Lovely Things || Winter 2018
As I’m sat here in the back of my car, 3 hours into what’s looking likely to be a 7 hour car journey, I’m going to furiously type as much as I can without getting car sick. So far, so good. Edit, this is actually being posted weeks after I originally wrote this!
As you may have noticed, there have not been any winter related “Lovely Things” post for January or February during 2018.
The end of each of these months was rather chaotic, and as ever, it’s usually the blog that has to give way. The year has been poignant so far for many reasons, many of which will be included below, but some which have been thought-provoking and hard to swallow, so I think I’d rather not go into just yet. Therefore, rather than trying to catch up, almost at the end of March, I thought I’d take it from the end of my 2017 round up and bring you up to speed.
Where I left off…
As you’ll see from my year in review for 2017, I finished off the end of the year and the start of 2018 drunkenly eating cheesy chips in the harbour in Falmouth. The start of winter in December saw us coming back indoors, doing some small DIYs around the house and a mad flurry of visitors, Christmas and hosting. Therefore, by the time the new year came around we were both ready for a bit of a break!
January 2018
In January we vowed to do two things:
- Have no visitors to stay, and
- Only spend £20 a week on our food shop, including buying no alcohol.
In all, we pretty much managed this for the majority of the month, and I managed to catch up with a good friend over the most delicious pan fried duck in a new local pub, had a lovely haircut by Adam’s cousin, and attended a Lush Valentine’s showcase of their specially released products, and January’s bloggers brunch at Bills. Not bad for usually the most depressing winter month.
At the end of January we spent a lot of time with family as Adam’s sister Rachel, our 2 year old niece Violet, and 6 month old nephew Thomas came to visit from Canada! I love every opportunity to hang out with them all as we see them so irregularly, and it was great hosting Adam’s Dad so he could also spend time with them.
We went swimming, got Violet ridiculously muddy on a countryside walk, and spent the day with the whole family at the Donkey Sanctuary running after them in the soft play area, and stopping them thwacking the donkeys with their own brushes!
February 2018
February was a busy one as first of all I had to take a terrifying and exciting trip to London for the third round of Bake Off interviews…
…apologies for not mentioning it yet, but I am going to write a proper post on it this week. Spoiler – I didn’t get through to the shows! But it was great fun and I’m so glad to have applied!
After that palava had calmed down a bit and I had the chance to wipe down the kitchen after a week’s baking frenzy, we spent a lovely day in Falmouth celebrating my brother Ned’s 21st birthday.
Foregoing our no visitors rule, we also had Adam’s best friend and his girlfriend to stay, which put huge smiles on our faces as Sam and Georgie are hilarious and brilliant fun. Though it was mid February, it didn’t stop us going for a swim on Tregantle beach, following by an epic cook-off come Korean BBQ feast. My effort extended to homemade Kimchi a few days prior, and their joint effort in the kitchen allowed me to finish off another pair of curtains that I’ve been working on this winter.
To top off the end of February, we celebrated our 5th anniversary in London, seeing my favourite show, Cirque du Soleil in the Royal Albert Hall. The current UK tour is showing Ovo, a performance based on bugs and insects, and though it was now the 7th Cirque show I’ve seen, I’m still in awe every time! If you ever get the chance to go, I’d so highly recommend it (plus, as we’re poor old sprouts at the moment, I bought us “standing room only” seats in the gallery section, but you can take your own cushions, stretch out looking through the bars and we got a centre stage view for a fraction of the price!
March 2018…so far…
When I starting writing this, as you’ll have read from the beginning, I was in the car and it was the beginning of March. Now, the fact it’s the 26th is beyond me. There have been blog catastrophes in the form of a 123 reg server meltdown and panic on my part as all my photos, theme and some posts were deleted since August 2017! Hence a small re brand, a reboot thanks to my Dad’s backup geniusness and Robert’s your mother’s brother, this is here we are.
March has been, well, up and down. It’s snowed, a lot, which would have been fun, if only it weren’t possible for me to work from home and could go sledging instead!
We celebrated both Adam’s Dad’s and Granny’s birthdays in Suffolk, had a wonderful time drinking wine in the hot tub and walking with their beautiful 6 month old Australian labradoodle Ezzie. Then last weekend my lovely mum came to visit and helped us paint our stairs (well – some of them – we’ve spend hours stripping the old paint off so we’re only doing the risers, spindles and skirting)
Then this week, very excitingly I’ve actually booked TWO holidays over the next 2 months! The last time I jumped on a plane was in May 2016, so I’m definitely excited for two different long weekends – there will definitely be posts coming up very soon!
So here we are, waiting impatiently for the season to catch up with the months and spring to really bloom after a pretty chilly winter so I can grow my first vegetables and feel the sun on my face rather than the arctic blast we’ve been treated to. Hope winter has treated you well, and fingers crossed I’ll be back more regularly now that I’ve stopped tearing my hair out from coding issues!
