Hull Valentine’s Weekend 2026

February 21, 2026February 21, 2026Leave a comment

On Friday 13th February 2026, me and my boyfriend Aaron travelled to Hull to celebrate Valentine’s weekend; a lovely romantic get-away for us both 😊

Unfortunately, our train to Hull was cancelled so my Dad kindly drove us to our city central Gilson Hotel, which was standard but satisfactory. In the afternoon we had a leisurely wander around the city centre, including shopping centres; Prospect, Princes Quay and St Stephen’s, where we grabbed a veggie whopper Burger King meal

That evening, we hopped in an uber to Big Fun – a soft play area which accommodates for a Friday night 2 hour slot ‘adult night’ serving alcohol 🍸 It was amazing! We had vodka slushies in ‘happy hour’ and cider and felt like right big kids skirting around tunnels ball pools and slides 🤪🤪

Saturday morning, I had a vegan breakfast at the nearest Wetherspoons. Afterwards, we explored free cultural exhibitions / museums. First of all, Ferens Art 🎨 Gallery in Queen Victoria Square “From late Medieval painting to modern art… a journey through painting, sculpture and new media”. It was aesthetically pleasing, intriguing and inspiring, with all it’s different collections and galleries. Then it was to the Streetlife Museum to “journey through 200 years of transport history… from world-changing inventions to historic local icons”. I particularly liked the steam-powered cars, they were giving Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang vibes 😁 Next was the Museum of Archeology “From majestic mammoths to marvellous Roman mosaics”. History expanding 235 million years. In the Museum Quarter gardens I also liked the statue of Mahatma Gandhi and the mosaic toad. We then visited Hull Minster; England’s largest parish church ⛪️ The architecture was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking 😍

As we made our way back to the hotel, we took a detour and climbed the steps of Murdoch’s Connection footbridge to capture spectacular views and photographs of the waterfront marina and docks…

Back at the hotel, I got dressed into my gladrags and we grabbed an uber again, this time to the very much looking forward to Olympus Greek restaurant 😋😋 Me and Aaron shared a feta dip starter, smooth creamy whipped feta cheese 🧀 with accompanying pita bread and for mains we both had halloumi and veg platters; grilled halloumi skewers, chips, side salad, pita bread and mixed vegetables. The food was absolutely delicious 😋😋 Though I do wish we were able to dance to Greek live music 🎶 and smash plates! 😆

What then commenced was a great night out round Hull! At the Dram Shop we drank cheap Dark Fruit cider, vaped and danced merrily to classic rock. There were drag queen performances at Cherry’s Bar and cheeky sex position games 😲 – well it was Valentine’s Day! 😄 It was absolutely hilarious at the karaoke 🎤 bar across the road. I sang my deep female voice renditions of ‘What’s Up?’ (4NonBlondes), ‘Because the Night’ (Patti Smith) and ‘I love rock ‘n roll’ (Joan Jett and the Blackhearts), but the star of the show… there was a guy who sang The Little Mermaid 🧜‍♀️ song ‘Part of Your World’, he really knew how to work the crowd, singing directly to others and getting them to participate, then following that, and in keeping with the release of the new Wuthering Heights film adaptation he sang Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’! 😆 It was so incredibly funny, singing in her high pitch, and me, being completely trolleyed at this point, swaying along in all Kate’s quirky mannerisms 😁. It was absolutely packed in the next bar, and I was pretty intoxicated at this point, so Aaron persuaded us to head back to the hotel as the drinks 🍸 were extortionate too!

The next morning, the plan was to store our luggage and go see the new Wuthering Heights film at the vue cinema 🎥 in Princes Quay, however, as we were both hangin’ and feeling rough we decided to travel home early instead. We had some trouble with our tickets at the train station 🚉 but I’m not going to get into that ( I’ve written a complaint letter to Transpennine Express).. On returning home, I spent the remainder of the day napping 😴 lol

It was a truly enjoyable weekend 😄 As a city, I really like Hull, it has a lot to offer.. especially with the Hull fair once a year and it’s popular theatres etc. It is no surprise to me it was awarded City of Culture 2017…

For my blog posts over the next few months, I have three diamond 💎 arts 🎨 to complete, two pub paintings booked, a cross-stitch to have a go at, and a mandala colouring collection. Furthermore, in April, me and my wonderful Grandma, who soon turns 89 bless her, are travelling to Llandudno, Wales with Buckleys travel holidays. I am so excited! I have never been to Scotland, Ireland or Wales so I can’t wait! There is a mystery tour and a tour of the Isle of Anglesey and Llanberis Pass 😍 So watch this space!

Thank you as ever for reading/viewing. Much love, Lauren xx

Information gained from following sources:

http://www.hullmuseums.co.uk (Accessed 21st February 2026)

http://www.hullminster.org (Accessed 21st February 2026)

http://www.matterarchitecture.uk (Accessed 21st February 2026)

http://www.olympusgreekrestaurant.co.uk (Accessed 21st February 2026)

Valentines weekend away Sheffield 2025

February 16, 2025February 16, 2025Leave a comment

For this Valentine’s Day me and my wonderful boyfriend Aaron travelled to Sheffield for a romantic weekend away. This blog post is a description of our travels, with accompanying photography, hope you enjoy! ❤️❤️

We travelled by train and arrived at our hotel, Wilson Carlile Centre on Cavendish Street, in central Sheffield, check in 2pm. At first I thought we’d gone to the wrong place, as did not appear much like a hotel, and the accommodation was around the corner in a separate building to the reception. It was a small room, with only a continental basic breakfast in the morning. It didn’t matter so much as we’re both vegetarians anyway. Good location. Cheap and relatively cheerful I’d say…

We exchanged Valentine’s Day gifts at the hotel 🥰

We arrived at 5pm at the El Paso restaurant for a romantic Valentine’s Day meal. It is both an Italian and a Tex Mex. We shared a cheesy garlic bread, Aaron had a veggie Chimichanga and I had veggie enchiladas 😋 The DJ played love songs, and Unchained Melody came on, one of my mum’s favourite songs 😢 (She has passed away). The meal was beautiful 🥰

After El Paso, we went to an adult themed crazy golf ⛳️ called Golf Fang, it was mint 🥰 An 18 hole course, with bespoke art adorning every wall. A massive amount of geeky stuff from films and popular culture etc, amazingly and uniquely designed, each hole; glow in the dark, exotic themes, etc, really cool and immersive. We also drank a lot of the Valentine’s Day special cocktails 🍸😉

Afterwards, we went drinking on West Street, I got very drunk 🤪 We ventured to West Street Live, but mainly we danced like loons in the Irish Bar 😜 The music was fantastic! Grabbed a margarita pizza 🍕 on the way back…

I felt so rough Saturday morning, we’d hardly had any sleep and had to check out at 10am 😭

We had a stroll around the city centre, the Peace Gardens, Millennium gallery, and did a little bit of shopping 🛍

My feet were killing me, my platform doc martens from the night before completely gave me blisters, I kept having to put new plasters on, even got blood on the bed sheets!

😲 So apart from that, it was nice having a little mooch. Aaron bought me a orange/black checked cardigan from Blue Banana 🥰 He bought a pink tie too for our friends upcoming wedding, we wandered around the indoor market, and we also had a McDonald’s and then a MASSIVE pancake each, with creamy lattes… then it was time to pick up our stored luggage, and grab an uber back to Sheffield train station… homeward bound! 🥰🥰

Overall, it was a brilliant little getaway, had so much fun 😍😍

My next blog posts will probably be diamond arts 💎🎨 or amateur portraits (fundraising for Alzheimer’s Research) or an Easter bunny 🐰 pub painting

Thank you so much as ever for reading/viewing.. Lots of love, Lauren xx

https://www.elpasorestaurant.co.uk/ [Accessed 16th February 2025]

https://golffang.co.uk/sheffield/ [Accessed 16th February 2025]

Valentine’s Day amateur couple portrait

February 16, 2025February 16, 2025Leave a comment

Hi everyone! My latest UnicornPostbox blog post is progression photos of an amateur portrait of me and my boyfriend Aaron, as a surprise gift to him for Valentine’s Day.. hope you like! ❤️❤️

I used a light box (cheat lol) to outline me and Aaron. I drew with Derwent professional sketching pencils, mainly HB and 2B. To keep with the Valentines theme, I incorporated red love hearts, made bold with a black promarker pen, I also drew a black line around me and Aaron, to make the images ‘pop’ (I’m a big fan of pop art). To finish, a professional blue colour marker pen coloured the entire background. I also purchased a lovely red frame to display…And here is the end result:

I took me a few days to complete, which isn’t too bad to be fair ❤️❤️

I am advertising if anyone else would like an amateur couple portrait, to put towards my fundraising for Alzheimer’s Research (I am doing a Tough Mudder in the summer in memory of my beautiful mum who sadly lost her long battle with this awful disease) 😢

My next blog post is a travel blog of mine and Aaron’s first Valentine’s weekend in Sheffield 💕💕

There is a new Easter bunny themed pub painting in March, and no doubt I’ll soon be on with another diamond art 💎🎨

Thank you as ever for viewing/reading. Much love, Lauren xx

Valentine’s Day 2019 – portrait progression photos

February 20, 2019Leave a comment

For Valentine’s Day this year, 14th February 2019, I decided to draw an A2 size portrait of myself and my lovely boyfriend, Howard. Please see below a collection of photographs illustrating the progression of my drawing, from start to finish. I do hope you enjoy 🙂

Drawing Howard:

34,35,291,307.027954

34,35,297,310.790283

34,35,294,312.409424

34,35,293,306.927307

35,35,303,319.700989

36,35,299,312.174927

34,35,305,326.310089

33,35,301,316.461182

34,35,300,313.718994

34,35,299,315.713959

34,35,300,316.491394

34,35,299,314.048401

35,35,308,327.215942

35,35,309,327.763123

34,35,310,323.834839

35,35,311,329.342834

34,35,311,327.951599

33,35,303,320.586365

54,35,304,318.511658

34,35,303,320.770538

I started off my portrait by firstly drawing my boyfriend, Howard. I worked from a photograph of us both when we went for a meal in Yates, Doncaster. I traced the outline, shushhhh, lol – however, many hours were spent on the shading, trying to achieve a good likeness. As shown above, I also drew a rectangular line around the drawing to match the size of the frame I had purchased, in doing so, eventually losing a small portion of the sketch (my own fault for not checking sizes sooner, silly). Overall, I was pleased with how Howard turned out 🙂

Drawing Myself:

35,35,281,294.743683

36,35,262,273.308472

34,35,285,296.731995

34,35,301,317.895142

34,35,315,329.289307

34,35,296,317.642395

34,35,280,291.953064

34,35,300,315.415833

35,35,310,321.960541

35,35,280,293.073090

34,35,279,293.490540

35,35,269,288.904968

35,35,265,283.530762

35,35,273,297.573822

34,35,277,294.766052

35,35,286,303.614990

The second subject I drew was myself. Because I have done quite a few self-portraits over the years, it did not take me as long to draw myself. Saying that however, I wish I had spent just a little bit more time on the fine details as I feel the drawing of myself looks more cartoonish, and less realistic than I was hoping to achieve. I definitely think the portrait of Howard is a better, more detailed sketch, nevertheless I was still quite happy overall with the final piece 🙂 I then started drawing vertical lines with a ruler, in preparation for the portrait background.

Background:

34,35,291,308.752167

35,35,303,315.638763

34,35,293,307.199768

35,35,283,296.377563

34,35,296,321.286469

35,35,299,328.704956

39,35,302,322.900146

34,35,306,323.131653

27,35,295,318.188965

34,35,293,319.505493

34,35,276,293.129150

34,35,275,290.682068

35,35,290,309.490112

35,35,304,324.290161

26,35,294,318.037201

35,35,298,322.029297

I decided to do a colourful rainbow background as I believed this would make the grey pencil portraits distinct from the background, and both would ‘pop’ as a result. I drew vertical lines with a ruler, and coloured each strip with a different colour bright colour pencil. I also used a black fineliner pen to distinguish the colours, and the sketch, again for a ‘pop’ effect 🙂

The finished portrait:

31,32,334,363.250916

19,31,331,364.746246

32,32,335,360.231262

33,33,336,356.314392

30,31,334,367.460693

29,31,336,366.531006

33,31,332,365.632385

30,31,334,368.344208

And here is the final framed product! It took me about a fortnight in total, a few hour blocks every day or every other day. Even though it is not the best drawing in the world, as I admit I am only an amateur artist, I think it has turned out rather well 🙂 Hope you agree?? Something this scale on A2 paper is pretty time-consuming, so I am very glad it was well appreciated 🙂 …