4 Years.

Today we celebrate our 4th anniversary. They have been amazing, and they're getting better every single year too, I can't wait for the next (maybe we'll plan something special for the 5th?). I am really lucky to have found such an amazing person to share my life with. Today, we wont get to spent that much time together. We will both be jumping on trains pretty early to go to our parents houses that are in the opposite direction, but thats's okay; we'll celebrate together on Sunday.

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Moments.

Coffee together, in the sun.

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Four years ago today.

On the 8th of August 2009 I made a trip to Manchester to bike all day with a friend, I was wearing cut off jeans and a vest. I didn't look great. When I arrived back in Leeds my housemate convinced me to go for a drink at a bar in town with her. I wasn't planning on staying out too long, just for one or two drinks to please my friend who wanted to get out of the house. I had my bike with me too, so it meant riding home. I really didn't want to do that too late. We were having a good time though! I ended up chatting to a guy. I never usually speak to people I don't know, so it was strange. But, he had cute hair, and we had the same taste in music. He didn't live in Leeds. I saved his number in my phone and spelt him name wrong.

A couple of weeks later he made the trip back to Leeds to hang out, I was nervous: 4 months after that I would call him my boyfriend, 10 months later we would be picking our first apartment together and 4 years later I would be writing this post. It's strange how things turn out, right?

Then & Now

Thank you Kate for making me go out that night. And thanks to Dixon for the last 4 amazing years, here is to 4 more.

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Some Birthday Decorations.

I love making my own decorations. I like to use things we have around the house. This Monday it is Dixons birthday, so I took the chance over the weekend to put up a few pieces ready to celebrate. I used fabric scraps and magazine cuttings. Nice and simple. (And yes, yes I did spell 'Birthday' incorrectly. Totally meant to...)

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Cooking together // Vegan Blogs

((Dixon is a screen printer and forever covered in ink.))

I have found my cooking inspiration. I go through stages, but recently I can't stop thinking of new things to make and getting straight on with it when I get home from work. I love it even more when we make something together. He does the jobs I am bad at; peeling the potatoes and chopping garlic extra fine. He adds the chilli too, I love the heat but am always scared I'll go too far. This is a black bean and sweet potato curry (based loosely on this recipe), guacamole, paprika houmous and whole wheat breads. Finding a perfectly ripe avocado makes me very happy, they're tough to find over here! I am so thankful that Dixon taught me to love cooking.

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3.

Today, me and Dixon are 3 years old. And I am super lucky. We met completely by accident just over three years ago, and I can't imagine things any other way. Dixon is my best friend who is the funniest, kindest and smartest person. 

To celebrate we're going for a meal at Prashad. We've both been dying to go for a while, but never made the effort to travel over to Bradford. So guess how excited I was to find out it moved 25minutes from our flat!? We may go see the Hobbit too, but we are both awful at making it to the cinema. Maybe we'll go bowling! Either way, its going to be a fun day.

I really couldn't imagine a person I would rather spend the last day on Earth with. Heres to another amazing year (if we survive the apocalypse).

 

A little adventure in bageling.

You poach bagels before you bake them!? Who knew! I didn't have much involvement in making these other than the finishing (and eating), Dixon did everything. Mine are the ones topped in flax seed, Dixons are jalapeno and cheese (which smelt so good, i was pretty jealous). I was pretty impressed with how they turned out, they smelt and tasted great! We'll definitely be making them again, and trying out some different varieties (sundried tomatoes please).

The recipe we used is here, if you're interested.

Newmillerdam trip.

This weekend Dixon and me went to visit my parents who were hosting a little party, whilst on the train there we decided to get off one stop early and walk down to a place I used to visit all the time when I was really young; Newmillerdam. 

I only just found out now that the lake and park is called Anglers Country Park, and Newmillerdam is the name of the village its in, the village is beautiful! I want to buy all the houses. The village is named so because of the grain mill that was powered by the lake. Its a really cute little fort-like building on the side of the water (which I didn't actually get any photos of, but you can see then on its wikipeadia page). The lake is huge, and surrounded by a forest, which we explored too.

When I was young we used to go bird watching here, but there wasn't actually too many varieties of birds this time, a lot of geese (A LOT), mallards, a robin that followed us the whole way round and some crazy gull that was making the weirdest noises, it cracked me up! I really wish I'd gotten a video now thinking back, I think it was either a Black-Headed Gull or a little Gull. You can see him on the left of this photo of me, can you tell i'm trying my hardest not to laugh? And of course, I had to wear my duck dress again.

I went to take photos of the rings on this tree stump, and found it had loads of coins stuck into it! Some of them looked realold. I wish we had put one in there too.

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After our walk, we went for a couple of drinks and then over to my parents. We were both completely worn out for the party, but I had an amazing time. Hope you all had an awesome weekend!

Shark Teeth & Beer.

Yesterday we took a trip over the pennies to Manchester, I got Dixon tickets to see Morrissey for an early birthday present, at the Manchester Arena and took the chance to have a day out. We went for a little meal at Eighth Day, a health food store with a cafe downstairs, I was pretty impressed with the food, and the place itself, it also made me sad that Leeds has no where like this at all.

Whilst in the cafe we had a quick flick of the internet to find anything interesting close by and saw we were on the same street as the Manchester Museum! Dixon and me have a love for natural history museums, so we set off. The museum had a vivarium with tiny frogs and lizards. I particularly loved seeing the poison arrow frogs. The 'Life' section was by far the best, so many butterfly's, beetles and creepy locusts. I'm a fan of taxidermy animals too (I realise is weird for a vegan), it gives me the chance to see animals up close that I wouldn't usually get the chance too. They had a huge selection of birds,

A Hammer Head Sharks teeth!

A Sheep in a Jumper!

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Afterwards we went to a Brew Dog bar! I've seen their beers floating around the internet for a while but never actually tried them, and when we ran past the bar on our 10k route last month decided we'd have to come back one day. So we did! I stupidly ordered a beer with a good name, 'Zeitgeist', not realising it was a dark beer! GIP. So I stole Dixons, Punk IPA. Much better. The bar itself was amazing! I wish we'd had more time to spend there tasting some new beers. Hopefully they'll open one in Leeds soon? (please?). Heres Dixon looking cute, and one of the beers!

We got home, completely soaked and tiered at about 1am. It was a pretty good day! Even though I am still not a fan of Manchester, it might have grown on me a little. I'll write about the Morrisey gig more another day. Hope you had a good weekend! I'm off to eat quiche.