you can have a flick through the album and reminisce on the memories! Make a scrap book. Similarly to a photo album, make a scrap book that not only has photo's, but also tickets, maps, wrist bands and the likes. This will bring back all of the memories every time you feel a bit blue.  Start planning the next one. Look at where you want to go, prices and then start saving up. All of the future planning not only keeps y...

In case you have missed all of this last week's worth of posts, I have just come back from holiday in Devon. However, despite being on holiday, I still wrote a blog post every single day, in order to keep up my 365 days of blogging. Now, some people might not like to blog on holiday or might want to be struggle with it...so here's how I handled blogging on holiday. Lost for content? Post about your holiday. They can either be diary posts like I did, recapping on the events of the day, or simply filled with all of your photos of the day. Photo's are of course, easier and require less effort, but its totally up to you! Post a day later.  I wrote about my day at the end of the day, and then posted it the following day if that makes sense? So I arrived on Tuesday, at the end of Tuesday I wrote about the day, and then that post went up on Wednesday. This helped my content to flow all week long.  Timings. So, how to fit it in? As I said, I posted a day ...

Sunday 26th June.  Waaa. Today it was time to come home from Devon- and I was not happy about that one bit. We had to be out of our cottage by 11am, and then had plans to spend some of the day in Devon before starting the long drive home. Leaving the cottage was pretty emotional (for me anyway!). We might only have been there for 5 nights but it had felt like home to us, 'our house'. Locking the door for the last time almost  made me cry, because I'm emotional like that! The weather wasn't too brilliant but we drove to Westward Ho! which is where we had gone to the beach. We had a reservation for lunch at the nice restaurant we had tried after last nights dinner failure. We also spent some time taking photo's of the beach and, of course, playing on the 2p machines in the arcade. BJ managed to out do me this time which was surprising!  After Westward Ho!, we headed back to Appledore to purchase some gorgeous glass necklaces we had seen on t...

Saturday 25th June. Today was our last proper, full day and night on holiday *cry*. We were determined to make the most of it. The weather wasn't amazing  but it was mostly warm and it was dry so we went on a day out to Combe Martin Dino and Wildlife Park- a place home to dinosaurs and zoo animals, which we'd heard great things about. It was only a 40 minute drive away and cost just £11 to get in, so we were impressed! However, we think we may have been a little...well, old. We walked around the park in just over an hour and didn't really find the dinosaurs impressive, whilst the zoo animals enclosures shocked us and the animals themselves just looked incredibly sad. However, we still had fun and stayed there for lunch too, so it didn't matter. After finishing up at Combe Martin, we drove to a nearby attraction called Atlantis Adventure Park. On the way to the park, we worried about whether we would enjoy it, as adult prices were half  the children...

Friday 24th June.  Best. Day. Ever. I'm not even kidding you, today was definitely in my top 10 best moments ever, if not my top 5. It was so incredible. As you know, we woke up to the EU Referendum vote. All of us voted in, so we were more than a little disappointed with the result. On top of this, it was drizzling and grey and we had our sea safari booked for today, so this didn't exactly thrill us. However, we set off bright and early to the town of Ilfracombe for a spot of breakfast and a wander around before our trip. ] At 2pm we made our way to the harbour, where we were first in line for the sea safari. It was on a speed boat, and being at the front meant we didn't get to sit on the normal bench seats like the other 8-10 guests. Myself, Alec, Ricarda and BJ had to sit on a thin ledge, straddling it like a bike seat. There was a metal bar in front of me and Ricarda for us to hang on to and the boys sat behind us. At first we were a little wary of th...

Thursday 23rd June. Well weren't we lucky that today was an absolutely gorgeous  day in Devon! Waking up to nothing but sunshine and blue skies was the best thing ever...and, of course, it meant only one thing. Beach day! I decided to be brave today and despite not exactly loving how I look, don a bikini for the day anyway! I haven't worn a bikini on an English beach or in front of people I know since I was about 14, so it was a bold move, but thanks to the cute high waisted bottoms, I actually felt like I looked okay. We made our way to the most popular beach in the area (according to the internet!), Westward Ho!, which was just a short 10 minute drive away from where we were staying. It was so exciting seeing the sea in the distance getting closer and closer, I felt almost like a child again. When we got out of the car, I just couldn't believe how beautiful the beach was- it actually looked almost like we were abroad! Whilst the boys p...

Wednesday 22nd June.  Today we woke up and unfortunately, it was raining. This didn't alter the fabulous views from the roof of the house though! We woke up at 9 with the aim of getting out of the house at 10...needless to say, this didn't happen! By the time we'd cooked and eaten breakfast and decided (ahem, argued) about what to do with the day, we didn't leave until around 11:30, deciding to make our way to the close small town, Appledore- you can see this town across from our part of the island! When we got to Appledore, thankfully the rain stopped! It still wasn't sunny but it was warm and clear. The town itself is bigger than the one we're staying in (only slightly) and there was even some younger people around, although still not as young as us! BJ is a photographer so we spent some time taking good photo's of the scenery- and each other!  Appledore is a small seaside town, so the shops were all quite ...