So, it was my 21st birthday recently and rather than go mad on a night out I went for a more civilised affair. As you know from my last Instaweek post, I went out to Trentham Gardens for the day with my boyfriend and friends. We stopped at Pieminister for lunch and, whilst overpriced, it was pretty tasty! On the right is all the lovely gifts recieved from my friends and boyfriend, including the flowers and balloon sent up by my family. The picture below is the delcious breakfast my boyfriend made me the morning of my birthday: smoked salmon eggs benedict, yum!  

Talking of presents, here are some of them! The girls doubled up to buy me this amazing huge Yankee Candle (among lots of other lovely things the cuties). The scent is Summer Scoop and even unlit it makes my room smell like an absolute dream. In the centre is part of the presents my boyfriend bought me. He picked up these six Yankee Candles (they all just know my love for candles) and it's an absolute triumph because every single one of these candles smells amazing too! I haven't lit these ones yet as we want to save them for when we have our own place (fingers crossed later this year!). The scents are: Spiced Orange, Amber Moon, Champaca Blossom, Sweet Strawberry, Wild Fig and Wedding Day. I'm sure a review will be posted when I try them all out!

The final photo here is of my wilting roses! Sad times. I got these for my 21st birthday from my family and they are gorgeous, it's such a shame flowers don't last longer! I decided to bring them back to Cornwall in order to press them, and they're currently squished into a book because my Dad's old flower press had kicked the bucket! Hopefully they'll still come out well, no doubt we'll forget about them and find them pressed in ten years. 

A simple photo. My boyfriend looking out over the lake at Trentham Gardens whilst the sun was setting on my birthday.

I had a real fat week last week. My boyfriend took me out on Tuesday as a late birthday dinner and we had a delicious Indian meal at Maliks in town, sensibly I took home my leftovers and had them for dinner the next day before heading on a night out with the girls for the Easter Ball. On Thursday I treated Mike to a Domino's because he didn't go out the night before and had been working on his dissertation almost non-stop over the past week. I did not regret the decision slightly. Before leaving on Saturday afternoon I spent the evening at Mike's and was delighted to find that one of his house mates had left some homemade brownies behind. I was given the go ahead to tuck in and, well, it was rude not to really.

Home time! I headed back on a long 7 and a half hour journey squashed in on a packed train. I had a throwback moment to summer and wished my boyfriend (centre photo because he's obviously not a cat) had been able to journey back with me. Though I couldn't guarantee the same conditions as his last visit! On the left is my beautiful kitty, Frank. Unfortunately I'm allergic to him now, but I pop an allergy tablet a day so I can still give him cuddles aplenty. 

When I returned home my mum handed me some eggs much better than chocolate ones! When I was growing up we had pet ducks and I came to love and favour duck eggs, but since we no longer have ducks and they're usually hard to find or bloomin' expensive, I haven't had them in years. However, to both our delight mother managed to find some in Sainsbury's and oh my gosh, I forgot how rich and scrumptious they were!

And the final photo of last week is the 21st birthday present I received from my parents. Thirty-four years ago this ring was given to my Mum for her 21st birthday, engraved with her initials (which are soon to be re-engraved). It was supposed to be given to my older sister but she chose to not have it (she's not a huge fan of gold jewellery, but I think there was more to her reasoning!), but now it's been gifted to me! Isn't it beautiful? The fact my mum has kept it on her finger for so many years makes it almost an honour to wear it, and I hope to pass it on in the future too.

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter Sunday and that your past few weeks have been wonderful!