As many Summer Lovin' posts as I could compile before I left for my holidays - plus some lovely extras :)

This post is by Maria

Summer is a time of relaxation time spent with the people you love, lazy days on the beach or in the park, having a picnic or playing Frisbee, and who can forget Pimms at the pub? Most of all though, summer is about having the freedom to do whatever you want with whoever you want... That is if you aren’t in a completely different place to your friends and boyfriend for the summer! This summer, I will be doing an 8 week internship for the Civil Service in London and I have to do the entirety of the reading for my dissertation. (And start it!) This means that I won’t be able to see Mark as often as I would like.

I am used to seeing him every day but this summer I will see him about once a month. I know that some people have genuinely long-distance relationships and will probably scoff at me worrying about this, but this is probably one of the hardest things we have ever had to do as a couple. Whilst both of us have some free texts and minutes on our phones, it costs too much to rely on our phones alone. So what can we do to keep in touch?

♥ Skype- With fans such as Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Skype is probably the best option available for anyone who doesn’t have the budget for unlimited calls. You simply download the programme and voila, you have the option of either video-calling or chatting in a format similar to MSN. I really like Skype as it means I can see Mark , even if the sound is rubbish. This clip is taken from when Jay-Z was on ‘Friday night with Jonathon Ross’ on 19th February 2010. I never realised quite how funny he was and his anecdote about Skype cracks me up every time...

♥ Facebook- Pretty much everyone I know has Facebook and it is probably the easiest way of keeping in touch with a lot of people. Over the holidays, my friends and I have a message that we send back and forth and add stuff that we have been doing etc and it’s nice to be able to read this back when you’re feeling low or homesick.

♥ E-mail- Before Mark and I first got together, we used to spend hours emailing each other, so much so that my parents confiscated the internet from my computer! Email is slightly more private than Facebook and I feel that I can waffle on for longer in an email... just me?

♥ MSN- This is ever so slightly old school but the majority of BSB staff meetings are held on good old MSN so I have to include it!

♥ Twitter- Good for keeping up with all of your favourite blogs and bloggers in addition to news and celeb gossip, not so good for sending messages of love due to the 140 character limit... Humph.

♥ Love letters- Letters seem to have gone out of fashion recently. Surely I can’t be the only person whose heart quickens when they hear the sound of the post van and the rattle of the letter box? I’m lucky that Mark is a good letter writer. I have tons and tons of letters which he has written me over the course of our relationship and I love reading back over them when we are apart as they remind me just how lucky I am to have him and cheer me up when I just want to wallow in self pity! In addition to this, when I’m away and have something important coming up (like an internship perhaps?) he writes me a letter for each day in advance, meaning that I have something to read and cheer me up each day- a romantic gesture that doesn’t cost a penny! Why not take the extra time you would spend checking your emails, to write someone a letter and decorate it before sending it? I know which I would prefer! (Hint, hint!)

Do you have any tips on keeping in touch over the holidays? What is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for you?

Have you ever noticed how music sounds better in summer, with the sun shining and chilling outside with friends and family? Here are a few of my favourite summer songs for you to enjoy-

Groovejet (If This Ain't Love) - Spiller

Reminds me of the first time I went to Ibiza on holiday. It was in the charts at the time and got played loads whilst I was out there, so always reminds me of the good time I had.

Seven Days in Sunny June- Jamiroquai

Now this is a total summery song all about having a good time in the summer. Can't help but smile when I hear this, "drinking wine and killing time, sitting in the summer sun" says it all :)

Summer Sun - Koop

This is just a cheery happy song and I like it. One of those songs that instantly lifts your spirits even on the not so sunny days

Of course summer songs always sounds best when listened to somewhere like this:

This lovely place is The Dominican Republic where I was lucky enough to visit just over a month ago now and totally wish I was still there instead of working, but nevermind!

What are your favourite things about summer?

The last few months have represented a huge upheaval in my life, having completed my undergraduate degree, moving in with my boyfriend and starting a new job. Moving back to the area I grew up in and leaving behind the freedom of my student days was never going to be without its pitfalls, but I can’t help but feel that doing so during the summer months have certainly helped to put a far more positive spin on the situation. Getting up early in the mornings is made far easier by the light creeping around the sides of my blinds in the bedroom and my walk to and from work lifts my mood no end whilst giving me a good dose of vitamin D. Plus, catching up with all the friends who too have found themselves back home has happened in sunny beer gardens, completed with ice cold cider and sunglasses perched on the top of my head. Don’t get me wrong, I love the cosy feel of autumn and winter, but that a period of such monumental change in my life has a backdrop of blue skies almost feels like a sign.

Exhibit A: me, in a beer garden, aged 18 (sob sob, so long ago).

Pretty much haven’t moved since.

Simply settling into my new ‘adult’ life would be far too easy though - of course - so in just under three weeks I am jumping on a jet plane and heading across the Atlantic! As someone who has worked in air-conditioned offices with a serious lack of natural light for more summers than I care to remember, it comes as a great source of excitement to me that finally, in 2010, I’m bustin’ out of my cubicle. To mark the end of my degree, and the beginning of my little sister’s, we are taking a month out to travel to Mexico and California, staying with friends and family and generally being a bit footloose. Having never travelled for an extensive period of time before, I am tremendously excited, not least at the possibility that I might actually be able to lose what I have dubbed my ‘office tan’ – the pallid colour that I tend to remain regardless of the weather conditions. I have always been jealous of the travels that my friends have undertaken in recent years, and feel finally that I am able to partake in a young person’s rite of passage with one of my favourite people in the world.

Look out, the Americas!

Perhaps though, I am pinning too much on the climate here. Even in summers where I have barely seen the outdoors, or where the weather has been less than perfect (pretty much every year then...) the strange feeling of freedom that simply the idea of summer has provided has always been enough. Come rain or shine, Costa del Sol or Carmarthenshire, I’ve always had a knack of making the best of the situation which, given that I’ll be visiting Mexico during its rainy season and California is due an earthquake any time now, is probably for the best. I hope that, whatever summer holds for you this year, you can bring the sunshine even if the weatherman can’t.

Believe it or not, this is a summer holiday snap... Mmmm, cagoules.

I am excited to announce the launch of a new regular feature here at British Style Bloggers...

'WHAT I WORE' !

Basically we are asking YOU to get involved with British Styke Bloggers. Each month we are asking you you to  take the theme of the month (Summer lovin' for July) and proceed to submit an outfit that reflects this... we need something that shows off whatever you love wearing in the balmy (!) summer months or  whatever gives you that loving feeling! You need to take a picture of you looking lovely in your outfit and tell us WHY it makes you feel all summery and post it to our Facebook wall HERE or tweet it to @British_Style . Florrie and I will judge them and the best ones will be featured on BSB at the end of each month. To give you an idea of what you could do, some of our lovely staff have given us their favourite summer photos...

Amy, our lovely editor

To me, this has summer written all over it;  shorts, a hat, a picnic in the park with my lovely boyfriend, taken as a break from revision...ah summer!

Florrie- columnist

To me, Summer is wearing florals whilst going places and doing fun things with friends and family. I wore this outfit on my Mum's birthday trip to Powis Castle.

Now we want to see what you can come up with! Remember you have to submit your outfit to our Facebook page or tweet it to @British_Style and we will feature the best ones here on British Style Bloggers at the end of the month !

GOOD LUCK!!

Post by summer intern Kat Harrison

>Summer means two things to me - sunshine and picnics. Combine the two and you've got the perfect day, in my opinion anyway!

So, what makes the perfect picnic?

Well, sunshine isn't a neccesity, as picnics can be held anywhere! The park or the beach may be the two most popular locations, but you can hold an impromptu picnic in a treehouse, your living room, the possibilities are endless.

Company is obviously one of the most important aspects of a picnic, so be sure to round up all of your fabulous friends!

The main aspect of a picnic, is, obviously, the food and drink. If you're a domesticated diva, you could bake cupcakes and other delicious goods for your guests, but even the most basic level cooks can put together some sandwhiches! Otherwise, buying sandwiches, cold drinks and other treats works just as well.

You may also, depending on you and your guests, want to include alcohol too.. just be sure to drink responsibly!

Other special ingredients to the perfect picnic include a blanket to lounge upon, plastic cutlery, games and even books if you're the reading type.

So, what other things are neccesary for a wonderful picnic?

Well, activities are of importance. You may simply want to sit around chatting, or you may want to be more proactive. Obviously, if you're at the beach, sandcastle making and playing in the sea are mandatory. Otherwise, if you're at a park or a similar location, playing ball games and having a go on the swingset works too.

So, there's my recipe to the perfect picnic. What's your favourite thing to do in summer?

Kat xo.

After christmas and my birthday summer is probably my favourite time of year. Those few weeks of sunshine we get a year have such a great affect on us Brits, we can wear a dress without tights and even better eat icecream in public and not feel freezing or silly!

My favourite place to spend a summers day is my grandparents back garden- ok so that's obviously not it above. Growing up I didn't play out in the street like other kids, we were down our grandparents most days but I'm one of nine grandchildren so there was always a new adventure to be had in the garden. Our granda's garden- first thing first, it was granda's garden- was almost magical. Through the eyes of an eight year old it went on forever. It had a patio area where we could have our tea and dinner outside all grown up like, a huge stratch of grass with a massive swing set, a leak trench- a trench for leaks, we used to like sneaking into this, no I still don't know why- a fish pond with super fast fish and silly ornaments, two sheds, one for plants another for junk and LOADS of flowers and plants.

This may seem pretty ordinary or mundane to you and in a tiny way it does to me too but I still love granda's garden- it's a bit more grown up now though with a decking area and no leak trench but my youngest cousin is 8 and she enjoys it just as much as I did even without the leak trench or swing set or rabbit- how could I forget him he used to burrow underneeth his cage and play in the garden with us. Anyway nostalgia fest over, my point is that summer is magical, we can act like children in summer and it's allowed! we can go to beaches and just the waves or build a sandcastle, we can ride merry-go-rounds- ok just me?

My favourite story as a kid was Alice in wonderland so I would always like to imagine that my granda's garden and new gardens or parks we visited had a magical secret behind them like the plants talked when we werent there or flys were really rocking horse flies or bread-and-butterflies. I was an imaginative child ok, which I wouldn't have changed for the world, who wants to live in a boring world anyway?

But now though being adults we can make summer magical with a grown up twist, we can wear the big sunnies but now they're chic! We can have afternoons in gardens with wine. everything's better in the summer, afternoon drinking doesnt even seem so bad! But we should never forget though hpw magic it was as children finding new things to play with, new adventures and the things we thought were cool at the time- the one thing that springs to mind here is the week meand my sister made my grandas junk shed into our "den" with a tiny black and white tv, deck chairs and car stickers in the window, again dont ask. The one thing I learnt in my teen years is don't grow up too soon, cos adult life is no where near as fun as being a kid!

So to complete this ramble I thought I'd list some things you can do for very little money to let our your inner flower child

• spend an afternoon in a field with your best friend giggling and making daisy chains
• buy some fairy wings and skip around a park
• buy some really really pretty accessories
• go to a playground and hog the swings
• have a slushie
• go to a beach or fairground
• bake cookies or cupcakes and lick the bowl out
• camp out in your back garden and stay up telling ghost stories
• go see a band you loved when you were younger, local outdoor festivals often feature has-beens or old singers and alot are FREE!

So there you have it, I think the sun really has gone to my head, I'm off for a lie down, but you lot go have fun and don't be afraid if looking silly!