Adventure is on your doorstep

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I’ve never really been one to explore much of my own country; I tend to prefer jetting off to exotic locations with different cultures and cuisines, with people to meet who live completely different lives to us, and far away from all the responsibilities at home. But after big trips to India and South America over the last year, we decided to spend the bank holiday weekend exploring some of England for a change.

We made a little road trip of it, the beautiful city of Bath being our first stop, where we splashed out on a fancy meal and hotel to celebrate our 7 year wedding anniversary (yes, that makes me feel old!).

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

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Christmas Day last year we found ourselves in the desert city of Jaisalmer, a beautiful place to spend the day but somewhere that doesn’t celebrate the festive season like we’re used to.  With not much to do in the way of Christmas evening festivities, we decided to climb up a hill to watch the sunset over the city and the Fort.

Along the way we walked past small homes, cows in the garden briefly paused their grass munching to watch us, old people sat in the doorways and waved hello to us as we passed, and children ran out to climb the steps with us.  When we reached the top, they sat with us, smiling and grinning that they’d made new friends, even if we couldn’t speak the same language.

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Cats and Cake at Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium

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I know I talk about animals a lot but there is a reason for that…animals are simply great.  There is no doubt about it that every single animal is fascinating in its own way and even though I spend a lot of my spare time with them when I volunteer at London Zoo and with my own pets at home, there is still some sort of magnetic pull wherever I am in the world that has me heading straight for the nearest fluffy nosed creature around.

So when I heard that Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium, the UK’s first cat cafe, opened up in London earlier this year there was no doubt that I had to go.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Texture

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India is full of such diverse landscapes from huge bustling crowed cities, snowy mountains, the dusty orange deserts, rolling green hills and white sandy beaches. Every new place we explored seemed like it was in a whole other world to the place we’d just come from and I loved everywhere for each different sight it offered.

The Thar Desert was one of the highlights of our time travelling around this incredible country. Just outside the desert city of Jaisalmer, our home for the night was a gorgeous (if freezing) luxury tent.

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Win a Holiday with your #SelfieStories

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It seems like selfies are taking over the world! Everywhere you go, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ll come across someone taking a selfie and it always makes me giggle watching people trying to get the perfect shot – making sure they look good; snapping a famous attraction in the background; trying to squeeze everyone into the picture; or avoiding someone jumping in to photobomb.

Everyone is getting on the selfie bandwagon including Cosmos Holidays who are giving one lucky winner and 3 friends the chance to jet off to your dream destination, with a film director and crew in tow, where you’ll star in your own #selfiestories! Just snap a selfie, upload it to the site, and get your friends to vote. The selfie with the most votes wins!

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Zigzag

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To me, the window seat of a plane is like candy to a baby.  I love flying and I always try to grab a window seat so I can watch the world go by and ooh and ahh as we get a glimpse of our next destination as we come in to land.  Sitting slightly behind the wing of the plane is my favourite spot where I can get some great shots of the sky or the landscape below us with the tip of the wing lined up perfectly.  It helps that Mr Ayla doesn’t like flying in the slightest so he’s always perfectly happy to let his eager wife take the best seat 🙂

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My Favourite Beaches Around The World

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Seeing as we’ve had a fair bit of sunshine and hot weather in London recently, I thought I’d continue the sunny theme on the blog.  It’s no surprises that this weather has had me daydreaming about sunning myself on a tropical beach somewhere with the cool sea to jump into whenever it takes my fancy.  Instead, I’m stuck in the office, shivering from the air-con that’s on at full blast, and by the time I get home and can enjoy the little bit of evening sunshine that’s left, I’m way too hot and sticky from the horrid commute.

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The Taste of India

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This week’s photo challenge theme – containers – immediately made me think of the huge amounts of food, spices, sweets, flowers and little trinkets that we came across on our travels across India, all stored in containers, bowls and sacks, bundled on top of carts and spilling out of roadside shops.  Although the weekly photo challenge is usually just a photo with a small story or caption, there was absolutely no way that I could say so little about the food in India.  It accidentally turned into a slightly longer post – oops! – as I found myself writing more and more and wanting to share the deliciousness of India with you 🙂

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The Versatile Blogger Award

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We’re already half way through 2014 and, even though it’s whizzing by so fast it’ll be Christmas again soon, I can’t really complain as I’ve had a fantastic year so far. 2014 started out in one of the most memorable ways – seeing in the New Year with celebrations on the beach in Kerala during our travels around the crazy but beautiful India.  More travels in Belgium, Edinburgh and South America followed, as well as lots of fun adventures in London.  I’ve been thrilled to have won a couple of awards including Low Cost Holiday’s Best Female Blogger Award 2014 and a Liebster Award.

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