hello 2011

Happy New Year, lovely blog readers!

Have you made any New Years resolutions this year?
I've made a few - one of which is to keep up with this blog! I'm very excited to say that, despite being a bit absent from this blog, I've guest posted over at The Novelista Barista - one of my favourite blogs and one that I would definitely recommend you to check out if you haven't already! I've written a list of my new years' resolutions over there, which Jen has kindly posted on her blog for me. What do you think of my resolutions?
Check out my guest post at The Novelista Barista here.

And how were your Christmases and New Years? I've actually had a really great festive season this year - with quite a lot of travelling around the country! I spent Christmas with my family and my maternal grandparents, and then ventured over to Buckinghamshire - a lovely, picturesque county to the north-west of London - to spend a few days with my paternal grandparents, over Boxing Day and 27th December. It was filled with cups of tea, dog walks, snow, cosying up by the fire and jigsaw puzzles, and was perfectly relaxing.
Next up was Brighton for a few days. Any semi-regular reader of this blog will know that Brighton, a town on the South Coast of England, is not only my university town and where I used to live but the town that really holds my heart, and so it was great to go back down there for a couple of days. I visited my friends Alex and Lauren - Alex has a flat down there, and Lauren is living in France but was staying over with Alex for a few days. It was wonderful to be with the girls again, and a lot of catching up, shopping, Desperate Housewives and chocolate and wine consumption ensued!
And I then ventured up to Oxford on 30th December, to see my boyfriend Richard who lives up there. We spent New Year together at one of his friends' parties, and enjoyed being with each other until today - even squeezing in another day trip down to Brighton and a visit to a comedy show down there. Lovely!

Caught up in festivities and days off, I've been away from the blog for a few too many days, but I am back, and in full swing with this blog for 2011, so I hope you'll keep up with my blog this year!

And because I haven't yet shared what I got for Christmas, here's what I got - what do you think? I think I got a great haul this year!

A gorgeous calendar, filled with florals and teacups

A cupcake notecard set

A Cath Kidston sewing set

...and two Cath Kidston mugs
(I am now well on the way to owning the entire contents of the shop)

Some really great books

Gorgeous floral coathangers

And a beautiful leather diary

cosy cosy

I hadn't actually heard of Pull and Bear before coming across this shoot - but a tiny little bit of research shows that they're a Spanish chain of fashion stores, focusing on urban, casual clothing.
I love this shoot from their Autumn/Winter 2010 lookbook; cosy and atmospheric, I love the black and white, the fairy lights and the chemistry in the second photo.

Talking of cosy, it's still so cold outside and I'm still trudging to work in wellies. I do wish the snow would go away...

pastel cool

Time for a peek inside Southgate, a lovely house I found online here.

I love the wallpaper in the top left-hand corner of the first photo - gorgeous, isn't it? I also love the top right-hand corner of the first photo; green walls contrasting with white doors and white tablecloth, contrasting again with lovely dark brown tones of the bench and plant holder. I'm very much a fan of the lovely pastel tones in this house - love the greens and blues.

What are your colour preferences in a house - pastels or brights?

christmas came early

Please ignore the fuzzy photos - thanks to the iPhone for that!

One week til Christmas now - how crazy is that?! Where has this year gone?

I saw Richard this weekend for the last time until after Christmas, and so we did present exchanges yesterday - we always open our presents together instead of waiting for Christmas day. I bought him lots of Lindt chocolate (our favourite), Inception on DVD as he loves it and tickets to a night at Komedia, an amazing comedy club in Brighton and our former local weekend haunt when we lived down there.
And in return, I got some great pressies - Lindt chocolate, lavender aromatherapy bags which he knows I love, some very lovely shower gel and, amazingly, a Cath Kidston tea set. I've wanted it for ages and ages and turns out he'd been very observant and had picked up on my hints!
I love it - the florals, the colour, the fact that it's for drinking tea and the fact that it can hold quite a few cups' worth. Been using it almost constantly!

Have you had any early Christmas presents yet? What are you hoping for this year?

flickr find friday: vicki king

Happy Friday!

Stumbled across this amazing photographer earlier this week and just had to post. Vicki King can be found on flickr here and her photostream is full of gorgeous, soft, whimsical photography.

Vicki is studying a BA in Photography in London (no wonder she takes such beautiful photos then!) and she also has a lovely little blog here too.

dresses, gardens and mansions

Stumbled across this gorgeous shoot from Harper's Bazaar Mexico - love the combinations of dresses, dreamy expressions and gorgeous mansion/gardens location.
What do you think of it?


It's been a very busy week so far - lots going on both at work and at home! All very good fun though, and luckily the snow has pretty much gone now (a massive relief after last week) so my journey to and from work is now resembling some form of normality again at last. Midweek and I'm already looking forward to the weekend - got lots of Christmas shopping and catching up with people planned, and seeing Richard on Sunday for the day which should be great - a day of catching up, browsing museums and dinner is on the cards! I also can't believe how close it is to Christmas now - where has the time gone?!
How has your week been so far? What've you got planned for this weekend?

just a minute / december

Photo credit


Just a Minute is back! I enjoyed doing this little activity last month and so thought I would do it this month too. As mentioned last month, I found it on Daydream Lily's fantastic site, via August Street.


So, this month I am:

Reading...... Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks. I'm slightly over halfway through it, although I will admit to being hesistant to read it at first - I generally end up disliking popular, raved-about books as I feel like they're so built up and there's the expectation that they'll be amazing, so I often feel let down at the end when I don't love them as much as I expected to! It is well on the way to being one of my favourite books.

Buying........ apps for my new iPhone, christmas pressies and theatre tickets

Listening......... to my usual eclectic mix, spiced up with quite a lot of French music, after my lovely break in the South of France this past month. If you haven't heard Desolé by Sexion d'assaut, or Alors on Danse by Stromae, you really need to.

Watching...... PEEP SHOW. My favourite show, and I'm so so very excited that it's back. Plus, The Apprentice, of course.

Loving.......... reminiscing about my lovely time in France, and the thought of 9 whole days off over the Christmas period.

Planning...... a trip to Rome in February/March next year. So excited already!



Want to play along? Full details on the game as posted originally by August Street are here...