NEW YORK CITY

I absolutely love New York. I need to live there one day, it's such an awe-inspiring city, and it felt very homely to me.

I visited New York with Steve, and as it was our first visit to the city obviously we did the typical tourist things, but what I enjoyed about it was that we went away from some of the main tourist spots. We shopped in Soho, ate in East Village and wandered through Alphabet City. East Village reminded me of a high street back at home, I couldn't see any of the high-rise buildings and it was very residential, but there were lots of small but busy friendly bars and places to eat filled with locals.

I like New York because I saw different things that I found very peculiar, for example: shoe-shiners, hot dog stands on every street corner, and a pair of shoes in Central Park with a note left lovingly inside with the words "God Bless You".

I have decided to produce a personal book about my trip to New York in the form of a diary, filled with my photographs and illustrations. Watch this space...  

MIAMI

I have recently returned from a holiday to America, visiting Palm Beach and Miami, before going onto New York.

We stayed in Miami for 3 days, most of which was spent on South Beach and Ocean Drive, which is renowned for it's 1930s Art Deco architecture.

Walking along Ocean Drive the atmosphere was energetic and vibrant, with a very elite aura within many of the bars.

It was interesting to see the vast difference in the quality of life when driving out of the cities main tourist roads. All of the houses seemed very run down, they were small shacks that looked shabby and wouldn't stand a chance if a hurricane hit it.

I loved the amount of Art Deco. So many different colours and styles, some with colour co-ordinating vintage cars parked outside. We also spotted the Versache Mansion (photograph above) where Gianni Versache was shot and killed.

We did a bit of shopping in Urban Outfitters and Kid Robot, and Steve bought a Cuban cigar hand made on the street.

I shall definitely return!

I am employed!

As I have decided to spend my summer by the beach in Bournemouth, I realised I would need a little income to and found a part-time job at british tea merchants Whittard of Chelsea.

I work four hours a day, roughly three days a week, serving customers tea, coffee, biscuits, china and chocolate in my royal blue apron, which I have 'Hannahed up' with a striped blue and white bow.

Definition: 'Hannahed up'. Hannah is my name and to 'Hannah up' is to simply make something look more pretty by adding decoration or detail by any means necessary.

Since working at Whittard I have preferred drawing the teapots surrounding me, rather than focusing on customer service. More productively, I have been asked to do window displays and table top displays within store, which is obviously great POS experience and allows me to still be creative within my job.

Working with teapots, tea leaves and coffee beans is very different to my previous part-time job in John Lewis, womenswear, but it is still enjoyable.. to some extent.