13 Aug 2017
Easy like Sunday morning
I’ve been feeling pretty content recently. I spend a lot of my time planning things, planning for the future. I’ll always be a planning, mainly because I genuinely really enjoy it. But, recently, I’ve been feeling chilled and happy with our little life here in St Albans and, although the where-to-buy-a-house saga continues (and shall do for a while I imagine), I’m so appreciative of where we are right now.
This morning, I woke up, pulled on a pair of shorts, grabbed my sunglasses and headed out with un-brushed hair and no make-up. It just looked so glorious outside that I wanted to get out there asap. The sun was beaming, the cathedral bells were chiming and the monthly Sunday farmers market was bustling away.
I took a wander around it all, taking the time to lazily look at the stalls. I came home with a bunch of sunflowers and a really big and really sexy almond croissant which I ate whilst listening to the new Imagine Dragons album (it’s a good’un; go listen).
I felt so lucky to be able to do that, to just pop out and be in the middle of a farmers market within seconds; buying flowers and pastries like I’m on holiday or summin’.
There’s changes coming at both me and G in the world of work at the moment. G is starting a new job in September and I’m taking on a new aspect to my job in a couple of weeks which will mean a lot more responsibility. I don’t write too much about the ins and outs of work on here for obvious reasons but, whilst this is obviously good news for both of us, the logistics and details haven’t made it an easy ride.
So it’s nice to just take the weekends slow, be calm and appreciate the small things. Things like the utterly divine smell of the ‘cheer up buttercup’ Lush bath bomb and a tiny little BBQ on our tiny little terrace.
Happy Sunday <3
12 Aug 2017
A mini staycation in Hertfordshire
That white fluffy slice of heaven below is my cousin’s cat, Luna. AIN’T SHE GORGEOUS?
Last weekend, she needed looking after whilst her parents were away and so G and I headed over to Berkhamsted for a spot of cat/house sitting.
We didn’t really have any plans for the weekend other than ‘show up and feed Luna’ but do ya know what? It was freakin’ GLORIOUS.
It was slow and peaceful and made me feel all calm and actually like I was prepped to do battle with Monday. Which is a good job, cos it’s been a hell of a week.
So I thought I’d detail all the domestic beauty so that next time I’m all like I NEED TO GET AWAY, I don’t cripple my bank account by attempting to get back to NYC, and remember that it’s just as restful to take time out in your local surroundings.
SATURDAY MORNING
As per our usual routine, I woke up in an empty bed because G always gets up about an hour before me despite the fact that Saturday morning is lie-in time you cretin. We had breakfast, ran some errands, hoovered the flat and packed our overnight bags.
On the drive over to Berkhamsted, it rained so hard that I actually voiced my fears that the rain was going to crack the car windscreen. It was raining that hard okay.
I insisted we stop at Aldi on the way because I absolutely had to get my mitts on those Jo Malone-copycat candles (G still does not understand why these are so exciting). We actually split up when we got inside the shop because Aldi is chaotic and I was not leaving without those candles. We found them eventually and I came out with all 3 flavours, as well as stocking up on Aldi’s chocolate cos sorry, it’s actually my favourite chocolate ever and who even needs Hotel Chocolat? We also came out with 3 pots of hummus, crisps, cheese, ham and sausage rolls cos snacks.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
We arrived at the house and, yes, I immediately scooped Luna up for a fluffy cuddle because cats are basically the best thing in this world. She smacked me on the nose and licked my hair so that’s love, right?
We dived head first into the pots of different-flavoured hummus, discussed how we would decorate our house when the time comes, marvelled at how quiet it was and then relocated to the sofa where we played with Luna, read the paper and blogged. And ate chocolate of course. It was so nice to not feel distracted by life admin or chores, and like we were allowed to laze the time away.
SATURDAY EVENING
We took a wander into town via the canal path and it was so picturesque and cute, even with the rail tracks being right there. I liked that, one second, we were walking past the lock and the canal boats, and then suddenly we emerged right in the centre of town.
We were going to try out one of the local, independent restaurants but we didn’t organise ourselves to book a table so we ended up in Ask instead and the food was actually super dreamy. We had these dough balls full of mozzarella and chilli and pepperoni and oh mumma, I’m still thinking about them. Although not as much as the pistachio and olive oil cake which I am 100% going to try at home.
We wandered back down the canal, watched a film on the telly and tried to persuade Luna that she wanted to come sit on my lap (she was having none of it).
SUNDAY MORNING
I woke up far too early because I’d forgotten my sleeping mask but G let Luna in and I spent a good couple of hours allowing her to jump on me in bed (she seemed to mistake my feet for a mouse or summin’). She also thought it was very entertaining to attempt to catch my ponytail when I was tying my hair up and then try and chase the runners on the TV when G was watching the world championships.
Can I get a kitten pleeeease?
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
We headed off to nearby town Tring because we’re still on a hunt for places-we-might-want-to-live-in-Hertfordshire. It kind of only occurred to me after we’d been there a while and decided we liked it, that it would be a bitch of a commute for G’s new job. Sigh.
We wandered round the park, down the side streets and into a homeware shop (I managed not to buy anything) before stumbling upon this quirky café called Black Goo; we had slices of cold pizza and an enormous slice of lemon and pistachio cake (it was aaaall about the pistachios that weekend).
And then we went back to play with Luna some more before giving her lots of treats and saying goodbye.
AND THAT WAS OUR WEEKEND. No exotic locations or plane journeys; just a twenty-minute drive down the road. But a mini holiday all the same.
5 Aug 2017
Wine, puzzles & saving sheep: a weekend in Wales
I’m currently sat in the Waterstone’s café with a slice of Bakewell tart and my hair scraggily pulled up into a top knot.
Like am I peak hipster or peak old woman, I dunno.
Anyway, Wales.
A couple of Fridays ago me and the gals (minus one of us – you were missed Ele) headed off on a picturesque drive through the Cotswolds to a cottage in rural Wales aka the Brecon Beacons.
Our drive mostly consisted of Becca alternating between napping or singing, Claire and I discussing weddings (hers) and me eating an excessive amount of Percy pigs. Why are those pig faces so god damn addictive?
After two hours, we hit the narrowest country lanes known to man. Tree branches were hitting the windscreen, we had to pause to allow several hay bale-carrying trucks and/or tractors to pass by and there was a tiny bridge I’m pretty sure was not designed for vehicles to be driving over.
Our designated driver may have sworn a few times.
We eventually came to the gate to our cottage and realised we had to drive through two fields to get to it. I mean there’s ‘remote’ and then there’s just off-roading.
The cottage was adorable. The green hills rolled around us and the only sounds (apart from us) was the occasional ‘baaaa’ from the many sheep. We retrieved the key from the little wood shed and let ourselves in to the cutest little living room, with cheerful bunting and a log fire. There was also crumbling stairs that we agreed should not be navigated after wine (advice we promptly ignored for the rest of the weekend).
After running around and allocating rooms and changing into our ‘casual’ wear which, yes, included socks and sandals, we settled down outside with prosecco and M&S vegetable crisps. We so fancy. We’d had the good sense to have the wine delivered to us before we set off but, after personally experiencing the narrow country lanes, we were very much expecting to receive a phone call from a lost Sainsbury’s driver within the next hour. We had our phones on loud and had already agreed that the best-case scenario was that we’d have to go over the fields back to the lane to collect the food. Worst case scenario: he would never show up and our food would be lost to the sheep of Wales.
And then we heard the sound of an engine.
We looked at each other somewhat bemused, stood up and, no word of a lie, a Sainsbury’s truck was bobbing towards us through a field full of sheep.
Not a sight you see every day.
I jogged over to open the gate and this cheery welsh feller jumps out and is greeted by the disbelief on my face.
“I didn’t think you were going to find us!”
“Oh no, your instructions were peeeeerfect,” he said in the strongest welsh accent and then proceeded to cheerfully carry all our food right into the kitchen.
BIG shout out to you Mr Welsh Sainsbury’s driver, what a gem.
Claire played food jenga with the fridge, I realised that I’d probably over-ordered on the cheese and baked goods and Becca assured me that could never be the case.
And then we got cracking with dinner.
The rest of the gals finally arrived (cheers London traffic you dick), we ate, we drank, we whacked out the cheese. Cos cheese is life.
Oh and Claire read us a bedtime story.
Liz and I woke up on Saturday morning to the sound of a crow tapping on the window of our room. Like, I dunno if he thought he was missing out on the party or what.
Becca and I went out to collect eggs cos yup, WE HAD CHICKENS. It became pretty obvious pretty quickly that we do not deal with farmyard animals on a regular basis. There was a lot of laughter and some mild hysteria but Becca emerged from the shed relatively unscathed and with some eggs. And maybe a touch of chicken poo on her hands.
After a lazy breakfast, we decided we were going for a country walk cos we’d actually all packed appropriately for this activity. Claire even downloaded the OS map app. This is true grown-up stuff right?
Mind you, despite the fact we had the correct clothing attire and OS map app, we did still seem to just walk straight out the cottage and off into the hills with no real plan.
This resulted in a more – we’ll call it ‘adventurous’ – walk than we originally intended.
For starters, there was the distinct lack of path. Apparently our surrounding hills were not frequently used walking spots and we kept finding ourselves in the middle of fields we weren’t entirely sure we were allowed to be in, or in the middle of fern higher than our heads, or walking past the remains of a long-dead sheep (this happened twice in the space of half an hour).
There was also the matter of the horseflies biting the crap out of us. And we had to climb over barbed wire fences more than once. This was fun when there was a handy tree to climb up and over, slightly more worrying when we just threw a coat over the fence and I wondered if I was about to do some serious damage to areas I may need when I get round to reproducing.
Then, of course, there was the sheep we had to save.
The poor fella had somehow managed to get his head stuck in a gate made up of criss-crossing bars. We weren’t entirely sure how long he’d been there but it was long enough for his nose to be bleeding, his head to be swelling and his mouth to be frothing. When we first found him, he was clearly panicking and kept bucking his back legs but after a while, he seemed to sense we were trying to help him and went very still, as though patiently waiting for us to sort him out. None of us had the heart to tell him we weren’t farmers and actually spend most of our time sat in an office.
The upshot is, we panicked a bit ourselves, frantically looked for a farmer, gave him some water and eventually accepted that, seeing as we couldn’t leave him to die, we were going to have to get him out ourselves.
Credit to Liz, Becca and Claire on this one; I was poorly attempting to flag down a tractor whilst they stood on the bar of the gate to weigh it down, lifted the sheep’s body up and then twisted his head out of the triangle-shaped hole he’d got it stuck in. When I turned round, he was stumbling towards me as though he’d had one too many glasses of sauvignon blanc. He paused for a moment, looked at us and then trotted off, ‘baaaa-ing’ as he went.
Needless to say, this gave us an enormous sense of well-being.
The rest of the afternoon was spent by the fire and dedicated to everything from pimms to hair braiding to baked goods to reading. Oh and the girls started a puzzle that would basically consume their lives for the next two days. Before we knew it, five hours had passed and it was time to crack on the BBQ.
Okay, no, there was no BBQ but we cooked burgers and sausages under the grill and then ran outside so it’s basically the same thing.
At some point we were back in front of the fire with cheese and wine and, well, an awful lot of singing. Who knew I still had every Britney Spears song lyric perfectly stored in my head eh? They’ve just been waiting for the opportune moment to emerge and apparently that moment was 2 in the morning in the middle of the Brecon Beacons.
Pretty sure there was also dancing to 5, 6, 7, 8 by Steps. Don’t ever say we’re not cool.
After a particularly divine breakfast of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, avocado and tiger bread on Sunday morning, we actually looked up a real walk (like, with a path and everything) and then hopped in the car to Sugar Loaf mountain for a walk amongst the clouds. We got soaked to the very core but it did a mighty fine job of clearing up the hangover and the views were rather sexy once the clouds shifted.
There was also a bunch of sheep that stared at us for a while but we assumed it was in admiration because they knew of our heroics from the day before.
When we got back, Becca had the divine idea of baking a camembert in a loaf of bread and if that’s not your ideal Sunday afternoon right there, then you need to reassess your life.
The never-ending puzzle continued, Liz plaited both mine and Rosie’s hair this time round and yes, there was more pimms, more wine, more baked good and more singing. Liz also impressed us with the dance moves from our year 8 talent show performance; still stored in her head 12 years later.
And then it was Monday and we had to leave and we were sad. Although we did stop off in Abergavenny on our way home for coffee and/or milkshakes in the sunshine which I can think we can all agree beats the average Monday.
Things to note:
There is something really special being in the middle of nowhere during the night with absolutely no sound and hundreds of stars twinkling above you.
If I drink alcohol constantly for 3 days, I do not feel fresh come day 4.
I am a lucky gal to have a group of friends I still love being around after 16 years.
You can put ‘sheep life saver’ on your CV right?
The puzzle was never finished.
4 Aug 2017
Little Gems: 28
I feel a tad broken. I am sure you will be keen to hear that I spent a goodly amount of time retching over the toilet bowl on Tuesday night, thanks to a bad reaction to some sea food. Isn’t that just delightful? For some insane reason, I didn’t call in sick to work and have spent the rest of the week feeling like I’m operating on zero energy.
Woe is me.
Anyway, even though the rainy weather would suggest otherwise, August is here. Which I’m finding slightly alarming because holy heck, where is 2017 going and why haven’t I done ANY of the things I wanted to do this summer yet? But I’m also secretly a little bit excited because it means Autumn is on the horizon and I bloody love those last few colourful, fairy light-filled months of the year.
Here’s what I’ve been loving recently:
Kitchenware shopping. Nope, I don’t know when I stopped being cool (ish) either. But holy shit, I am obsessed with these beautiful pasta bowls now living in our cupboard. I keep asking G if he’s excited about eating out the pasta bowls every time we have pasta (which is, you know, a lot) and he looks at me like why you so weird. I can’t wait for the matching dinner plates and bowls to arrive in the post in the next week.
Being in the countryside. The girls and I had a weekend in rural Wales a couple of weeks back (post on this soon) and I cannot tell you how much I loved being in the middle of nowhere with nothing but fresh air and pure silence (in the moments we weren’t singing Britney songs in a wine-fuelled karaoke sesh obviously).
New jobs. G has a new job! Which he starts at the beginning of September. And I will be taking on extra responsibilities at work towards the end of August. So, all in all, there are new things and more money coming our way in the world of work which is always good.
Re-watching Doctor Who. I recently started re-watching the first series of Doctor Who and it makes me feel all cosy and nostalgic. Nothing beats a bit of Chris and Billie. (Although it does alarm me that it’s now TWELVE YEARS OLD).
Eliza Grace. The latest addition to the family, my cousin’s baby, was born on 18th July and I cannot wait to meet her!
Booking a trip to York/Newcastle. G and I both have some time off at the end of the month so we’ve booked a few days away up north. We’re spending the weekend around Northumberland and stopping off in York for a day or two on the way up (where we’ll get to meet Eliza!), and I am so looking forward to it.
Pret’s avocado, cheese and chipotle tortilla. If you haven’t discovered these yet, I just did you a massive favour. You’re welcome.
Hope your weekend is full of wine and cats and cake <3
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