A Brighton Getaway

Brighton is one of my favourite places to go, in all of the UK.  In 2001 (about 4 months before meeting my hubby), I came to Brighton for a big holiday with my close school friend.  We booked into a backpackers for a week and spent a week discovering the city and the amazing open culture it has.  At the end of the week I couldn't face leaving quite yet, so I stayed on for an extra 3 days and experienced the Gay Pride festival, such an experience!

My old job took me to Brighton a couple of times too and I couldn't have been happier to go.  So when the chance cropped up to go again, this time taking the hubby and baby, I couldn't say no.  We stayed at the Brighton Travelodge (not the seafront one) opposite an enormous and beautiful park.

Our room was basic, but clean.  It had everything we needed: kettle, tea, coffee, cups and lots of space - we had a family room.  The staff were amazing, all were very friendly and bent over backwards to help us.  The breakfast was very basic in terms of vegetarian options for the cooked breakfast (scrambled eggs and baked beans) but the food they had was cooked well (the eggs were lovely!).

Our only qualm was that our room was on the first floor, right above reception at the front of the hotel, and since it was during a heatwave, we really needed the windows open - the hotel had a couple of stag and hen parties, so on the Friday night, every half hour from about 1am - 5am we were woken up by groups of drunk people out the front.  So, if you're there with a baby or children, I'd recommend asking to be at the back of the hotel :)

We drove down on a Thursday and had the full Friday there before heading home on Saturday morning, so we made the most out of Friday.  We decided to walk in from the hotel (a decision we both later regretted considering we hadn't had breakfast, Squidge was close to needing a feed, and it was boiling hot and not a short walk!).

Close to the hotel was this field full of beautiful wild flowers, it was so beautiful I took about a gazillion pictures!

 Right next to the field was this lovely cafe.  We were going to stop here for breakfast, but there was a big queue, the place was empty and service seemed very slow, so we moved on.

We passed this lovely viaduct too, thought it was a good photo opp :)

Just beyond that was an open market, we were planning on walking back and were going to stop here, but after walking all the way there, and spending hours walking around we were too knackered to walk back so we got the bus.

We also saw a real Banksy!!!!!

Such a beautiful building!

The little man was cwtched up in his pram and was happy there most of the time :)

We also stopped off at the Sea Life centre, Squidge absolutely loved it! He loved seeing all the fish, and all the colours.  He also took a nap on the pier :)

On the Saturday morning, we got up early (as we always do with Squidge) and had breakfast downstairs in the Travelodge, as I mentioned above, it was simple but lovely - the hubby loved his meaty breakfast :)  After that we packed up the car and checked out about 10 am.  About half hour away was a lovely National Trust place called Nymans (more on this over on my mummy blog soon). Squidge needed a feed at about 10:30 so we thought it would be well timed.

It was absolutely beautiful, one of the nicest National Trust places we've been to.

We had a lovely couple of days, although it did seem like travelling there and back took longer than we were actually there for (6 hours there, 7 hours back - for a 3.5 hour journey if we didn't have a baby!).  I'm hoping to bring Squidge back to Brighton when he's older, it's such a wonderful city, we both felt really safe there.  Our only issue was that we struggled to find The Lanes, well, we didn't - mind you, we didn't make a whole lot of effort to find them :P

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*The accommodation was provided free of charge, all opinions are my own

Nanokeratin Befri Brush

I know what you're thinking "what a crazy looking brush"... yep, that's exactly what I thought the first time I saw it too.

This Brefri brush is by a brand called Nanokeratin, and it really is something very different.  Here's what they have to say about it "a Next Generation professional brush that brings immediate hair relief. BeFri Brush, based on revolutionary patented technology, features a unique Kinematic structure with eight free-moving arms that glide through your hair and smooth it out. Indulge in wonderfully gentle yet effective brushing that actually conditions and strengthens your hair, leaving it healthy, shiny and full of body. So stop pulling at your hair and start pampering it. With BeFri Brush".

What really surprised me about this brush is how each of the eight arms move about, I've never used a flexible brush like this before.  For me, there was two main ways I found it to be really good for my hair.  Firstly, thanks to how it's designed, my hair dried much more quickly with this brush as the air could flow through and around it much more easily.  Also, again because of the moving arms, when I had a knot it didn't tear my hair like a normal brush would.  It forced me to stop, and brush differently and more focussed so not to damage my hair.  It's also really lightweight.

If I was a hair dresser I can see that having a really lightweight brush would really help.  I've really liked this and it's become my go-to brush for when I'm drying my hair, I love that it's more gentle on my hair too, something I've become more concious of since I lost so much hair after having Squidge (don't worry, it's growing back!).

Here's the catch, this lovely brush is $65.  While I'm super grateful that I've been able to try this as a gift, and feel that it's definitely the best hair brush I've used, I will say that I don't think I could ever part with that much money for a hair brush.  However, if I was a hairdresser then it really is something I'd consider for my professional kit.

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My Little Road Trip Box | July

You know a month is going fast when the July My Little Box landed on my doorstep in what felt like a week since the last one (it wasn't, it was a month).  Needless to say, I was pretty darn gleeful when I saw it (this time I hadn't even looked for spoilers online!).

When it arrived, I did sieze the opportunity to do an unboxing on Periscope and was VERY happy with the contents, and bemused (I'll get to that).  Here's what was inside:

Summer Sorbet - After sun body geleé - £9

After the love I have for the sea salt scrub that was in last month's box, I'm pretty excited by this. I don't tend to let myself get any/much sun as I'm so pale and moley, although I am rocking a pretty epic hand tan right now (true story).  I've had a quick whiff, and yeah, it smells great :D

Garnier Micellar water - £1.99

This is where I was bemused.  So, this arrived on Friday morning.  Rewind back to Tuesday when I popped out at lunch to get my £15 high street challenge stuff for July, and as an impulse buy, I picked up that very same bottle of micellar water in Boots when it was on offer for £1 - so now I have 2 bottles of this which I'm yet to try, lol.  Lets hope I like it!  If nothing else, it'll definitely be used on swatches :)

Essie nail polish - £7.99

Ok, this I was seriously happy about.  When I was live on Periscope, I saw a picture of an Essie nail polish when I was looking through the big leaflet, which made me wonder if there was a bottle inside. I figured if there was, it would be a small bottle, but this my lovelies is a full size bottle! How fab! I love the colour too, burgundy, perfect for the end of summer and going into Autumn (my favourite season, I cannot wait for scarves and warming lattes with cinnamon.... mmmmmmm).

Oh it doesn't stop there! There were also some gold tattoo transfers, you know the ones that go on your wrist?  I'm actually really looking forward to trying these and layering them with some bracelets :)

This cute little travel journal was also included by BIC with a pen.  There's a cute little illustration on the cover, and inside is blank paper for you to write your travelling thoughts on - how cute!

Inside a lovely box, was this - it's a travel pouch organiser.  It's waterproof with a zip lock.  When you unfold it there's space for currency, ID/credit cards and your passport - I'll most definitely be using this next time we go abroad (god knows when that'll be!).

It wouldn't be a My Little Box without a cute little postcard now would it :)

What a beautiful box, and so thematic.  I love how everything is either beautiful, or useful for anyone travelling this Summer.  Such beautiful boxes!  If you want to give these a try, they're £11 plus P&P, you can sign up here.

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