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

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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!!

Mention the words “Summer Lovin’” to anyone and immediately they’ll be toe-tapping. That phrase is Grease, you can’t help but hum along Newton-John stylie when anyone murmurs those two words. It was for this very reason that I struggled to come up with a good basis for my post this month. Every darn time I sat down and typed out ‘Summer Lovin’, my brain failed to move on from a soirée of hair-rollers, leather jackets and overly-generous amounts of hair gel. And that scene on the beach? Perfection. It was here that my brain stopped, made a U-turn and ended up at the idea of romantic getaways. Let’s pretend for a moment that money is no object, that I’ve found the love of my life and that I’m in the perfect mood for a holiday [well, one out of three ain’t bad]; not only would I find the source of all this bliss and bottle it, but I’d be taking a whistle-stop tour of all the places below...

1) Paris

Aaaah, meh oui. They don’t call it The City of Romance for nothing: cosy cafe’s, cobbled streets and, what’s it called again? Oh yeah, the Eiffel Tower. I’ve never been to Paris, but for me its very name screams sentimentality. In my head it’s a permanently starlit city, with couples madly in love scattered across candlelit cafes and restaurants. Of course, this is just a naive figment of my overly charged imagination, but if a city can turn a 10’000 ton metallic tower into the perfect place to pop the question then it’s got to be worth a visit, right?

2) Verona

Now here’s a place I have been to, and lucky I was too. Verona, or anywhere in Italy for that manner is perfectly put together, if ever a city could be; it’s as though it’s been assembled by cupid himself. It is home to the very balcony that Shakespeare’s Juliet pined for her loved one, and for a cheeky fee you can re-enact your own balcony scene...or, y’know, have a photo taken with your sis.

More than anything though, it’s the atmosphere in Italy; so saturated in passion, that makes this destination so romantic. Now to find my Romeo...

3) Bruges

To borrow a quote from In Bruges, this is a "fairytale town" – seriously, Hanzel and Gretyl would be right at home here. Sadly the houses aren’t made from gingerbread, nor are they adorned with jewelled sweets, but they appear just as dreamlike and there are plenty of sumptuously sweet Belgian chocolates to taste. Walking through Bruges is like plunging into a book of childhood stories ... why? I’m not sure; perhaps it’s those cobbled streets again. What I do know is that Bruges is cosy and quaint – not in a little-old-grandma way, but in a way that makes you feel like a kid again. You’ll be playing kiss-chase in no time.

4) St Lucia

Ever since doing a geography project on this little Island in year five [these are the things I remember and yet Sociology seems to positively leak from my brain] I’ve wanted to visit it. I think being so young and facing pictures and pictures of endless beaches, white sands and palm trees led me to believe that this is what people must mean when they talk about paradise. I may have grown up now, and realised that this is just another beautiful holiday so far out of my price range that I could cry, but if money were indeed no object, and I had a wonderful person to share such remote beauty with, I’d be there in a shot. It’s the kind of place you read about in novels; an image of a couple in love, toasting their happiness at sunset, framed by perfectly placed palm trees... okay, so life’s not always picture perfect, but at least in this place you could pretend it was!

5) Home sweet home

I’m not talking necessarily about an actual house here, man that would be boring, but I think one of the sweetest places to escape to would be to the place where you first met. Where it all began. Sure, you can jet off all over the world, exploring paradise and wonderland in one go, but you can never really share anything special there– they’re just, well...places. Where you first met though is less of a place, and more of a memory; the very thing that love is built on. Soppy? Me? Never.

That's enough love for one day, although after all this romantic nonsense I may have to go pay my two favourite men a visit...Ben and Jerry.

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.