Wednesday 30 July 2014

Life Lately (Part 2)

Hello and happy Wednesday! I hope life's treating you well and that the week is an awesome one! I just thought I'd stop by for part two of last week's life update. Things have been busy and great round here and right now I'm...

Listening to
The soundtrack for The Prince of Egypt, the latest Rebecca Ferguson album, Taylor Swift (Always Taylor) and the new Ed Sheeran and Wakey Wakey albums.

Planning
An upcoming trip to Chester, I'm off up there next Friday for a long weekend and wedding celebrations. Having never been to the city before I'm open for suggestions - what's a must see or do (apart from the shopping obviously!)?

Enjoying
Cuddles with babies, hanging out with both sisterlings as the littlest is up doing work experience in London, exploring the wonders of south London


Eating
As part of my attempt to be healthier it's been all about the overnight oats or fruit and yogurt for breakfast and protein and salad for lunch right now. I've been loving it and have yet to be bored by (the addition of roasted veg to every salad really helps)! Also I discovered moussaka the other day. OMG that's one hell of an amazing dish, why has no one introduced it to me before! Also Leon, I love your food.

Envying
All those people currently on holiday. Hurry up September!

Watching
Has anyone else been sat on the sofa recently sobbing over Long Lost Family? That show kills me every time and yet I can't help but watch it as it's just so heartwarming and lovely. The people on there are so wonderful and have such heartbreaking stories and I find it impossible not to go all warm and fluffy when watching it. You must watch it, you won't be disappointed (don't forget the tissues thought!).

Wanting
All of the amazing things. Like this dress and this bag and these shoes (I mean OMG poka dot brogues, amazing right?!). I want.


Dreaming about
A holiday, roll on September 19th I need sun and space and peace and cocktails and a rest and the beach. Pretty please move faster. 

Snacking
Nak'd bars and nak'd bites. I can't seem to get enough of these right now. They are so good. My current favourites are the cocoa mint and the cocoa orange - so good and amazing that I don't have any guilt after eating one. Excellent!

Complaining about
The heat. I'm rubbish in the heat, what's the point of it when I'm in an air conditioned office all day and then have to struggle with the tube. Eurgh winter hurry up. Oh and estate agents. I really dislike estate agents right now.

Putting off
So much life admin stuff. I really must get on that soon. I just need to finish my book first...

So what about you, what have you been up to? 


Monday 28 July 2014

Present decisions

On Sunday I went to the christening of one of my favourite people, baby Bella. When it comes to a christening I'm never sure what I should bring as a present - I mean it seems to me that its tradition to give something Peter Rabbit themed (I got a bowl and plate set and a Mrs Tiggy-Winkle money box) or small person sized jewelry (I got a beautiful charm bracelet and a lovely locket). But in reality how helpful is that for a small baby (and said baby's parents)? Don't get me wrong all of the presents outlined are lovely and I definitely appreciated being given them but the reality is that after two years you've smashed the bowl (or your too 'cool' for it), the bracelet no longer fits and twenty years later the money box is lost and the locket and charm bracelets are so tarnished they are unsalvageable.


So ahead of the christening I thought a lot about what I wanted to gift to Bella. I wanted the gift to mean something and be personal as well as useful. Also a christening is about celebrating a baby and the people who are going to help guide her so I wanted to think about that too. I also knew that I didn't want her to look back at the gifts in ten or twenty years and think I never knew I had that, I've never used it or what is this? So I haven't put any pressure on myself for this present, have I?

I finally settled on a set of some of my favourite books from childhood, so basically the essential bookcase for a baby. I figured that ticked all the boxes I was aiming for and Bella would get so much use out of them in the years to come. To be honest it was a bit tricky to narrow them all down as there are loads that I loved as a child, but after a lot of deliberating I settled on Where's Spot?, Peepo, Each Peach Pear Plum, The Alfie Treasury, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, We're Going on a Bear Hunt and Five Minute's Peace. Pretty much an essential bookcase for a child, right?!






So tell me, what would you give as a christening present? 

Wednesday 23 July 2014

Life update (part one)

Hi lovely blog readers, how ARE you? I hope you’re not sweltering too much in this heat? I really am not a fan of this weather and I'm allowed to complain about it as I never asked for it to appear. Give me a chilly day where I have to wrap up warm and I'm happy - unless I'm on a beach in which case I want all the sunshine please.

I've been a busy bee over the last few weeks so  for today’s post I thought I’d give you a bit of a life update but then when I started writing one and my ‘what I've read recently’ section was huge and I couldn't inflict the whole thing on you. So here’s part one of my what I've been doing lately post! {These posts are some of my favourite to read as I’m fundamentally a super nosey person so I’m hopeful this works for you too…}


Firstly I'm making my way through savouring the brand new David Nicholls book, Us. I won a proof copy of this book via Twitter and I cannot tell you how much I'm enjoying it. It’s a really lovely tale about one family who are struggling as a family and it flicks back and forth between the present and various moments in their past. So far it’s totally living up to the wonder of a book that One Day was. 

I'm crazy behind on blog reading at the moment, but I have a few recent highlights I wanted to share with you.
Browned butter toffee chocolate chip cookies from Handle the Heat. These are an actual real baked thing. OMG! How do people think of these things and who is going to make them for me? Anyone?

How Sweet it is’s pregnancy essay which had me laughing VERY loudly numerous times. I love Jessica's writing style and also how she told her parents and her husband that she was expecting. So cute.

News of Being Erica’s new job – how excellent to have found your dream job!

Details on how to rebrand your blog from Kate – pertinent to goings on in my life right now as there are changes acoming to this here blogging space. Exciting!

Lau's weekend update as it saves me the job of typing it all up. It was lovely to be back home although I do think I managed to eat enough for a family of four...

Info on how to update your smoothies from Rosie. I really want to better at smoothies as part of my healthy lifestyle drive so this post is super-helpful. Now I just need to go shopping for all the awesome ingredients!

A recipe for one bowl carrot and apple muffins. I do love a healthy recipe and one that requires the minimum number of utensils so I'm all over this one. Plus I've never made a carrot based cake before. A travesty right?!

So what about you, what have you been reading (book and blogs) recently - I'd love some more blogger suggestions particularly! 


Thursday 17 July 2014

Judging a book by its cover



So I know that it's wrong to be superficial and only buy books that look really pretty, but sometimes I'm shallow and it happens. At the weekend the above lovely collection of books became mine. I didn't need any of them, I just saw them and fell head over heels in love with them and couldn't say no to them. 


These two poetry collections from Faber were a must buy. Not only are the covers absolutely beautiful, heartbreaking and perfect, they also feature some of my favourite poems. If you did an English GCSE circa. 2001 you'll be familiar with these two wartime poets too. It's been such a long time since I've delved into their writings and I've been wanting to rediscover them for a while. So when I stumbled across these beautiful hardback editions I couldn't not pick them up. I think Dulce Et Decorum est was my favourite poem by Wilfred Owen.


I've not yet read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell but it's on my MUST READ ASAP list so when I saw this special collector's edition I had to grab it. It's got a poster, sprayed edges and a pink and mint cover, what's not to love? Plus it's about fan fiction, um hello perfect book alert! 


I've been lusting over these beautiful Famous Five 70th anniversary editions for ages. The five books all have new covers illustrated by a famous illustrator, people like Oliver Jeffers, Chris Riddell and, in the case of the two I bought, Helen Oxenbury and Quentin Blake. I love how the books look like they are older editions as the illustrations are so classic and old school. Just beautiful. Can you believe I've never read the Famous Five books, considering how much I loved Enid Blyton's books as a child that seems absurd the more I think about it! Clearly I missed out big time.


Another Enid Blyton series I've not yet read? The adventure series. Book one in that series it The Island of Adventure which I had to nab at the weekend as it also has a gorgeous new cover. This time by Rebecca Cobb. There are another five in the series with Rebecca's gorgeous illustrations. Something tells me I'll be buying them in the not too distant future too... 

So what about you, what books have you picked up on a whim as the covers are so beautiful?

Tuesday 15 July 2014

Let the hunt begin!

So it's been a while since I joined in with the Travel Tuesday link up, sorry about that! But I'm back this week to join in with Bonnie and everyone else as I had the best weekend of book bench hunting which needs sharing!

Book bench hunting I hear you cry, what on earth is that? Well Books about Town is only the most genius idea ever by the National Literacy Trust who have positioned fifty fabulous benches across London for the summer and created four book bench trails. Each bench is focused on one brilliant book or writer/illustrator team. Books for all ages and across all genres are represented and hunting the benches makes for a great day out!

I'd heard about the benches as the publisher I work for has created a beautiful one and I wanted to see more of them. So when a friend suggested a day in sunny London to hunt out some of the benches I was totally up for it! We chose to do the Bloomsbury trail and the Riverside trail on Saturday and it was brilliant! We saw loads of brilliant benches - my favourites are littered throughout this post! Plus it meant we saw a lot of top London sites too - the Tower of London, The Globe, Tower Bridge and so much more!

There are still two trails that I want to try out, the first in the city itself and the other over in Greenwich, so I just need to find another free weekend and a willing partner for the hunt. If you're in London over the summer I highly recommend you have a go too, it's great fun!

One of my favourite benches - Paddington Bear!

Tower Bridge in all its glory.



The War House bench was so beautiful I had to take lots of pictures. I just love the simplicity of this bench and think it captures the spirit of the book perfectly.

The Shakespeare bench - outside The Globe of course.

And the back of the Shakespeare bench.

Walking over the famous Tower Bridge


The front and back of Axel Scheffler's bench featuring some of his familiar characters!

Old and new London spotted on our London tour

The Clarice Bean bench by Lauren Child

I love that the Dr Seuss book has the characters reading together.



Travel Tuesday

Saturday 12 July 2014

Let's talk about being healthy

Since starting my 'journey' to being healthy I've spoken a fair bit on this (and my old) blog about my attempts to eat better, lose some weight and get fitter, so I won't bore you with the sorry tale again but I wanted to update you on where I am on this 'journey'. Recently I've been struggling with doing all the 'right' things. I say recently but I really mean the last six months or so. The problem is that my willpower seems to have wandered off and taken my self restraint with it and as a result I seem to be experiencing two unhelpful things. 

Firstly my attempts to eat better is massively failing. Evidence 1: I ate an entire pack of rice cakes (the big ones) in 36 hours. Oh, and each one was smothered in Nutella. Evidence 2: I can't say no to cheap junk food. Pringles on offer? Okay I'll have two tubes. £1 packs of peanut m&m's? Oh go on then I'll take three packs, they'll last the month week. Evidence 3: A trip to Pizza Express meant a trip to Starbucks for coffee before hand as I was early and then the world's biggest pizza instead of the 'sensible' salad. On top of that exercise seems to be almost non-existent. Last week started well with two days of early starts and the 30 Day Shred and then nothing. I had a busy week and the exercise stopped until the weekend when I did the world's most pathetic run: 17 minutes and 1.6 miles and THAT WAS IT for the entire weekend.


I need to eat less of these (or only one at a time)

I know from experience that I need both parts to be working for me to be a healthier person. I need to find willpower with food and also motivation on the exercise front or else I'll go back to the unhealthy and heavier person I was at the start of 2012. I know all this but for some reason it's not clicking in my head right now. I just can't seem to stick to the healthy habits. Don't get me wrong I know that I'm never going to be someone that just eats the things that are good for me, I know I'll always have days where a McDonald's happens as that's just not sustainable for me. It's about picking up more habits that are healthy, like reaching for the grapes and not the m&m's and reducing the bad ones - 4pm chocolate snack I'm looking at you!


I need to eat more of these yummy things.

So with the above rambles in mind I'm going to start doing the following things.

  • Exercising every day. Even if it's just a 15 minute run or twenty minutes of Jillian Michael's dreadful 30 Day Shred. I need to get back in the habit of doing something every day, if it's just something small and short.
  • Think less about the calories and more about what I'm eating. By this I mean not calorie counting which will often mean I'll steer clear of something that would fill me up (a banana) for something with fewer calories (a mini chocolate bar), just so I'm not 'over' my calorie intake for the day. I need to be thinking about what's going into my body rather than the calories as everyone knows fruit or avocado might be high in calories but they are better for me than other items.
  • I'm not going to drink my calories. Now I've discovered I like an americano coffee and I'm going to reduce my latte intake to just one a week. That will mean that I'm not drinking a really milky coffee every day that doesn't really fill me up.
  • Amend my food as little as possible. I watched an interesting show the other day all about the healthiest diets in the world and one of the comments struck a chord with me. The idea that when you eat food it should look as similar to its original form as possible as that means that the majority of the nutrients are still in it and very little bad stuff will have been added. That makes total sense when you think about it and I'm going to adhere to this idea as much as possible from now!
  • Reduce the number of treats I have! Treats are good and will always feature in my diet, I'm not stupid enough to think that will ever change. However I'm going to limit them, so I'll one biscuit and not six and have one helping of pudding and not two. That way I'm not restricting my diet and I get my sugar fix!
If I keep focused on these five things then hopefully I can feel better about myself and pick up the healthy habits again. Are there any top tips you can send to me? As I definitely need as much help as possible. I promise I'll keep you updated on this blog as often as possible - but don't worry it won't be a weekly update. I don't want to bore you all! 

Sunday 6 July 2014

June, you were awesome!

So June is over and we're already a week through July, how did this happen?! 2014 is FLYING by isn't it! Before July disappears let's take a quick dip into the goodness that happened this month - let's ignore the not so good moving house related stuff and focus on the happy things. That's a far better way to live if you ask me! 

Delicious food
I baked flapjacks (for the first time ever), triple chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter and m&m cookies. Obviously they were all scrumptious - they contain sugar after all! I also spent a few afternoons munching on picnics in the park, which was wonderful and relaxing. One other super-exciting thing is that I made baked sweet potato fries for the first time and they were perfect - I've struggled not to cook them every week since... Oh and I finally succeed in making iced coffees at home. Yummy! 




Also on the food front I had the most scrumptious tapas ever (see the evidence below). I think the meatballs and then the butternut squash and feta dish were the best. Although it's odd that they didn't do potato bravas at a tapas restaurant isn't it?! I also finally made it to The Delaunay for brunch, which was sensational and then there was the eggs and avocado I had for Sunday brunch last weekend in Clapham. Amazing, What a combo!



London Explorations
Also in June I found the most amazing coffee shop in Balham, Lavish Habit, and I wanted to buy everything in there, including the neon display furniture. When I have a new house I want the below pieces! I also ambled around Hyde Park and explored it a couple of times, whilst cooing over the ducks. Plus I had a glorious run around The South Bank and up to St Paul's Cathedral which was the perfect way to start the day! London really is lovely in the sunshine isn't it!






Lovely family fun days
Oh I had such a lovely time with my family this month, it was such fun. There was a lovely 36 hours with the sisterlings in Clapham that involved house hunting, a summer fete, a dog show (!) and lots of homemade food. It was brilliant! Then there was a family reunion at my parents' house with all my mum's cousins some of who she hadn't seen for thirty years - crazy right! It was such a lovely day spent in the garden and meeting new people. Of course my mum was in her element! Oh and there was homemade hummus - go me! On the final weekend of June we had a family run in London (yes we are that family) before brunch, which was pretty damn awesome.





Another thing that makes a month amazing is of course brilliant books and I read some great ones in June, you should read them all! See my booky thoughts here. There really is nothing better than getting lost in a good book is there?


So, how was your month? I hope June treated you well. Please tell me all about it! Once again I'm linking up with Belinda for her life is good link up so make sure you head over to her blog to read the other fun things that have happened in June. Happy reading! 

Found Love. Now What?