Meeting One Direction

If someone said to me 4 years ago, when I started this blog, that in 4 years time, you'd be sat opposite one of the worlds biggest boy bands interviewing them, and getting to meet them and speak to them (and give them multiple hugs), I'd have laughed in their face. On Monday 19th I interviewed One Direction. It was something that I knew I was going to do for a long time, but wasn't allowed to tell anyone. I wanted to scream it from the rooftops, and my fingers were twitching over the tweet button but I remained calmed (and extremely nervous). Had I ever interviewed a celebrity before? Nope. Had I ever considered it? Nope. Then all of a sudden i'm thrown straight in the deep end. I'm in no way interview trained, or media trained, and I film videos with nobody else around me in the comfort of my own bedroom, then all of a sudden i'm surrounded by cameramen i'd never met, lot's of management and 5 very attractive young men. I'm surprised I even managed to sit in that seat and speak words. 

All 5 of the boys were so lovely and down to earth. It's very easy for people to forget they are just normal lads underneath all the hysteria and fame, and actually meeting them in the flesh and seeing just how polite and gentlemanly they were really proved that. The second I walked into the first interview with Harry & Niall, Harry immediately came bounding up to me asked me my name, gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and asked if i'd like a drink or a chocolate bar from the fridge. Having only 8 minutes with each group, he probably knew I couldn't sit munching on a chocolate bar, but he gave me the tour of his fridge nonetheless, and I did take a Daim bar. (who would refuse something from the 1D fridge?). Niall even asked if they could keep me after the interview was over. I took this as an extreme compliment as it meant I can't have done too badly. I was terrified i'd mess up, or look silly or trip up on my words. The minute I met each of them, they immediately put me at ease, and the nerves just disappeared. Honestly, one of the best days ever. *sings in 1D melody* Not only do I love them as a group, their songs and their general personalities, I have a whole new level of love for them after meeting them in real life. 

The Interview was about their new film "This Is Us", which I attended the premier for last night (there will be a vlog coming soon on my second channel). The video is up on the YouGeneration YouTube channel, and there are also some challenges going up too (hence the marshmallows...) 

It was one of those moments where I wished you were all with me, because without all your support, I would never have had that opportunity and I wanted you there to experience it with me. I thought of all of you at the time, and I hope I did well and did all the One Direction fans proud :)

♥

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A Day At Southwold

Very recently, I went to Norwich to visit my good friends Tanya and Jim. They took us to the cutest little seaside town called Southwold. Tanya is always going on about how quaint and lovely it was, and so we decided to spend the afternoon there. Being at the seaside isn't the same unless you have some fish and chips, so obviously that is exactly what we did first. After that we strolled through the streets and we decided to go crabbing, something I did when I was very little but hadn't done in a very long time. It was so much fun, we caught so many crabs, I was actually pretty impressed with the amount we all collected (and of course set free back into the sea). The place was so cute and we all had such a great afternoon crabbing and catching up in the sun! I love days like these. 

♥

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Life Update & Bloggers Block

Back in January, I wrote about 2012 and how it wasn’t such a great year for me, I also wrote about all the things I wanted to achieve in 2013 and life changes I wanted to make. So far this year, I’ve done so many amazing things and reached some personal goals too. Let’s consider this my 6 month review as I fill you all in and reflect on the first half of the year.

The biggest of my achievements so far this year has got to be hitting 1 million subscribers on my YouTube Channel. On December 24th 2012, I remember hitting 400,000 subscribers and trying desperately to screenshot it as it hit that exact number and failing miserably but feeling so excited and happy that SO many of you had chosen to subscribe to my YouTube channel. On the 20th April, I hit 1 million subscribers. I’m not sure what happened in those 4 months for my channel to grow so quickly, but I think it was by far one of the best days of the year so far. I felt so emotional with everyone congratulating me and saying how proud they were. In all honesty, it never really sunk in how many of you that was, and with 1,600,000 of you now, it still hasn’t. I can’t quite comprehend HOW there are that many people watching me rambling on, but it’s so incredibly amazing and i’m so humbled by all your support. 

The other thing I wanted to do this year was travel more, and I think i’ve succeeded very well with that. I did my first flight after 7 years going to Florida for playlist live, which was so incredible. Getting to meet lot’s of you and also meeting other YouTubers was so much fun. You can view each day I visited Florida in video diary form on my second channel here. Once i’d conquered that plane I felt like nothing was holding me back anymore. The plane journey was my nemesis, and after confronting it through an 8 hour flight, I felt like quite possibly...maybe I’d be able to travel a bit more. I then went to Paris, Mykonos & have LA next week for Vidcon, which i’m really looking forward to, and hopefully my optimistic attitude towards travel and flying will continue, because i’m really enjoying making up for all the years I shied away from visiting other countries due to anxiety. 

This also brings me onto not “sweating the small stuff”. I agreed that this year I wouldn’t stress over the small things because life was too short. I’ve had a few stressful encounters so far this year, but I chose not to let them effect me as negatively as they may have done previously, and seen things in a much more positive light, however hard that may be sometimes. I’ve also tried to encourage a lot of my friends to stop sweating the small stuff too, because if we spend too long stressing over the smaller things, they then become bigger things, and it gets a lot more messy and hard to let go. If there is something currently bugging you, let it go, smile, every day is precious. 

I’ve enjoyed hanging out with friends new and old, and watching Darcy grow into a little lady. I have such amazing people around me, most of whom you may also watch on YouTube. I know you only get to see the videos they film, edit and upload of themselves in 3-10 minutes on the internet, but behind that, they really are AMAZING people with such huge influences on my life and happiness. 

I have also enjoyed spending quality time with my family and friends at home. Although this year is quite a whirlwind, and I have managed to travel a lot. It’s also important to spend days at home chilling, relaxing...shooting some b ball..ha! No, in all seriousness, with this beautiful weather I have been out in my garden at one with nature. I have even made friends with a hedgehog family.

There are also a few things i’ve not done very well so far and i’m going to tackle these things now, so that i have 6 months to rectify this. Drinking more water? yeh...i’ve not done that very well. I told myself I would drink from a two litre bottle every single day, but I definitely have not stuck to that (I can’t lie to you guys). I think setting myself the goal of drinking two litres every day was pushing it a bit, I may have been a little too optimistic when I decided that, but i’m definitely going to make more of a conscious effort to hydrate myself more. I’m one of these odd people that never feel thirsty and can go a whole day forgetting to drink something. NOT GOOD.

I also decided I would be a bit more organised. Organisation, requires time management and time itself to get organised, and time isn’t something I’ve had a lot of recently. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being busy, and I love having so many things to keep track on and keep up with, but it does stress me out to think that a lot of things don’t have their place and I can’t do all the things i’d like to be doing when I want to do them. I have managed to organise my calendar from now until December though, which is an improvement from not keeping a diary at all, and i’ve only turned up 30 minutes late to ONE doctors appointment! haha

This also then brings me on to my blog. I told myself I would blog more (good going Zoe, 1 or 2 posts a month isn’t that great). I’m not quite sure why I can’t sit down and write about all the products I love, or the makeup i’m wearing, or new collections, or my day out with Louise & Darcy. I think I have become a bit overwhelmed with the amount of you that read these ramblings, even when i’m not posting anything new! And it’s got to the point where I honestly don’t know how or where to start. I have all these blog post ideas swimming around in my head and in about 5 different note books. I have hundreds of blog pictures of products that I want to share with you. I will always see my blog as my little place to escape, to keep you up to date, to ramble on about everything and nothing and to share things with you, that’s how this all started, and that’s what it will continue to be. The second half of this year, i’m going to try REALLY hard to get my blogging back on track. I know I say this all the time, but it’s honestly something I think about a lot of the time. It doesn’t help that life has got a lot more busy, and i’ve decided to really push myself to do more and try new things, which takes up more time than I initially realised haha. Thank you so much to those of you who have stuck by me through my desert phases (This is what I shall call them as they are dry spells with...nothingness), also, hello to any new readers who might be here too. I appreciate that not all of you want to see me gassing on in a video about products, and secretly read about them during work hours, (or just don’t really like my voice haha), so i’m really going to try and make a conscious effort to get more content on here. I’m not saying after this i’ll bosh a post out every single day, it might take me a while to get back into the swing of it, but i’m going to put on my blogging cap and get blogging. 

This is also where i’d like your input. I already have a huge list of ideas and blog posts that I’d like to do at some point (I even have 3 giveaways that i’ve had planned for months and months that I went out and purchased and have just left lying around) but i’d like to hear any ideas you might have. I’d also like to know, if you have a blog yourself, do you ever get “bloggers block?”

So that’s it for now folks! My little life update and 6 month review of the things I wanted to achieve this year. So far it’s about 50/50 so I still have time to sort that out. What things are you going to try and achieve by the time the year is up? Let me know!

♥

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Mykonos | The Holiday of Dreams

The last time I went on any sort of relaxing holiday was when I was 16 and I joined my friend and her family for a week in Portugal. Since then, there has been Playlist in Florida, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but it wasn't the sort of holiday where you lie by the pool, listen to music and take afternoon naps on the sun beds. Over the last couple of days, I joined a group of friends on a trip to Mykonos in Greece. I'd been to Greece before, Rhodes to be exact when I was 13, so I knew it was a beautiful country, but I had no idea how utterly breath taking Mykonos would be.

Bikini: Asos - Top: Zara - Shorts: Zara - Sandals: Primark

We stayed at a boutique suite hotel called "Bill & Coo" which, depending on the time of year you visit and the sort of room you require can be in budget or very expensive, so if you're looking into a holiday there, check the prices online with the different seasons and months. 

I can safely say that this is the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in abroad. I had a suite with a hot tub on the balcony and private sun beds (perfect if you are one of those sorts of people who prefer a little *ehem* naked *cough* private tanning (trust me, some people did do this). The rooms were so clean and modern and had everything you could ever need. I was like a child on Christmas Day entering the room. 

Dress: River Island - Bag: Zara - Lipstick : Rimmel Kate Moss 107

Here's a familiar face, it's my gorgeous friend Tanya, and here we are all glammed up for a meal out in the town of Mykonos which was only a 5 minute walk from the hotel. We are also seen here, pretending to drive one of these bad-ass quad bikes. I don't quite think we fit the "bad-ass-quad-bikers" category. 

This is by the port where a lot of the restaurants and bars are situated. It looked so beautiful as the sun was setting and with all the little (and large) boats bobbing on the water.

Dress: Ted Baker

Here we are again on our last night heading out for dinner in Mykonos. There are so many cute and quaint little restaurants there, it's a shame we didn't stay longer than 4 days as it would have been amazing to have been to many more.

There were lot's and lots's of stray kitty cats in Mykonos that would just sit elegantly on stairs and shop doorways as people passed through the town.

The restaurant we visited on the last night was called "Interni" (pictures below) and it was honestly one of the nicest places i've ever eaten. I ordered a cherry tomato and basil pasta and it was the best pasta i've ever had my life, alongside a delicious virgin mojito (my current go-to beverage)

Here's a snap of me on a wall at sunset with the sea and beach behind me and another shot of Tanya and I on the stairs that led down into the Interni garden restaurant. 

Just generally walking through the town was one of my favourite parts of the holiday, besides great food, sun and amazing company, the streets were so clean, white and fresh and everything looks so idyllic and beautiful (especially at night). 

This is the section that could quite possibly make your mouth water. We found a cute little ice cream and crepe shop called "Trio Bambini" and they had the most amazing selection of ice creams and crepes. I am a HUGE sucker for crepes, they are my absolute favourite, and there was a crepe shop round every corner in Mykonos. (This is one of my many reasons for wanting to live there haha)

 

The hotel pool at night was one of the many highlights of staying at "Bill and Coo". It always looked amazing. There were little twinkling lights at the bottom of the pool making it look so magical, and then candle lit lanters surrounding it. It was nice to lie out after being out for dinner by the bar and just gaze at the stars on the sun beds and chill out by the pool.

 Top: Zara - Shorts: River Island - Blazer: New Look - Sunnies: Ray Ban

On one of the days we were there, we popped to Nammos beach which was incredible. The beach was so pretty and the water was so clear. The only thing I will say, is that it's not really somewhere to go and relax (unless you pick a sun bed towards the right of the beach) as there is quite loud music and cocktails being poured and served every 3 seconds. It's a very glamorous place to go with your girly friends to get quite tipsy, but not so much for a relaxing afternoon. We still made the most of it and dipped our toes in the sea :)

The hotel was the nicest place i've ever stayed, all the staff were so polite, accommodating and friendly and the food and service were both impeccable. There was not one thing I would have changed about my stay there. The views were incredible, the rooms were amazing and the Island itself was so pretty. I would definitely go back. I am now writing this blog post with post-holiday blues and wish I could live there forever and ever. I can't wait to start planning my next visit. I had the best 5 days ever!

♥

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