A Week in the Life of Lottie – Friday

It’s Friday guys, we made it! Last 5.30 alarm of the week, which was torture as I actually went to bed pretty late last night and I was super tempted to just reset it for 7am and skip the gym, but I knew how much I’d regret that if I did it, and as per usual as soon as I stepped out of the front door I found my motivation.

I was really feeling the effects of a good week of solid workouts, so I kept it relatively easy at the gym, hopping on a bike for a bit, then spending some time on the resistance machines and TRX and focused on chest and back. In a week I try and make sure I’ve hit every area at least once during my various gym sessions, and this week I definitely feel like I’ve done that.

This morning was a little grey so I decided to wear my new yellow jumper from Tu Clothing at Sainsbury’s, and I got a bunch of compliments on it during the day so I figured it was a hit! Work was a totally regular day, although at one point there was a very heated debate among my team about fried breakfasts – I don’t even know how it started but it got quite loud..

While I waited for Matthew to finish, which today was only half an hour after I did, I nipped to M&S and grabbed us a pizza to cook for dinner as we were in and out as quick as we could when we got home.

I’m coming to you from the drive up to visit Matthew’s mum who’s just moved into a new house in Middlewich, and because Matthew and I also have some business to attend to in the area (this is very exciting and I will tell all tomorrow!). The weather is absolute poo so the drive will probably be slow and we’ll arrive quite late, but the last time we saw the house it wasn’t completely finished so it’ll be nice to see how it is now – although it was only today that they moved in so it certainly won’t be in a completely normal state!

Hello weekend!

March 9, 2018Lottie 1 Comment

Lottie and Matthew Do Disney: Day 10

So it turns out I accidentally numbered my posts wrong and today is actually day 10, not 9 as I had thought, oops!

Today started much like yesterday, a lie in, followed by a gym session before heading out to the parks, and today our destination was Hollywood Studios. When we arrived, my first port of call was Adrian and Edith’s Head to Toe shop, as I had decided the night before that I was finally going to buy the Sorcerer Mickey hat I’ve wanted for ages, and I wanted it embroidered with my name, so we got that one going to collect later in the day. From there, I grabbed a giant cookie for brunch, then we headed to the Indiana Jones Stunt Show as we had fastpasses. This is a favourite for both Matthew and me!

After the show we hit Tower of Terror, and then Matthew went to do Rock’n’Roller Coaster; I was put off by my experience from the other day so instead I did some shops and grabbed a Starbucks before going back to meet him, and we went on to do Toy Story Midway Mania.

After Midway Mania, we headed to our late lunch reservation at Mama Melrose – we had booked this as part of the Fantasmic dining package – and then went to collect my finished hat, then met Mickey and Minnie before rushing back across the park for the last performance of Beauty and the Beast.

Unfortunately, Matthew wasn’t feeling very well after the show, so we decided to head back to the hotel, having been reassured by guest services that we could utilise the Fantasmic ticket we’d received as part of the dining package on another night instead, which was nice!

Back at the hotel, I went to pick up some merchandise that we’d sent back from the parks, and filled up our resort mugs, then started the mammoth task of reorganising my suitcase to make sure I’ll have enough room for everything I’ve bought!

November 10, 2017Lottie 1 Comment

Our WDW Itinerary!

The holiday starts here!!

Well, this afternoon we’ll be driving up to Manchester before our flight to Orlando tomorrow morning, so it technically starts here, and I’ve got real Disney excitement kicking in!

I will, of course, by blogging the trip day by day, but if you want to know in advance what we’ll be getting up to, here’s our itinerary!

Monday 30th October

Arrive in Orlando and check into Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. It’ll be late when we arrive so we’ll just grab some food at the hotel and go straight to bed!

Tuesday 31st October

First day is always a Magic Kingdom day! We have breakfast reservations at Be Our Guest, and a late lunch/early dinner at Plaza Gardens because the park will be closing early for the Halloween party, so we’ll be kicked out at 7pm!

Wednesday 1st November

Animal Kingdom, and our first visit to Pandora! We didn’t get a Flights of Passage fastpass for this day but we did get Rivers of Light and I’m so excited to see what all the fuss is about. We’re having dinner at Rainforest Cafe and then going back to the Magic Kingdom for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party – eek!

Thursday 2nd November

Starting the day at the Boardwalk with the Bon Voyage breakfast at Trattoria al Forno, then onto Epcot for the day.

Friday 3rd November

A non-Disney day, we’ll be in Universal Studios!

Saturday 4th November

Hollywood Studios! I still love this park even though there’s not so much going on, and we’ve got Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania and the Indiana Jones Stunt Show, and dinner at Sci-Fi Dine In.

Sunday 5th November

This is going to be a nice chilled shopping day. We’re starting the day with breakfast at Chef Mickey’s, then doing the outlets, then heading to Disney Springs, where we’ve also got dinner booked at T-Rex.

Monday 6th November

Another non-Disney day at Sea World

Tuesday 7th November

We’re back at Animal Kingdom and have the excitement of our Flights of Passage fastpass! We’ve also got dinner booked at Yak and Yeti.

Wednesday 8th November

Another Epcot day, and this is the day we’ll be filling our boots with Food and Wine Festival food! We do also have dinner at Teppan Edo though..

Thursday 9th November

The first split day on our trip, we’re going to be spending the morning at Blizzard Beach, then going across to Hollywood Studios in the afternoon. We’re trying out the Fantasmic Dining Package with dinner at Mama Melrose!

Friday 10th November

Back into Magic Kingdom, and I’m really excited to have lunch at Skipper Canteen!

Saturday 11th November

The last of our non-Disney days, we’re doing Discovery Cove!

Sunday 12th November

This is a pretty flexible day, but we do have some Fastpasses booked for Animal Kingdom!

Monday 13th November

As our last full day, we’ll be in Magic Kingdom! Breakfast is at Crystal Palace and I’ll probably spend the day sobbing over leaving.

Tuesday 14th November

We actually have no plans for this day as our park tickets will have run out by then – we actually were meant to leave on the 13th but our flights got cancelled and rebooked for today so it’s a bonus day! We’ll probably just hang out at the resort or Disney Springs!

If anyone is about in the parks, come and say hello – I’ve packed some of my patches to giveaway so don’t be shy! And of course I’ll be posting loads on Twitter @lottiedoesblog and Instagram @lottiedoesdisney so be sure to follow along!

October 29, 2017Lottie 5 Comments

Disney Cruise Log: When in Rome

Good morning everyone! Today’s port of call was Civitavecchia, also known as the closest port to Rome, and I was super excited to be going ashore for the first time.

After struggling to get out of bed (they’re so damn comfortable!), we grabbed breakfast at Cabanas and then headed out on our own little adventure. Disney had shuttle buses running from the boat into the town, so we hopped on one of those and then walked to the train station to catch a train into Rome, which was only 10€ for a return ticket. The train took about an hour to get into Roma Termini, which meant we arrived just after midday, and with our return tickets booked for just after 4pm, it was go go go!

We went everywhere on foot, walking first to the Trevi Fountain, via a McDonalds for a toilet stop and with a few quick stops at some of the beautiful squares and buildings we came across on the way. The fountain was, of course, beautiful, but the piazza was also packed with both tourists and street vendors so it was a bit of a struggle getting to the front to sea the fountain, and then to get a photo without someone rudely butting in front.

From the fountain we walked to the second big thing we all wanted to see: the Colosseum. Again, the area around was full of people trying to sell guided tour and ‘skip the line’ tickets, but as we didn’t really know who to trust or not, we just got in the regular ticket line, and despite being told it was probably a 50 minute wait, I think it was no more than 20-30. We paid our 12€ and in we went without any fuss at all.

After wondering the Colosseum’s interior, and doing another loop of the outside, it was time for us to start heading back towards the station, but on the walk back we just had to get an ice-cream, cos when in Rome, right? Well when in Rome you pay 7€ for an ice-cream. Ah well, it was delicious anyway! We were back at the station in perfect time, and started the reverse journey back to the boat: train, walk, shuttle bus. There was a minor mix up with the shuttle bus but we were back aboard at 18:15.

Quick shower and change of clothes, and next on the agenda for the evening was the superheroes who were out for the night. First meet was Thor, and then Captain America, both of whom were lovely and very chatty. Dinner was at Animators Palate again and it was another incredible meal. Our servers our so sweet, and tonight they had commissioned the chef to make an off menu dish especially for Sammy as they were worried she didn’t have enough vegetarian options, so they brought out this huge veggie curry for us all to dig into, as well as our own meals, and it was amazing!

After dinner we rushed to get in line for Spiderman, who again was a very talkative guy, and we met up with Chelsea, Lisa and Carrie while in the queue. From there we all went to meet Donald, and then had planned to go to Fathoms for DJ night, but it seemed the karaoke had run over so instead we decided to postpone our late night antics for another day, all opting to go to bed instead.

What can I say, 20,000 steps walking around Rome really takes it out of you!

September 13, 2017Lottie 2 Comments

Introducing Ozzy and Ronnie

Hey gang, I thought I’d brighten up everyone’s Mondays by introducing you to our family’s fuzziest new additions.

Meet Ozzy and Ronnie! They are 8 weeks old and we brought them home on Friday, so they’re just starting to adapt to our mad house and find their tiny ways around.

They came from a litter of four which were found abandoned in a shed and were rescued by the Cats Protection League, and their mother was nowhere to be found – they were only 4 weeks old when they were rescued.

Ozzy is the fluffy one in the back of the photo, and he was the largest of the litter, but also the most shy, and he’s taking a little bit of time adapting to home life, spending most of his time hiding under the sideboard in our living room, but he’s slowly finding his paws.

Ronnie was the smallest of the bunch, but makes up for such with his big personality aka he’s a total nutter. He goes from sweet and snuggly to moving at 100mph with only a seconds notice.

Like I mentioned earlier, they have only been with us since Friday and they’ve still got a lot of acclimatising to do, but we’re already very much in love with them both. We’ve also never had our own cats so this is quite the learning experience for us too!

As for the names, any classic rock fans might recognise them as two members of Black Sabbath, and you can thank my dad for that. He had one job..

Keep an eye out on here and my social media for kitty updates!

August 21, 2017Lottie 10 Comments

A Week in the Life of Lottie – Saturday

It’s the weekend, yay! I kicked mine off with a fairly rare lie in, then dropped Matthew off at a friends before going home to shower and get ready for the day. My sister arrived home this morning from two weeks in Thailand, so we went out to lunch at Toby Carvery with my nan, then round to my gran’s house for a catch up. Doing the rounds of the grandparents on a Saturday is a fairly normal part of our family routine, affectionately known as the grumble run!

Post grumble-run, I took Matthew on an exciting trip to the car wash because my little car was long overdue a clean, and after clearing all the rubbish out of the inside earlier in the week, I figured I’d complete the job properly and now she’s all shiny and perfect!

Once we got back to Matthew’s, I knuckled to some serious Disney trip planning – we go to WDW at the end of October and our dining reservations will be coming up in about 6 weeks so with nothing thought out, we decided this afternoon would be a good time to start! I’ve got about 8-9 days of park/dining ideas sorted, so it was just a start but after a while I got a little stuck so I threw in the towel and instead got some blog work done while Matthew was doing some work of his own.

Our evening consisted of Haagen Dazs and movies in bed, starting with Rogue One. Normally I’d be forced to watch Saturday Night Takeaway, but we conveniently missed it tonight so ah well..

What have you been up to this Saturday?

March 18, 2017Lottie 1 Comment

Everyday Princesses

Yesterday at work, I was told I looked like a Disney princess. The dream right?!

Cinderella Festival of Fantasy

Was it because my hair was flowing magically, or I was wearing a pretty dress with my makeup on point? Nope. I don’t think I could have been further from any of these things; I hadn’t washed my hair in two days, I’d been up since 6am, no makeup and I was covered in cement dust. But several colleagues still called me Cinderella.. because I was sweeping.

Now don’t get me wrong, I still took it as a compliment! In fact, it actually cheered me up for the rest of my shift, but it did get me thinking, while we always associate our favourite Disney princesses with their beauty, we still love them in they’re not-so-glamorous moments.

We see Snow White and Cinderella dressed in rags, cooking and cleaning. Ariel, Belle and Pocahontas are devoted to their fathers, hell Mulan goes into battle for hers! Rapunzel and Anna both experience what its like to have a guy betray them (although Flynn didn’t really!), and Tiana works double shifts to save enough money to make her dreams happen. All of these everyday moments and life struggles that they handle in the same way any of us do.

Its so easy to forget these moments and just think of the princesses as pretty faces, but while yes, they are fictional characters, they’re also still people, just like us. So next time you feel a little less glamorous, just remember: you’re still an everyday princess.

xoxo

Twitter / Bloglovin / Instagram

April 21, 2016Lottie Leave a comment

Disney’s Golden Era Tag

Finally getting my response to Amy’s Disney Era Tag in, starting with the Golden Era!

The Golden Era films are Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi – the first five classics!

Any unseen films?

Nope, I’ve seem them all!

What is your favourite film of the era?

Dumbo, although its a difficult choice.

What is your least favourite film of the era?

Probably Pinocchio, its a little too dark for my liking.

Who is your favourite main character?

I don’t know if he counts as a main character, but Mickey as the Sorceror’s Apprentice in Fantasia – he’s a classic!

Who is your favourite villian?

The Evil Queen

Who is your favourite sidekick?

Jiminy Cricket, no question!

What is your favourite song of the era?

Whistle While You Work – yes, work ethic!

What do you consider to be the most underrated film of the era?

Definitely Fantasia. People often brush it aside because it’s a series of shorter pieces, but it contains so many classic Disney moments!

What is your favourite thing about this era?

I love the music. I know all Disney music is perfect, but this era is just so classic!

What is your least favourite thing about this era?

I guess that all the films are pretty dark in places; I mean I get that they’re proper cautionary tales, but they’re just a little two twisted at times.

°o°

November 19, 2015Lottie Leave a comment

Disneyland Paris: Walt’s

There are certain places in Disney parks that are just that little bit more magical, and Main Street USA is no exception, so dining on Main Street is an experience in itself, and you can do that at Walt’s.

If you there a little early, the waiting area is a classically decorated room with a grand piano, pictures and plush furniture, and a bust of the main man himself! The restaurant is upstairs, and spans several rooms, which makes every table feel a little more personal, rather than sitting in a large restaurant. The decor upstairs is just as elegant and classic as the waiting room, with pretty wallpaper and curtains, and paintings on the walls, but each room is themed to reflect an area of the resort – ours was Adventureland.

We chose from the set menu that was part of our dining plan; I had a Caesar salad starter, chicken main and chocolate fondant dessert.

The salad was the perfect size, with croutons and big strips of chicken. It came with a dressing, but I asked for mine without and they were all too happy to oblige. My main course of chicken in Marsala sauce was beautiful! The chicken was tender and moist, and the potato and veggies went perfectly. The portions here were a little smaller than elsewhere, but I definitely didn’t feel that I was left hungry.

The chocolate fondant was a clear winner out of the dessert options for me, although they all sounded great. It was warm with a gooey centre, and a thick vanilla cream; the best way to end a meal, even if I did wolf it down so I could get outside in time for the parade!

Dining on Main Street was a real treat to end our trip with, and great food and beautiful views overlooking the park just made it even more magical!

°o°

November 12, 2015Lottie Leave a comment

RunDisney 2016: 9 Weeks to go!

Today I’m coming to you all from a much better place than I have in the last few weeks, yay! My back is feeling a lot better – still not 100% but it’ll take time – and I’ve been able to start training at the gym again, which for me has such a positive impact on my mood, and I needed to feel better this week.

I went to the chiropractor on Monday about my back, and even after a treatment session still wasn’t seeing much improvement, so making the assumption that the problem was more muscular, I spent Tuesday religiously applying Deep Heat and Deep Freeze every few hours, which seemed to work wonders, and after surviving a gym session on Wednesday without too much bother, we were back running Thursday.

We did one of our usual routes, down through the town centre to the beach, along the seafront, up the zig-zag to the clifftop and home, which is about 7km, and while we took it at a fairly easy pace, it felt good and it was great to be back at it after all the worry last week.

Saturday was a ParkRun, and what a soggy one it was! Light showers turned to heavy downpours, and crisp autumn breeze became super blustery, and in my oversized waterproof coat I basically turned into a kite; resistance training to the max! It was a quiet race – not even 200 people turned up – and the course was turning to sludge, which slowed the pace a fair amount for everyone, not to mention dodging the people who had fallen in the mud (and stopping to help the up of course!), but I felt back on form, running ahead of my dad for the first time since returning to training after Europe. Timewise, it wasn’t a PB, but it also wasn’t my slowest: 31:37, which about 3 minutes off my PB, but I was never gonna do that in those conditions, and in fact only 5 of the 190 runners set new PBs!

AND MORE GOOD NEWS:

Today we signed up for the inaugural Disneyland Paris half marathon weekend in September 2016, to do both the 5k and half. I wish they were doing a 10k as well, but hey ho!

So yep, I’m back on the brightside, and races are looming on the horizon!

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Working on another Run Disney costume 🏃✂️ #rundisney #costume #wdw #wdwmarathonweekend #disneyworld #florida #rundisney2016 #toystory #littlegreenman #disneystyle #running #disneygirl #lottiedoesdisney

A post shared by Lottie (@lottiedoesdisney) on Oct 31, 2015 at 3:30am PDT

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November 8, 2015Lottie Leave a comment

Colour Outside The Lines – Valspar Paint Giveaway!

Winner will be announced on Monday! 🙂

Lottie Does

This is so exciting!

This week I’ve been working with the fabulous Valspar Paint UK as they’ve been building up for the big reveal of a huge project they’ve been working on as part of their Colour Outside the Lines campaign, and today the UK gets to see what they’ve been painting..

This amazing work of art has been painted on the side of a building in Clerkenwell Road in Islington, London to inspire the people of Britain to ditch magnolia walls and boring white woodwork, and take up their paintbrushes to colour outside the lines, and we’re going to give you a little helping hand..