snapshot

★ Reading: The Circle by Dave Eggers. Work's book club choice. 130 pages in and I'm liking it. Alas, my new commute means I hardly get any reading time so I think it's going to take me a while.

★ Watching: Daredevil (bloody as hell but excellent); BoJack the Horseman (I can no longer imagine Will Arnett as anything other than an anthropomorphic horse - it's both funny and surprisingly poignant); the Night Manager (so there's only been one episode but oooooh I'm hooked); Fresh Meat (again there's only been one episode but this is the last series, I have good feelings).

★ Wearing: new boots (bought with birthday money) from asos - they're v.comfy and I like that I branched out and now own boots in ox blood red.

★ Drinking: Mead! A (very) local mead brewery had its first open day last Saturday. Made with only two ingredients - honey and water - I'm a bit of a convert and reckon it'll make a nice alternative to beer every now and again.

★ Making: Mitch got me a load of liberty print off cuts for my birthday and they're the perfect size for hexagons so I thought I'd try my hand at paper piecing. There's something very satisfying about hand sewing and, much like knitting, it's not nearly as antisocial (or loud) as using the sewing machine. And speaking of knitting, I've started another jumper! The plan is to finish it by mid April so I can wear it in Helsinki :)

★ Looking forward to: the weekend, especially as we're off to Brighton. Some of my amazing friends are running the half marathon and we're going to cheer them on.

★  Feeling: more settled in the flat but I'm anxious to get all our stuff sorted and in their rightful place (not to mention putting art on the walls)! Patience has never been a strong suit of mine. I'm also feeling rather great - it's funny how a long awaited haircut can give that little bit of confidence you never knew you were missing.

green

Green is one of my favourite colours - eye colour, clothing, generally 'being' in (ie: forests, countryside etc) and, as it seems, household bits and bobs.

Over the last few weeks we've slowly accumilated hitherto missing kitchen items and soft furnishings to make the flat a more functioning home, including a toaster and frying pan. Green seemed like a reoccurring theme so I did what any blogger would do, I collected together a selection of our old and new green-coloured things and took a picture and, I have to admit, this was a pretty satisfying thing to do (I'm a big fan of Things Organised Neatly)!

Some of my new favourites include the nessie ladle (a house warming gift from my sis) and the Wild and Wolf phone. I realised after I'd put everything back that I actually have more green notebooks (I have many many notebooks) and books for that matter but meh, this was only meant to give an idea the amount of green going on. FYI, it's a fair amount.

Do you find yourself gravitating to certain colours in your home?

banana bread

Since moving into the new flat, weekends have been pretty busy - we've not really got very far with unpacking and now that we're much closer to friends and the centre of London, I mostly want to go out and do stuff. However, last weekend was, what I would call, a rather domesticated one - we did some tidying around the flat (unpacked a few more boxes), Mitch watched the football and I baked a cake and did some sewing. And it was perfect. I'll share my sewing (hexagon paper piecing in case you were wondering) at some point but for now, here's the Banana Bread recipe...

10 oz/ 285 g flour

tsp bakingg soda

a pinch of salt

8 oz / 225g sugar

4 oz / 110g butter

4 ripe bananas (mashed)

2 eggs

3 fl oz / 85ml buttermilk (or semi-skimmed milk mixed with a tsp and a half of lemon juice)

Preheat your oven at 180 degrees. Grease a 20 x 12.5cm / 5 x 8 inch loaf tin and line with baking parchment.

Measure out the flour, baking soda and salt. Combine and set aside.

Cream together the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl. Add the bananas, eggs, vanilla essence and buttermilk/milk and lemon mix.

Gradually fold in the flour mix until nicely combined. Pour into the tin and bake at 180 degrees for an hour. (First bakes in new ovens are always a bit trial and error and an hour didn't turn out to be enough for mine. I turned the heat down to 150 after an hour and 10 mins. The cake ended up taking about an hour and a half!)

Once baked remove from the oven and set aside to cool (but actually, it's best eaten a little bit warm). Perfect with a cup of tea on a Sunday evening :)

twenty-nine

Saturday was my 29th birthday and the short version is: it was fan-bloody-tastic!

If you've got time to hear the long version here we go...

The day started in bed with a cup of tea whilst opening all my cards, followed by a late breakfast (avocado, radish, cucumber, poached egg and minted yoghurt on sourdough toast - it's as good as it sounds) at The Peckham Pelican. Then we hot-footed it over to Greenwich (which is now only a 30 min bus ride away - gah, I love south London), or more specifically the Planetarium to see the Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition which, as always, was incredible! This year there were a lot of amazing shots taken in Norway which has just re-affirmed to Mitch and I that we neeeeeed to go to there :)

We took a stroll down to Greenwich market - mooched about, ate some churros - before going to the Picturehouse to see Trumbo (which incidentally is great and well worth a watch). Then we headed to Brixton's Effra Social for dinner, beers and some unexpected breakdancing! Not me, I might add, rather a bunch of guys who just happened to be there - it was pretty cool.

As you've probably guessed, my first day of 29 was perfecto as were the gifts I received (v.spoilt, me)!

I tend to be very reflective around birthdays - thoughts about what I've achieved (and haven't) in the last year and what I hope to do in the next. 28 was a bit of a roller-coaster year - I started it miserable, unemployed and living at my parents' house and here I am a year later, employed, living in my own place and with a generally more positive mood! So what have I got planned for this, the last year of my twenties? Well, you won't find a "30 before 30" list here, l'm not about to cram a ton of stuff into just one year and to be honest, I've never really fancied one of those lists anyway. I don't like the idea of putting together an age defined list of goals, particularly as I feel like I'm still about 24 anyway. I'm sure people will tell me that there's experiences that "just aren't the same" if you do them when you're over 30 and maybe that's true. However, one thing I've learned about getting older is that I see things differently, I question more and (although it sounds cringey) I know myself better, I feel more capable and confident that I've ever been. If I'd have written a 30 before 30 list four years ago I'm not entirely sure whether much of it would be relevant now, so much has changed. Oh well, I guess we'll never know!

So what DO I want to do this year? A little look at my ideas for 2016 post will give you an inkling but basically I want to have a great time! Whether it be going on holiday, doing more dressmaking (and sewing in general) or getting to know our new neighbourhood (there's a lot going on in Peckham and I intend to eat, booze and explore my way through it). I have a good feeling about the last year of my twenties :)