the highs and lows of may

It's been a funny old month - weather-wise, mood-wise, goal-wise. Just as we've had some lovely sunny days, many of my weekends have been fabulous - full of food, booze and socialising. But we've also experienced some biblical rain showers, seriously gloomy grey days and my mood very much reflected this - blog writing  has been slack, I've been eating pretty poorly, work has been getting me down and I've been feeling rather uninspired in general. You won't be surprised to know that I've not really made much effort with my 4 things challenge this month but stick with me, there are a couple of positives!

De-clutter: At the beginning of the month I finally went through my humungous paper pile - bank statements, threatening letters from Revenue&Customs, pay slips, gas bills, you name it, it was there. And now it's all sorted and I feel smug. I actually have a designated area for different types of post now. Ok, so, talking about organising my post isn't v.exciting but that's all I have to brag about this month in terms of de-cluttering - those things I was supposed to list on ebay? Still waiting to be listed :/
Health: I have a large confession - I didn't go to zumba or yoga this month. Not once. V.bad indeed. My excuse is fair but irritating - my knees were pretty achey, to the point where I didn't want to risk knackering them like I did in NYC. So I took a break. On the plus side my knees feel good but the rest of me feels very aware of the lack of exercise that's taken place over the last 4 weeks. However, I'm feeling positive for June, I may even take up jogging again...
Money: saving continues.
Do More New: This month I sent off my application to enter my first quilt into a competition! It's for one of the categories judged at The Festival of Quilts in August. Money prizes are awarded for the top three places - which would be amazing to win obviously -  but I think I'd be pretty chuffed just to see it on display!

A bit of a mix bag for May BUT I enjoyed many days/evenings out with family, friends and Mitch plus we also surged forward with wedding planning so I can't complain really. There's lots of fun stuff going down in June including BBQs, an exhibition to see and Mitch's birthday. Aaaaaand, four weeks from today I shall be by, or possibly in, the pool in Perugia!

super sunny weekend

Stupidly I got rather burnt last weekend - we hadn't seen the sun in so long I'd clearly forgotten what sunscreen was! As you can imagine I spent nearly the entire bank holiday weekend outside. Not only did I witness Mitch complete his 10k run, I also dropped in on vauxhall farm, enjoyed a stroll along the southbank and scoffed much tea and cake. Naturally.

On the left there we have Jerry the alpaca - he was v.friendly - and on the right, one of the 4 month old orphaned lambs taken in at Vauxhall farm. They've had a bit of a re-vamp at the farm since I was last there and now you can pay 20p for a handful of food to feed the animals. Needless to say, I was in my element.

More lambs, a very pretty duck and the bunnies snoozing in the sun.

These two little fellas were the farm's newest arrivals - only 2 weeks old! There were also 4 baby goats which I failed to get a snap of (probably because I spent most of my time feeding them).  You'll just have to take my word for it: they were v.cute indeed!

After an hour at the farm my friend and I walked from Vauxhall along the southbank in search of an icecream. I took this pic because London always surprises me with how beautiful it can look, especially by the river.

After the walk we headed back to Brixton and I made curry and he made jargaritas. Essentially a margarita in a jar but without the hassle of a blender because you just shake it up in the jar - genius! They were a-mazing.

Sunday was very much a family day what with my auntie and uncle in London for a  visit. My nan treated us to a lovely lunch before we all spent the afternoon and evening in my parents' garden - it looked so summery.

Ice tea and cake were the perfect accompaniments to the weather and this picturesque setting. My sister made pink lemonade cake which was so gooood. Must ask her for the recipe. Hope you all enjoyed the super sunny weather too!

so proud (and sunburnt)

On bank holiday Monday at 9am I found myself in London's Green Park surrounded by hundreds of eager runners limbering-up and pinning numbers to their t-shirts. Why? You might be asking. For the answer we have to travel back in time to the Saturday before...

Mitch and I were enjoying a drink or two in the pub with my friend Tom. He was telling us about his most recent physical challenge, Tough Mudder (it sounds horrendous - a 12 mile obstacle course including such delights as: a vertical climb, crawling through mud and even some electric shocks). Tom's account of the event made me reel but, bizarrely, it struck some sort of cord with Mitch and there and then announced that he was going to take part in a 10k run on the bank holiday monday, 9 days away. I thought it was just the booze talking, and to be fair it probably was, but nevertheless, Mitch had made up his mind.

And so, there I was, 9 days later, in Green Park for the Bupa London 10k, wishing him luck and waving goodbye (and telling him to remember to stretch before the start). I stood on The Mall with a few other spectators and watched Mitch, and nearly 11,000 other runners - including 2 x gold olympic medal winner Mr Mo Farah - set off.

1hr 29 mins and 20 seconds later Mitch returned in one piece with a massive smile on his face :D
It was pretty inspiring stuff and I am unbelievably proud of him.

A massive congrats to Mitch's work friends Tom and Toni who both beat their personal bests and gave Mo Farah a run for his money!

The rest of the day was spent drinking booze in the park and eating strawberries and cream. Bliss.

Tuesday's Tees - Pull & Bear

I only discovered Pull & Bear last week. Man, do they have some seriously good stuff! Including their tees. 

so the last two are actually from the men's section but whatever, they're pretty too.

hello surrey

Last weekend was bloody good for a number of reasons:

1. we got to leave London. Of course I love my city, but I love it even more when I've spent a good few hours away from it. We didn't stray too far from the capital - namely Guildford and the very pretty little village of Witley - but there were plenty of green fields, sheep, castle ruins and beautiful flowers which was a v.welcome change of scenery.

2. we took some rather big steps towards planning the wedding. Yes, I'm talking venues. We even have a tentative date which is scary but also unbelievably exciting.

3. I got to see my parents which is always nice but this weekend they were especially amazing as they not only drove us to Guildford but knew all the best questions to ask when it came to checking out the venues. AND they bought us lunch. I honestly don't know where I'd be without them!

4. Saturday night unexpectedly turned into a fabulous night out of drinking and tonnes of dancing at The Effra Social (a.k.a my other living room). 50's and 60's tunes were the soundtrack to the evening and one of my oldest buddies was in attendance. Pretty much perfect really.

5. Sunday was sublime - the lazy day that I needed after all the excitement of the day before. A leisurely stroll to Herne Hill Market via the Brockwell Park car boot sale - where I found these scales for £2! - before chilling in the park with an icecream. Lush.

6. Lastly, as if the weekend couldn't get any better, in the evening we went to watch The Postal Service play at Brixton Academy. It was a-mazing :) everything I could've hoped for and more - Jenny Lewis was there to sing her parts AND they played some new stuff which sounded sa-weet! I didn't take any pics partly because my camera is crap but mostly because I was having such a good time. Thankfully though, this guy got some good ones. 10 years is a long time to wait for an album tour but The Postal Service was definitely worth it.

Tuesday's Tees - Twenty8Twelve

Some super fancy tees from Twenty8Twelve (worth checking out some of their dresses too - v.pretty).

doll // max

opal // cecily

hamoir // sissy

irving // lour

new york city scans

Last week I fiiiinally got my NYC film developed. These are my favourites.

staring out at new jersey

top: at the fountain in central park

bottom: the ny public library

the high line

further along the high line (can you guess that I was really taken with it?)

top: times square

bottom: on the way to prospect park

the guggenheim museum outside and in

update

Last wednesday I received the most page views I've ever had in one day (mostly thanks to this post). I'm guessing it was a lot of new traffic thanks to Kirsty's blog. And how did I deduce this? Sadly I'm no sherlock holmes so I just relied on good old blogger. And blogger told me that not only did that post get a lot of views, my 'about' page was also a big hit, probably from people wondering what the deal is over here. Makes sense. It's what I do when I visit a new-to-me blog.

I'd not really checked my about page in a while but by god I wish I had. Bottom line is: it'd been neglected. Barely anything had been changed since I started this blog (over 2 years ago) and it made me actually cringe a bit to read it (much like looking back on old photographs of yourself and saying "what am I wearing?!").

But now, now there will be no more cringing! The 'about' page has been updated! And you can see it, in all it's more relevant glory, by clicking there to the right of this post!

Incidentally I also made some new little buttons for my right hand column stuff. I cannot help but doodle.

bank holiday weekend bits + pieces

I do love a long weekend :)

On saturday Mitch and I found ourselves in Little Venice, initially to meet a friend, but in actuality, amongst hundreds of narrow boats which had gathered for the annual Canalway Cavalcade. As a Londoner I am ashamed to say I'd never even heard of this festival and sadly we arrived a little late for all the food stalls and merriment. However, we did arrive in time to step onboard one of the boats! It turns out our friend's parents were taking part in the festival having sailed boated cruised come down via the canals from somewhere in the north of england (a journey that took no less than 18 days!). They v.kindly invited us to join them for some tea and cake on their narrow boat - Uplander II (cool name, no?). I am definitely going to keep an eye out for the Cavalcade next year and you should too if you're in town.

On sunday Brockwell Lido played host to the Modern Movement Design Fair. Stalls and dealers set-up their wares around the pool. There was SO MUCH nice stuff - beautiful scandinavian furniture, awesome 60s/70s lamps, some gorgeous 50s looking fabric. Almost all of it completely unaffordable for the likes of me but it was fun to mooch about. After a bit of convincing haggling, I ended up coming away with a vintage tablecloth (which I intend to use as a picnic blanket) and my friend bought this super cute french book about Romeo the dog. Tres bon!

Sunday evening saw, what can only be described as, a dinner of epic proportions. First off my friend Alex made a gigantic pizza (sadly there are no images due to the fact that we basically inhaled it - it tasted amazing)! Followed by the most delicious blueberry pie ever (lucky I did pause to take a pic but it really doesn't do it justice). I've asked Alex for the recipes for both these dishes as I need the pizza and pie in my life at regular intervals.

Thanks to the dinner from heaven on sunday (which we didn't actually finish eating until about 1:30am - yeah I told you it was epic), Mitch and I did a lot of walking on monday. We headed over to Brixton Windmill and managed to catch a little tour of the building. I won't bore you with tonnes of information but I will tell you this: It is seriously old - built in 1816, the mill is older than most of the surrounding area, including all the houses, the factory site and the prison. And it's holding up pretty well thanks to a lottery funded restoration and the work of volunteers. After a look inside the windmill we walked to Clapham for a stroll around the common and a sit down amongst the daisies. A chilled out evening was topped off by the latest episode of game of thrones.

Also over the weekend I got on with some crochet - my nan recently gave me a bag of wool she doesn't need so I'm making good use of it - and spent some quality time with moriarty. Hope you all had a fabulous weekend too!

if my blog were an outfit

Yesterday, Kirsty, over at A Safe Mooring, posted 'If my blog were an outfit'. Her one matches pretty much perfectly, so much so that I thought I'd have a go on here. Ta-da!

glasses from warby parker // tote bag from people tree // dress from otte // ring from foxtail boutique // sandals from modcloth

I very much want all these things but sadly that dress is sold out (*ahem* it also cost $265). It's more of a spring/summer outfit to match the blog decor rather than the contents but I thought the 'blah blah blah' tote bag was quite fitting in more ways than one :)

Tuesday's Tees - OASAP

OASAP.com was a new one to me. They've got some cracking tees and offer free delivery to the UK. On the downside they're under the impression that one size fits all which, as we all know, is a load of crap. *sigh* I really rather fancied that triangle one.

still corners

I am in love. This is Still Corners.

image source

So I'm a bit late to the party but thankfully just in time for the release of the new album. AND not only have I just discovered this excellent track (berlin lovers ^) but also their whole first album (creatures of an hour) which actually came out two years ago - where the hell was I in 2011?! Anyway, the important thing is I've found it now and quite probably the soundtrack to my summer :)

...dreamy