A Photographer's Life

Wednesday, 6 December 2017

Happy Advent!!!

Yesterday, we celebrated the night before advent (where we had candles and a cookie and some warm tea, and read a special advent reading by Anne Voskamp - called Unwrapping the Greatest Gift). I don't know if you celebrate Advent, but if you don't, then you should. We also get new pyjamas too, which is one of the reasons why we look forward to Advent. Here's a picture of all the candles we burned XD

Thanks for reading this, and happy Advent!!!!!

Val xx

Monday, 6 November 2017

We Went to the Allergy and Free From Show!!!

On Saturday, 3rd November 2017, me, Mom, my little sister and our friend went to the Allergy and Free From Show in Liverpool.

It was an amazing experience, since I have a lot of allergies and can't have that many foods. It was set in Liverpool's Exhibition Centre, and I'm telling you, it was sooooooooooooo windy!!!!!!!!!!

I'll show you what the it looked like inside:

Yeah, so there was like, LOADS of these stalls!!!!! We all had a great time though, and now I'll show you some of the stalls we went to.

Ok, so the first one of which I actually got a picture of is a stall called 'Happy Snacks'. I don't know if you've heard of it..?

They're basically healthy snacks especially for kids (yaay) which everyone can eat. Including me.

The packs they were selling that day were 'Roasted Fava Beans' which taste AMAZING!!! They're high in protein, and low in sugar. They look like NUTS but they're NOT.

Next, we found our way to a 'Koko Coconut' stall. Now, Koko is sooooo soooooo good. If you've not tried it already (assuming you like coconut stuff) then you SHOULD. Really!!! They were giving out free samples of coconut milk, coconut yogurt, (and one of the ladies gave me 2 FREE raspberry flavored yogurts, just because she had heard about my blogs) and, um, I think that's it.

They even had a COMPETITION, which you entered, of course, and had a chance to win a FREE Koko Coconut bag!!!

I look very pleased with myself in that picture...!

Anyways, then we kind of milled around, looking in different stalls, trying free samples whenever we could, until we came this stall. This stall wasn't about food, (in that I mean free samples and that kind of stuff) but it was podcasts, about allergies and helpful advice about them. It's hosted by a lady called Nina, (who's very friendly) and it looks really cool!! I'm definitely going to give it a go. Here is the website, if you're interested: https://www.eatallergysafe.com/
They had a little activity on a table, where you colored in a cardboard person and then they took a picture of it and hung it on a string in their stall. I did one too, as you can see!!!
Nina also has some pretty cool recipes on her website, so I'll post them here (and then you won't have the trouble of looking for them on the website😆):

Mom just gave me her card, so I took a picture of it:

If you can't see it that well, it says:

Nina Modak

+359 882537732

+44 7807467060

admin@eatallergysafe.com

www.eatallergysafe.com

Allergies aren't about missing out, they're about doing things differently.

Anyways, after that we went to Schar, and Jenny had a FREE WAFFLE with CHOCOLATE SYRUP and CRUSHED OREOS and CREAM on top (mmmm😋) which I couldn't eat...! I bet it was sooooo yum...

then we walked around some more, and finally settled down in the only chair we could find - which was on an OCCUPIED table! But don't worry, we made friends with them.

This is what Jenny looked like after we sat down:

Hahaaaa!!! She's funny, isn't she? Me and mom were fine though:

(We're eating Nature's Path 'O's, with coconut milk on)

We then waited in line for what seemed like HOURS and then were finally given a free bag full of different stuff from the exhibition!! So, as you can see below, we ended up with a LOT of stuff.

(You can almost imagine mom shaking her head at all the stuff we had!!!!)

Anyways, thanks so much for taking the time to read this (and if you've actually made it to the bottom of the post, congratulations!!!)

Bye for now,

Val xxx

An Inspiring Film

Tonight we watched a very inspiring film, called "Paper Planes".
I don't know if you've heard of it, but if you haven't watched it yet, PLEASE DO.
It's about a 12 year old Australian boy called Dylan, who loves everything that flies. (I won't tell you any more - you'll have to watch it yourself!!!)
Here is the trailer - if you want it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h00GHmlFjCs
I really loved it!!!
My favorite characters are Dylan (of course) and Kimi (Dylan's Japanese friend).
I would DEFINITELY recommend this to people who like paper planes (of course) and it sets a great example about how winning is not as important as trying.
Thanks, and please DO watch this,
Val xx
credit to YouTube, Wikipedia, and the people who made the film!!!

Friday, 27 October 2017

My Birthday Outing

Hi again,
I went for an outing to Manchester with dad for my birthday (my birthday is August 29th - we went the day after).
Let me tell you about it...
On Wednesday the 30th of August, 2017, at 3:30 PM, all five of us got into the car, and started to drive.
We were driving to our friend's house, to drop off the other three kids, before mommy would drive me to daddy's work in Manchester. As we were early, we stopped at a furniture place and had a look at some possible furniture ideas for our home. The place looked like it was very recent (and so did the furniture!!).
Then we drove on, into the heart of Manchester, where we waited outside dad's workplace (called Peninsula). We did argue a bit over whether I should go inside the lobby and wait there (I didn't want to), but then daddy appeared, and mom drove off leaving me and dad behind.
Then we started walking! We walked and walked, until we came to a part of Manchester called 'The Northern Quarter'. Once there, we looked at various shop-windows, until daddy suddenly said, "This is where we're going first."
We had stopped outside a big - well, huge shop entrance, and by the look of the front window, I could tell it was an art shop.

I gasped! "really?!?"
Dad smiled and nodded, and we went in.
It was quite a big room, with so many art supplies that it almost took my breath away!!!!
But that wasn't all.
To the side, I caught sight of a big doorway and some steps leading downwards, with a sign saying 'More This Way', or something like that.

"Can we go down there?" I asked dad, pointing towards them. Daddy smiled again, and led me down. It was so cool!!

There were tons of isles of things related to art, from sewing needles to paintbrushes. Each isle had a label on it, saying (well, you can probably see it in the picture) things like 'Pencils' or 'Paste' and things like that.
Anyway, we looked around for about 20 mins or more, and then I suddenly spotted some more steps leading down to a 3rd level! I only had to point this time, and daddy took me down.
Now, this room was the least modern looking room of the three, for it was the room where they kept all the big, important stuff. I'm afraid I don't have a picture of this room, 😭 (I didn't actually take these pics anyway - I found them on the web 😆) but I can still describe it for you!! 😸
It had little peepholes that looked into hiring rooms. The first window looked into a laser-cutting machine room, with an intricately laser-cut wooden house

that looks amazing, don't you think? (I think this is the closest one I could find to the one I saw - I even typed in 'laser-cut wooden log house fred aldous'!!!)

Anyway, we ended up getting three things for me:

A pencil entirely made out of 8B graphite
A book on drawing animals
And a scratch art of a kitten!

After that, we walked out of the shop (because it was nearly closing time!!!) and into the street. There we found a graffiti art wall (a wall made especially so people could do spray-paint art on it) and I chose my favorite art piece:

Then we continued walking, and finally came to a building next to daddy's bike route to work.

"I cycle past this place every day", he explained.

Then I saw that it was a cafe. And then I laughed, and pointed to the title.

You'll never guess what it was called:

'The Cat Cafe'!!!

At first I just thought, Wow, what a coincidence! But soon I was to realize what it really meant...

When we got inside, we found ourselves in a waiting room, which I thought was pretty unusual for a cafe!! Then daddy went to the desk, and a lady gave us a locker key, and an iPad to complete a survey about things like 'I will not disturb the cats if they are sleeping or look tired' and 'I will not abuse the cats' and other things like that. Then the light suddenly dawned. I was in an actual cat cafe!!! Where people ate and drank while playing with cats!!!!!

I gave a little gasp. "I never knew such a place existed!!!" I kept telling dad as we unlocked our locker and put our stuff in it. Then we washed our hands at a special 'catnip handwash' dispenser, and I held my breath as we stepped into the room. And what a sight met our eyes!!!

(this picture was, again, from the web, but all pictures from now on - unless I say otherwise - will be taken by me or dad)

It was literally AM-AZ-ING!!!!!!!!!!!

There was a spiral ramp (which you can just see in the picture) and one of the cats went up it, walked along the 'catwalk' hanging from the ceiling, and then went to sleep and stayed there the whole rest of the time we were there!!

Anyway, I really loved it, and we stayed there for 45 mins and then left. (Everything was free except the time you were there, and the food)

Haha - there was even what looked like a cat toilet!!!

All in all, it was a very exciting experience!!!

Wednesday, 25 October 2017

Vegan Pancake Recipe!!! (experiment - FAIL)

Hi everyone,
Today me and mom decided to make some pancakes for me at breakfast. It seemed a pretty good idea, since I needed to learn how to make breakfast by myself.
So, we started. Here are the ingredients we used: (maybe you can make them better in the comments!!!)

Serves: 1
(looked bad...tasted great! It wasn't sticking together😔)

1/8 cup of coconut flour
1 tbsp. flax seeds
3 tbsp. water
1 tsp. maple syrup
1 tbsp. coconut oil, melted
2 pinches baking powder
cinnamon - as much as you like!!!
4 tbsp. soy milk (or any milk of your choice)

1. First, we put the 1/8 cup of coconut flour in a big bowl, and soaked the tbsp. of flax seeds in the 3 tbsp. water, like this:

2. Then, we melted the tbsp. coconut oil in the microwave (for 30 secs) and poured it into the flax seeds bowl. We also put the 1 tsp. maple syrup into the flax seeds bowl too, and then mixed it thoroughly.

Meanwhile, we put some cinnamon into the dry ingredients bowl and mixed it.

3. Then we carefully poured the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl, and added the 4 tbsp. soy milk.

Then we mixed it...

...until it looked like this.

4. Meanwhile, we turned on the stove to a medium heat, plopped some coconut oil in the pan, swished it around, and then poured the pancake in once the pan was hot.

5. Can you guess what happened then?

Here's a video of what happened next...

Yes, unfortunately the pancake wouldn't stay together. We tried flipping the pancake a few times though...

So, although the pancake experiment didn't really work, we still ended up with a really great tasting pancake!!!

YUM!!!

😜😋