Hey lovelies!

So last weekend I booked a lovely trip to Birmingham to explore Bournville and visit Cadburys World for my boyfriends birthday! Honestly it didn't disappoint!


We set off to Birmingham from Manchester early and arrived just in time for our tour slot at Cadburys World for 1:30 however all tours were being let in at the same time. We visited on the Saturday and it was slightly busy, so just bare this in mind if you are thinking of visiting. It instantly felt like Disney vibes as the tour started, and being given 3 chocolate bars each was an absolute bonus! The tour lasted around an hour and a half and us being the biggest kids ever loved every minute of it, truly like willy wonka's chocolate factory!


The tour was full of interesting historic facts about the Cadburys family and how they created the business up until the present day. Also how cocoa beans were founded and used to create drinking chocolate and the classic dairy milk in the factory.

We then got to write our names in melted chocolate and test a sample of the melted goodness with added toppings of our choice (we chose marshmallow and popping candy with fudge) YUM!



The best part of the tour was definitely the cocoa bean ride, think Disney small small world vibes but chocolate! The ride lasted around 5 minutes and entered into cute scenes though cocoa bean world. Professional photographs were available at certain points of the tour however in my opinion these were too expensive to purchase so we chose not to.




The tour ended with a trip to the biggest Cadburys shop in the world, and it was as amazing as it sounds! There was a lot of chocolate on offer and of course we wanted to buy it all however with the heatwave smashing 29 degrees outside it would've just melted by the time we drove back to Manchester. So a fridge magnet sufficed!


The Cadburys world experience had ended so we headed to our hotel to check in. The hotel was lovely and we can't wait to go back to Bournville!


I really hope you have enjoyed this little insight into our weekend, lifestyle posts are some of my favourites to write! Please leave a comment below if you have visited Cadburys world, or would like to and also if you have recommendations of places to go this summer please comment down below as Im all about the road trips!

Hello Lovlies,

So a couple weeks back my wonderful boyfriend finally achieved one of the greatest life goals and graduated from one of the top universities, UAL! He achieved an honers in his chosen course Photojournalism which is highly competitive field. I couldn't be a prouder girlfriend and we had a such wonderful weekend away in London to celebrate!


I love London as a city and we have so many happy and fond memories together as a couple there. UAL is situated in Elephant & Castle so the graduation ceremony took place on the wonderful Southbank, in the Southbank Centre.

Before the graduation ceremony began we thought we would take massive advantage of being all suited and booted, dressed up in this lovely city and head to the Sky Garden for a few hours. We have visited the Sky Garden twice before together but this time was extra special as we took Joe's family along and all had a brilliant time there taking many many selfies with the selfie stick.

You can catch up on this over on my Instagram

The views from the top are insane!

The Sky Garden is such a lovely place to visit if you ever have the time, you can book tickets in advance on their website for FREE, so why not go?! Here you can see the whole of London in all its glory, from Buckingham Palace to Wembley Stadium and Tower Bridge. The list of landmarks goes on and on, and its fun to play a little spot it first game with your family and friends. It is also a beautiful space, not only for the views but the whole space is made from glass so it is basically like a humongous conservatory! You are surrounded by plants and succulents everywhere you look, it is utterly tranquil. Upstairs there are more views of the Gurkin and the Cheesegrater etc, followed with another bar and a luxurious restaurant. I recommend a hot chocolate downstairs on the sofas with a blanket on those extra chilly days (Yes blankets are provided, this place really is amazing).

We took advantage of our trip here and captured some lovely photos together so we can reminisce in the memories.

My dress was from Boohoo on ASOS  and I absolutely love it!

After this we headed to the Monument located just beside Monument tube station, so we had a quick gander at the spectacle (which is also stunning to look up at) then headed to the tube for a 5 minute journey over to Waterloo. Waterloo is an amazing Railway station, its a shame we didn't have time to wander. So we headed straight to the Southbank and over to the Southbank Centre. The vibe here is always amazing, there is a food stall there some days and we caught it on Friday and allllll the different smell sensations! Yum!

There was UAL graduations happening all day at it was a hugely busy event, but everyone was smiling and happy and I couldn't be more excited for Joe. It was time for us to take our seats at 2:30 ready for the 3pm kick off and the vibe in the great hall was immense. I was sat with Joe's family in a middle row with a perfect view of the stage and the upcoming graduates, we were searching and searching for him unsuccessfully. But that is all part of the fun.

As UAL is a prestigious arts & creative university there wasn't as such that ever so serious vibe which was brilliant for cheering on our loved one loudly! Grayson Perry made a wonderful speech as university chancellor before the ceremony began and it resonated with me to be so inspiring, like him as a person. His presence in that huge room was very well known, as he swept in wearing the most beautiful rainbow gown (this Jospeh and the technicolour dreamcoat but BETTER).



The event lasted a few hours but was a memorable one. We waited and waited for the Photojournalism course to be read out, and just our luck it was at the very end. Joe finally stepped across the stage shaking the UAL heads hand and receiving his honours degree as he did so. We all felt immensely proud as he walked across that stage as a graduated, I had a knot in my throat but cheered so so loud for him it was a crazy good atmosphere.

After his ceremony it was the perfect excuse for more champagne and prime photograph opportunities, which I'm sure Joe loved (I think he felt like a celebrity by the end of the day).

Prosecco in hand, obviously

After the tube journey back to our hotel in Finchley we quickly got changed and headed to the yummiest local Chinese restaurant...where we all ordered the biggest amount of food you have ever ever seen!

BRB just demolishing this amazing food

The food was so good I took my picture of the table when it had all been eaten, because who has time for that?

It was such a lovely lovely weekend!

I hope you've enjoyed this little life post update and what we got up to on our weekend away, I cant wait for another one! Congratulations to all the graduates of this year, class of 2017 you did it! No matter what everyone should be extremely proud! Head to my twitter for more, and comment below if you're excited to graduated or if you graduated this year like joe!

Abbey Hearts ♥

Not a sponsored post, all images and views are my own. Copyright Abbey Hartley