Dalyan

Dalyan

While in Turkey, we went on a day tour to Dalyan, organised by a tour guide friend, to visit the mud baths and see the turtles. The day featured lots of boat rides, some amazing views and an hour of being slathered in herb-infused mud. The bus journey took about three hours each way, but was so worth it.

Dalyan is a town in Mugla, surrounded by the most beautiful mountains and amazing turquoise sea. It's home to the endangered loggerhead turtle, who lay their eggs on the protected beaches.

Mud Baths

The mud baths - there were about five different areas of mud, each mixed with a different type of skin-enriching plant, such as rosemary and rose. Afterwards our skin did actually feel really good! The only downside was that we had to spend about half an hour trying to scrub ourselves off in the showers (and it was literally everywhere).

This makes me laugh because I look like something that just crawled out of Shrek's swamp and Robbie looks really good. There were also a lot of fat, muddy men that actually looked like Shrek himself.

Seeing the Turtles

Lunch was included in the tour, a salad buffet with a choice of chicken or fish. When it comes to choosing between meat or fish, I almost always choose fish!

We also ate some freshly caught and cooked crab while on the boat, and got to hold some of the live ones - they creep me out so much.

(not a real turtle)

I bought this for my little sister, Sailor, from the shop near the buffet place.

Lycian tombs cut out of rock. I had to zoom in a bit for this photo so it looks nowhere near as amazing as the real thing.

(a real turtle)

It was so cool seeing these swimming around and coming to the surface to catch pieces of crab! I've always loved turtles so getting to sea them in their natural habitat was a really good experience.

The Beach

We went to the beach before heading back, to see where the turtles lay their eggs, which are surrounded by metal cages. People also aren't allowed to sunbathe or stay around the area and are told to move further down the beach, in order to protect the eggs.

So there was our day trip to Dalyan! It was a great experience and a fab day, so I'd really recommend it to anyone thinking of going to Turkey. I think it also cost around just £20 in total too, so it's really affordable. We had gone to Pamukkale last year on a tour, which was also amazing, but I actually think I preferred this one more.

Thanks for reading!

Indy ♥

Bodrum

Bodrum

Hello! 

I'm back from my most recent holiday and was going to post all about it, but realised I hadn't even had time to post about my visit to Turkey before I left. It's a bit late as I went mid-June, but everything's been so hectic with work and applying for internships (soo exciting) - and the pictures are too pretty not to share.

I go to Turkey every year with my boyfriend, Robbie, so this was my fourth time there, but I think each time is even better than the last! We stayed for two weeks, enough time to get myself a tan before my next holiday and to have a really chilled time after a busy year.

I'm going to apologise in advance for the massive post that this is going to be, but I'm a bit of a rambler and a huge photo freak. All these were also taken on my phone so aren't of the best quality, but I didn't want to trek a massive camera to places like the beach!

The Villa

I've actually forgotten what the wooden thing on here is called (absolute idiot) but it grows grapes and looks really nice - this is in the front garden of the villa.

We spent quite a bit of time just in the garden pool - it's so nice to read in the quiet and be able jump in the water whenever you want, without burning the soles of your feet on sand.

Playsuit: Urban Outfitters

Weird legs: my own

Shoes: Birkenstocks

I basically spent the whole holiday in my Birkenstocks, as they're so comfy and really easy to slip on and off at the beach.

Plums or something growing in the garden, such amazing colours!

Dress: Topshop - I've had it ages but love the print so much.

Sandals: Urban Outfitters

Glasses: bought from a street stall in New York, think they are meant to look like a pair of Oliver Peoples

I look really funny here as I'm burned and had also had an allergic reaction to one of the suncreams I was using. The doctor thinks I'm allergic to the sun, which is also fun.

*plant lyf*

Robbie looking cute and myself, featuring salty hair and a red nose.

This was a cat that kept turning up in the front garden. It was really nice but was obviously a stray so I fed it some sausages and gave it water each day, which I'm not allowed to do. Shh.

I warned you about pictures of cats that aren't even my own...

I take a different photo of this door opposite the villa every year, it's SO pretty. I want one.

The Beach

We spent a few days on different beaches, getting the dolmus (bus) there in the morning and staying until around 6PM.

Reading Vogue on the beach with a Lipton peach iced tea. One of my favourite days, as actually feeling like I could relax with a magazine is something I can never seem to do. I also read three books in the first four days of the holiday -

Rosemary's Baby - Ira Levin

The Coma - Alex Garland

How I Live Now - Meg Rosoff

I also got to around halfway through 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, as I stopped reading and started drawing mid-holiday, so by the time I was really getting into the book, the holiday ended and real-life resumed.

To avoid making this post even bigger than it has to be right now, I'll do some book reviews later on. My Mum practically has a library-worthy collection of books, so whenever I go away I just grab a few from about eight bookshelves in the house. She hates me reading them as I bend the spines and get them a bit soggy in the pool, whereas she likes them looking all fresh out of Waterstones. My Vogue magazine also fell apart after reading it for a couple of hours. Oops.

A mulberry, caramel and chocolate ice cream. There was so many flavours to choose from, I sometimes ended up with some strange mixtures.

Boat Trip

We went on a day-long boat trip later in the holiday with some of Robbie's family.

Breakfast - lots of different breads, cheeses, veg and yoghurt things.

Lunch - fish, chips, 'kofte' (like meatballs) and salads.

 

Bikini: H&M

I love this halterneck bikini as it can be worn as a crop top too, and is perfect for covering up a burnt chest! It's also got a really cute crochet-style trim.

The ice cream boat came and I bought these. The ice cream boat is like my favourite thing ever. It just parks next to your boat and hands you lollies! The Lipton iced tea lollies were amazing, but I'm yet to find any in England.

Sketchbook: Paperchase

Cay (tea) and my cute little sketchbook. I bought this from the airport for about £10 as I knew I'd be doing a lot of drawing on holiday. I took it almost everywhere with me!

Bodrum

We went into the centre of Bodrum in the evenings, as it's too hot to do anything during the day. It's perfect for doing some souvenir shopping and having amazing cocktails on the seafront.

Bodrum's harbour is full of boats, pink flowers and pretty sunsets.

Turkey has loads of really cool stuff like interesting patterns on tiles and walls. I'm a huge fan of any patterns and prints so couldn't resist taking a photo whenever I saw something pretty.

Turkey; home to some amazing kebabs. Bodrum has so many lovely places to eat. This was an adana kebab from Kirkicegi, with a base of bread, yoghurt with a tomato sauce.

Trousers: H&M

Top: Topshop

Shoes: Birkenstock

Drawings

I drew this of Cara Delevigne on a turbulent flight while looking at a Chanel advert, so it ended up scruffy-looking but I quite like it.

Sketchbook doodles of the latest catwalk shows. There was nothing nicer than sitting on the beach with my pencils in the sun, though using my phone as a drawing reference in blinding light wasn't easy.

So, that was our two weeks in Bodrum.

Despite how fab our holiday was, we were absolutely horrified at the events that happened in Istanbul while we were in Turkey - it's such a lovely place full of amazing people and things, and everything going on in the world at the moment is so upsetting.

Thanks for reading,

Indy ♥

Hello!

Hello!

I have tried a couple of times to run a personal lifestyle / fashion blog, however life itself has always ended up getting in the way (the irony) and my posts have gradually wavered as I became busier and was met with an extremely hectic, though thoroughly enjoyable, first year at university. Here's hoping the phrase 'third time lucky' is true!

I feel I actually have a lot more to talk about now, as I'm currently a Fashion Design and Marketing student that has developed a keen desire to take more of an active approach in terms of my own hobbies and interests. While the lines between some of my pastimes and work-related endeavours are often blurred, as I am a great lover of everything involved within pursuing a creative degree, I figured this blog could be somewhere I can share such interests with whoever may want to read about them. I'll also be posting lots of pictures - I seem to have accidentally acquired my boyfriend's DSLR, so this blog gives me a chance to work on my photography skills, something I realised is much needed after a two-hour faff around as I tried to shoot a friend in the photo studio without smashing my glasses as I kept head butting the viewfinder.

Over the summer so far, I have spent more time drawing, reading books, blogs and magazines and listening to new music than usual, and I can't think of a better way to talk about the things I love while also finding a way to keep a kind of 'diary'. I've always used Instagram as a means of visually recording little bits of my life, but I've forever enjoyed writing, reading others' thoughts and thinking of new ways to occupy my free time, so I am now determined to run an online journal of my own - without abandoning it for six months at a time.

I love buying new things and have recently accepted that I am an extreme hoarder of anything remotely interesting or pretty, so this can also be a space where I can show you whatever I manage to find next - be it clothes, books or cute little things to further take up space that I don't have. I also really enjoy doing anything creative, and being on a course that demands a lot of such work, I think I'll be posting quite a bit of what I do on here. Alongside this, I start my placement year in January 2017, so I will also be blogging to document my experiences as an intern, wherever I may end up!

I'm also going to make more of an effort to cook my own food when I get back to uni, rather than living off M&S ready meals. Though they are delicious, I have realised that I do need to learn how to do more than boil pasta and turn on a microwave at some point. I'll probably be posting some of my (potentially very ugly) attempts on here too.

...So there it is - my first post on my (not-so-new) blog. I have found the first post is always the hardest, so hopefully the rest will be a little less rambling and a lot more interesting as I try not to bore you to death with too many words and pictures of cats I don't even own.

Thank you for reading, whoever you are!

♥ from Indy