We grow our own vege.....nearly

I'm not a natural when it comes to gardening. We've spent the last few years in a flat so I haven't needed to know about gardening, but now, now we have a garden, with boarders that need tending to. This morning we took a trip to the garden centre to stock up on some essentials: gardening gloves, pots, tools and most exciting two tomato, one red bell pepper and one chilli plant. That's right, LV and I are going to grow vegetables. It's going to be brilliant, she'll love watering them and watching them grow and I'll feel like a saintly earth mother encouraging her to nurture things. Perfect. I asked the garden centre assistant for some tips and she spent 20 minutes explaining the level of care a tomato plant requires. I
can't remember most of the tips so I'm going to follow my gardening instincts. I'll let you know how we get on.

Chilli & Red bell pepper plant

Two tomato plants

Our lovely vegetable plant collection.

xo.

Two successes in one day...whatever next

Today I worked from home and managed to get a lot more done than I ever do in work. I had to psych myself up to actually sitting down and starting but once I was in the flow it was fine. Success number one happened at lunchtime, I decided to bake red velvet cupcakes, they were relatively easy, and delicious, they weren't red, but I didn't care. I think the  problem was the asda own red food colouring rather than the recommended Dr Oetker, or too much cocoa powder?! They were fab all the same and who knew cream cheese frosting was so easy to make! I'll be trying that recipe again, maybe next time I'll swap the muffin cases for cupcake cases - a muffin sized cupcake is a bit much!

Second success of today was the Lindy Hop class Rob and I went to. It was brilliant fun and Rob was true to his text and he pulled some serious moves out of the bag..haha. Apparently Lindy Hop is a 'social' dance so you have to dance with lots of partners, this freaked me out a bit as the other attendees were pretty wacky looking....but we got the hang of it and had a great time, we'll definitely go again. I wasn't even put off by the guy who had been going for two years and was out of time ALL THE TIME...and had a really sweaty hand...yip. I should have had more faith in us, the signs were definitely there.

Charls wedding 2007

xo.

Inviting...

I have written out, addressed and stamped 25% of our wedding invites and I can't face doing any more, not tonight. We've had a busy few days with wedding related activities, Monday night we talked menus with our venue, Tuesday night we talked prayers and hymns with the vicar and then tonight I had a dress fitting (amazing!) and as mentioned invitation writing. My dress is by designer Claire Pettibone, I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it and very nearly bought it before even trying it on, insane I know but wedding dresses will do that to a woman! I bought the dress 8 months ago and am still totally in love with it, I can't wait to spend a whole day sashaying around in it.

Check out Claire Pettibone's beautiful bridal collection here: Claire Pettibone

I'm mega excited but also a bit exhausted by it all. It's dance night tomorrow night so am super psyched about that. Another reason for feeling totally worn out today is the stress I endured while trying to win another cake stand on ebay (I don't need another cake stand I just like to feed my addiction)...it got a bit competitive in the last minute and even though I won (hurahhh!) I still felt annoyed that I had been drawn into a bidding war in the last minute....don't these people realise I need the stand more than they do?! Luckily I have cupcake ingredients in the cupboard, that should soften the blow (for Rob) when he realises there is yet another cake stand in the kitchen.

Small, yet perfectly formed.

xo.

Pretty wedding inspiration...

[Source] Gorgeous retro sweetie bags

Traditional striped straws - perfect with Pimms!

Perfect car to arrive in - Nissan Figaro (blog madaboutcars)

Lovely Ellajames bunting

xo.

Dreamy Devon...

Devon was a huge success, we had a lovely time, thanks Charl.
We got off to a bit of a rough start, it took us 4.5hours to reach Devon and it was quite possibly the hottest day of the year so far, LV only napped for the first hour, we ran out of water and snacks and LV decided her portable DVD player was rubbish. Super. Apart from the journey down it was brilliant. Saturday we hit the local park, we found some gems in the local charity shop - for me a pink glass bowl and a coffee pot, for Sal a set of fabulous desert bowls and for LV a Winnie the Pooh board game the very same that Sal, Charl and I had as children. We had a picnic, we watered garlic up at the allotment and we made pizza...busy busy. Sunday was just as lovely, we ventured to the park again and then the pub for lunch before Sal and I set off. We made it back up to Notts in a speedy 3 hours, 2.5 of which LV slept like a lamb for! Amazing. Inspired by Charls serious amount of herb/vegetable/fruit growing I am hitting the garden centre this weekend for an assortment of things to grow - LV will love it and can be my chief waterer. I will post progress on this, once some is made.

We love picnics...plenty more to come (hopefully!)

Chief waterer

Focussed

Dancing with cousin Art

See you again soon Devon.xo

Summer is here....

Well, technically it's Spring, but what a gorgeous day! I picked the perfect day to have off work and have been sat out in the garden reading my book and drinking green tea. I've not been lazing around all morning though, I put in a good 2 hours work this morning scouring charity shops for crystal vases for the wedding, didn't find any vases, but I did bag a bargain in the form of a wicked red scooter for LV, a pair of Gap shorts for Art (LV's cousin) and a tartan dress aged 12 - 18 months with the cutest white collar (I have no-one to give this to, but I couldn't resist!). I also popped into a local florist to talk bridal bouquet and bridesmaid bouquet costs....Oh My Days....who knew a bunch of flowers could cost so much! I did at least get chance to have a look at some flowers and think I now know what I'll be going for, how exciting. I love these:

White Crysanthemum

Pink Dahlia flower

White dahlia flower

I'm all about keeping it simple so I'm thinking white and peach crysanthemum bouquet for me and plain white crysanthemum bouquets for my merry maids. I also need to start thinking about the wedding cake, I'm keen for something like this:

The perfect wedding cake with bunting!

Must dash, off to Devon.xo



Hoppin' mad...probably.

So, today I sent the text message destined to crush my dreams it went a bit like this:
"Rob, I've found a beginners Lindy Hop class next Thursday night, will you have a go with me".....I watched my phone, went and came back from a meeting, watched my phone again waiting for a response, the message arrived from Rob:
"Beginners!! They don't call me snake hips for nothing you know, yeah I'll have a go, it'll be a laugh!" . 
AMAZING. So Rob and I are going to give Lindy Hop a go, I've watched numerous YouTube videos over the last few months, even located a local class but didn't have the nerve to raise the subject with Rob, I thought it'd be a point blank refusal but he has surprised me...again. I can't wait, even if it's a disaster at least we can say we've had a go and hopefully we'll have a real giggle trying. I have these visions of us being naturals and whipping around the dancefloor swinging our hips, kicking our feet and waggling our fingers.....it's unlikely, but I can dream. Here's my inspiration:

And here's the photo that convinces me that Rob and I definitely have potential, taken at my sisters wedding in 2007, we are quite clearly budding Lindy Hoppers!!:

....xo