Bonjour from France!

If you've been reading my blog in the last week, you'll know I've been soaking up the French sunshine, while my blog was kindly taken over my Olivia and Poppy from DollySnowFlake. I went with my family over to France on the ferry, and spent lots of time touring Northern France - and obviously my first visit to PARIS!!!!! (ahh). I would definitely recommend France for a holiday! Our usual family holiday just consists of a hot country, a pool and not doing very much, but in France there's so much to see and do - it was fab!

I'm also doing an extra post of my visit to Paris - for first timers, as a newbie myself, it was quite a challenge finding your feet in such a beautiful (but vast) city!

One impressive fact from the holiday was myself and my sisters ability to spend a week together without any major cat fights!

During the trip, we visited lots of fishing ports and beaches around the Somme coast of France. Every where we went we were tempted by the yummy ice creams, French baguettes and mussels! Sadly there wasn't the same optimism to try the snails - maybe next time? We also visited the city of Amiens, which is very beautiful and where I realised my love of cake!

 Here's a few tips if your going to France for the first time:
1. Try and learn a few phrases, in some areas, nobody speaks English, and it can be quite a problem when trying to read restaurant menus and ordering food!
2. Take a wardrobe that's suitable for all weather, it's hot in France, but it can rain too!
3. Take a Sat-Nav, you'll need it, the roads are easy to use, but getting lost isn't hard.

4. If your on a budget, take everyday supplies with you, as everything is more expensive in France!

Every night we ventured out to a local village, took a guess at something from their very French menu (I knew no French before hand) and watched the sunset - it was so beautiful! We walked along the promenade and touched on some evening entertainment - though having a very full belly, Zumba on the beach didn't really appeal to me..

For the week, we stayed in a Eco Village called Belle Dune, which was complete with its own water park, gold course and had activities running everyday. The village consists of little colourful houses, which line up around the lake in the centre - it was too cute!

Well now you know where I've been hiding the last week! France is such a beautiful place, and if you wanted to do something a little bit different for your summer holiday I'd definitely recommend it!

Later there will be a post up from my day in Paris, so look out!

Lots of Love,

Guest Post: DollySnowFlake is taking over Blondie's Style Fix...

Hey Grace's viewers!

From reading the title you may be slightly confused of who/what dollysnowflake is. Well firstly let us just say hi, we're dollysnowflake (Olivia and Poppy) and we write our own fashion and beauty blog just like Graces! We are writing a post on Graces blog as she on holiday but wanted her lovely viewers to still have a post to read, so that is where we come in. If you would like to check out our blog click here and to read more about dollysnowflake go on the 'about us' section of our blog.

 So after that slightly rambly start we are going to write about back to school survival kit. I'm sure some of you have just gone back to school or some of you are going back some time soon (boo!) so we thought this would be the perfect post to write for you. For you who don't know what a survival kit is its basically items that you keep in your bag to keep you prepared for all possible situations. So to find out whats in our back to school survival kit stay tuned.

 

1. My first tip for what to put in your survival kit would be a hand sanitiser. You can get these for as cheap as £1 which would be £1 very well spend as hand sanitisers can come in handy a lot at school. Think about how many germs there is on school keyboards, or the banisters on the stairs? Its always good to be the friend who everyone asks to borrow their hand sanitiser!

2. The next thing I would recommend is gum/mints. Some of my favourites would be Polos or Wrigleys which you can get basically anywhere. A lot of teachers won't let you eat/chew in class but it is always good to have in your school bag for in-between classes. You never know when the school cafeteria could be serving garlic bread and you don't want your breath to be smelling horrid. Also I think that gum and mints wake me up on a morning but I don't know about you!?

3.The next essential is a lip balm or some sort of lip product that we keep your lips looking nice and feeling hydrated through out the day. Two of our personal favourite lip products for school are the 'Revlon lip butters' we think these lipsticks are so nice and glossy but have just the right amount of colour for school, although some are a lot more pigmented than the others; Our other favourite lip product for school are the 'Maybelline baby lips' we adore these products as they are better for your lips than any lipstick and make them feel silky smooth too! They come in a range of sheer colours like pink, cherry and peach or you could choose one with no colour at all.

4. The last essential we are going to talk about today is for us the most important, its a snack of some
sort. Having something to eat at school is vital as it's very unhealthy to go 5-6 hours without anything to munch on. So we think having a cereal bar in your packed lunch box is key because they are healthy as well as filling and they will also give you lots of energy ( which everyone needs at school! ) We love nutri-grain bars because they are so tasty and come in a range of different flavors.

So, that was our top 4 things to keep in your survival kit! Here is a list of other things you could keep in your survival kit-

• plasters/bandaids
• bobbles and clips
• face wipes
• spare essential makeup
• spare pen/stationary for if you leave your pencil case at home
• tweezers
• compact mirror
• tissues
• paracetamol (check if your school allows it first though)

So that was our back to school survival kit essentials, we hope you enjoyed it and don't forget to click here to check out more of our posts on dollysnowflake. We'd also like to say thanks to Grace for letting us take over blondiestylefix!

Drop a comment to tell us whats in your survival kit, as we'd love to know!

Lots of love,

Poppy and Olivia x

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