The outdoorsy type

Okay so to recap: lockdown is over, shielding is now over but I'm still not over it. So in a bid to prevent myself from going completely insane, I've been looking for nice things to do that don't involve going to a restaurant or bar or any indoor venue with a number of other people. Luckily, my creative juices very rarely fail me and so I managed to find a few rather nice things to do this weekend!

I feel like Facebook is a pretty good place for finding cool events and when I spotted this drive in cinema happening near me, I was straight on there to find out what films were showing. Luck would have it that one of my favourite films ever, Dirty Dancing, was playing on the Friday night. It was kind of expensive to watch an old film (£29 per car) but I suppose you pay for the experience more than the movie itself. The movie itself was as magical as ever (nobody puts baby in the corner) and we were able to enjoy some drinks as the sun set behind us. It was really hot weather so I wore leopard print satin shorts and black cross strap top for the occasion.

Another cute event I found (this time on inthefrow's instagram) was The Patch MK. When I clicked on the instagram tag, I had my fingers crossed that it wasn't all the way down south and lucky me, it was less than an hour and a half away in Milton Keynes. You had to book a time slot (it cost about £3) and it was really well run! They had wildflower fields, baby sunflowers, corn, the in-bloom sunflowers and then fields of wheat that had been done a little like a maze. It wasn't a maze where the paths met up (social distancing etc) but it was really cute!

The whole place was really well set up! They had a few cute things for kids to do (like a barrel tractor ride) and they were doing a BBQ with corn on the cob grown there. The place was previously a pumpkin patch in Autumn so it's nice to see them make the most of it with a summer version! The sunflowers themselves were so beautiful and there were SO many of them! A few around the outside were wind burnt from all the crazy weather we've been having but we went through the inside to find the loudest and proudest ones. We even got to pick a few to take home with us, which after umming and ahhing to choose the perfect ones for ages, they've ended up looking a little wilted and sad anyway from the journey home in a hot car. For a day surrounded by yellow flowers, I thought I should have a suitable yellow flower outfit so I went with this white puffed sleeve top that I got on my latest shein haul. I love the open back and tied waist and it's such a cute summery piece. I paired it with distressed denim shorts, which were also part of my shein haul and fit perfectly on the hips, bum and length but are way too big on the waist. I didn't think a belt would work with the outfit so luckily I managed to find a handy hack online where you loop the first belt loop over the button and then do them up as normal and it just cinches them in perfectly!

As I mentioned, they did have a BBQ there but we opted instead to bring our own picnic so we had a little walk down by a nearby canal and then found a sunny spot to set up in. As far as I'm concerned, you won't find a better sunny picnic accompaniment than these Aldi ciders, which may just be my favourite drink of the summer.

Still not content with being indoors, the next day me and Ollie headed to highfields to enjoy the sunshine. We had a lovely walk round the park and the lake before heading to our chosen activity of the day...

The boats of Highfields have been a loooong standing feature and it's nice to see them still going strong in the age of COVID (now sanitised between each use which to be honest, should've been the norm before all this). We had the choice of a row boat or a canoe and we opted for a row boat which are much harder work but worth it, in my opinion. We went at like the perfect time of day as the sun was at that level where it just makes the water sparkle and we had a lovely time rowing around the lake. Ollie started in the rowers seat and obviously because the equality is strong in this one, I had a turn rowing too. I mean, we almost ended up in the water when we attempted to switch places and I did myself dirty by doing the rowing on the way back when the wind was against me, but we had such a lovely time. I didn't exactly get a good outfit photo, but I went with this stripy linen dress with cute crossover top section. The dress was from boohoo last year and is embarrassingly similar to one of Ollie's teatowels but we won't get on to that. We finished the weekend how all good weekends are finished; with ice cream!