sleeping on my own...

...turns out I'm not very good at it. With Oscar working away every second week, I've had the house to myself and some serious 'me' time. It never occurred to me that I would struggle to sleep on my own. For the last two nights I've still been awake at 3am and spend the rest of the time tossing and turning. It's not that I'm not snoozy either...I'm so sleepy that I'm yawning my head off, but I soon as my head hits the pillow, it's all downhill from there. I can't switch my brain off. I keep hearing strange noises. I find myself actively listening for said strange noises. I listen out for robbers and intruders....surely this is not normal?!

I've tried all the usual tricks...no caffeine, switching off from my phone/laptop etc., reading my book before bed, but nothing seems to work. As soon as Oscar comes home, my sleep goes right back to normal. Does anyone else have this problem? I would really appreciate any tips/tricks/insight into why sleep has suddenly started to elude me and why my brain suddenly thinks that I can't cope on my own. Any ideas and positive sleepy vibes would be greatly received!

Yours,

A seriously sleep deprived Lou x

{photo credit}

E S C A P E :: to the Lakes

This weekend just gone, O and I decided to test our new tent out and escape to the Lake District. We (Oscar) packed up the car and drove down straight after work. We'd chosen Sykeside Campsite right in the heart of Dovedale Valley to pitch our tent in for the weekend. The campsite itself was great. Plenty of amenities and with two pubs attached, what more could you need?! There were lots of sheep with their little lambs roaming about and we'd been warned about badgers, but I didn't managed to spot any. On a side note, I really wanted to take a little lamb home with me, but Oscar wouldn't let me :( He said that it's Mum would miss it, which is true I guess...but I'm pretty sure it would be happy living with me! The campsite was a little too busy for our liking, so next time I think we'll seek out a smaller one, but we couldn't fault the location. We were literally at the bottom of a valley surrounded by the fells. Waking up to such a sight and then watching the sun set behind those great mountains and hills is something I won't forget in a hurry.

We had checked the weather forecast before leaving and knew that we were in for a wet and windy weekend, but luckily our new shiny tent stood up to Mother Nature. We had no service on our phones, so we switched them off for the entire weekend and relied on our trusty camera for taking photos. I didn't take as many photos as I would've liked, but to be honest, it was just lovely to enjoy ourselves without any technology for a change. Switching off and spending time mindfully with each other is just what we needed. 

We started our weekend off in Ambleside to visit our favourite little bakery, The Apple Pie. If you've never been, the food here is amazing and the cafe is so cosy. I really recommend it, even just for the pastries alone! We then decided, in true Oscar and Louise style, to visit the local distillery and brewery! We've been to the Hawkshead Brewery before and it's now become one of our favourite haunts in the Lakes. It's a little tricky to get to, but the beer and food is really worth the trip. The Lakes Distillery only opened last year, so we were keen to visit an English whisky distillery! 

The distillery setting and buildings are beautiful. The tour itself was a little expensive considering the distillery wasn't in production, we spent a lot of time watching videos and we weren't allowed to take photos. But it is a young company, so hopefully these things will improve. The whisky we tried (and that they sell) is a blend, as their single malt is still maturing. For a blend is was actually lovely, which surprised me! They also distill vodka and gin and let me tell you, the gin is fantastic. We may have added a few bottles of whisky and gin to our collection! The distillery has a restaurant attached, so we decided to stop here for some lunch. Alas, Oscar had been making poor food choices all weekend and accidentally ordered a salt beef salad, which he thought was a sandwich. So even though the food was pretty good, poor Oscar left feeling still a little hungry!

The brewery didn't disappoint! Oscar ordered a Ploughman's lunch platter to make up for his disappointing salad and we had a few half pints of their finest beer whilst almost falling asleep on the comfiest leather sofa known to man. I'm a huge fan of their lager, but Oscar is more of an ale and bitter man! 

We found a Booths supermarket in Windermere to stock up on some late dinner essentials. We bought enough antipasti (antipasto?) ingredients to feed an army, and of course some red wine and beer to go along side it. The cheesemonger was really spot on with his recommendations, as the brie, stilton and cheddar we bought were seriously droolworthy. We spent the evening slathering crusty bread with butter, cheese and salami whilst drinking said red wine out of our camping mugs. Unfortunately it started raining around 8pm, so we had to retreat inside our tent and watch the sunset through our little windows. We whiled away the hours playing Scrabble and cards, before falling asleep to the sound of rain hitting our tent. Isn't that sound the most therapeutic? This little escape was just what the doctor ordered before O heads down to Norfolk this Sunday. Now that we've got this camping malarkey down, we're planning on heading up to the Highlands with our tent for a few days when O comes back home. Oscar is trying to persuade me that he'll need to buy a few more camping essentials first...any excuse! ;)

How were your weekends? Have you been camping recently? I've been a little blog awol lately, so would love to hear about your adventures and news :)

Sunday Mornings #28

It's been a while since I did one of these posts, hasn't it? I thought this would serve as another little catch up since things have been fairly quiet at my end recently. Getting back into full-time work after having a gap year is HARD! I've mainly been falling asleep on the sofa at about 9pm...some nights even at 8ish! The job isn't fantastic, but it's only temporary and I have so many things to look forward to once July hits, so I'm sure it will fly in! Here's how my week's been...

:: Coming home to dinners made by O has been lovely this week! He's been getting home first, so has been on dinner duty and I love it! 

:: Buying a new tent. We have a little 3-man tent that we use when we want to pack light and just pitch our tent up anywhere we like, but we decided we wanted a bigger one. Yesterday we headed to Go Outdoors and picked up a nice 4-man one that's tall enough to stand up in and has lots of space. It even has a carpet...who knew! We've decided to make the most of this new purchase and head to the Lake District next weekend! We're both working this bank holiday, but I have a sneaky three day weekend next week. We may also have bought some fancy new camping chairs, a table and of course some camping coffee!!

:: Greek burgers and Oreo milkshakes after a morning at work. Best lunch ever yesterday! Seriously can't get enough of Oreo milkshakes at the moment.

:: I may have gone a bit crazy with Korres shower gels at the moment. I'm just love Korres products. The lemon and basil body milk was my favourite, but I now have four more scents to try, so I shall keep you updated! 

:: Reading before bed. O and I haven't read for months, maybe longer. We've made it our mission to read a few chapters before we go to sleep. I usually only manage a few pages before I nod off, but O has been powering through chapter after chapter. It's such a lovely way to end your day.

:: Planning future holidays. We have so many little trips planned for nearer the end of the year and I can't wait. After cancelling Canada, we need some little breaks. 

Today we're planning on pitching our new tent in the back garden...as I little dry run, you see! If the weather stays dry we might take a drive to Turnberry to check out Donald Trump's golf course and hotel! How have your week's been? I'm seriously behind on the blog reading front, so I'd love to hear about all your adventures :)

Life Admin...

Well hello there...it's been a while! As you can probably tell, I've taken a little blogging hiatus. It's not blogging, it's me you see. So much has been going on lately that blogging has just had to take a back seat. When I'm stressed/nervous/excited everything else has to stop so that I can process whichever big thing is happening. This time there have been a few big things going on simultaneously, so there has been a heck of a lot of life admin...let me fill you in.

The first major thing that happened is that Oscar got a job offer which was so good that we just couldn't refuse it. This new job just happens to be in NORFOLK! So we will be packing up our things once more and heading back down to the east coast of Englandshire for some new adventures! I am pretty excited about this for many reasons, but really I've just missed living in England! 

I know you must think that we move a heck of a lot...and to most, we do. But whilst we have no real commitments or responsibilities, we want to be able to explore, have adventures and truthfully...go where the work is. These jobs are slowly setting up a future that we both can't believe we're lucky enough to have access to. Within the next year or two we should be able to finally buy the house of our dreams - I've almost persuaded O to let me buy a big ramshackle house in the country with gardens huge enough for at least two or three dogs to roam around in...and maybe a few chickens! Once we move I'm finally going to learn to drive (I've been promised a nice car if I do, nice little incentive there!), take a photography course and hopefully find a yoga class to start going to. 

As if that wasn't enough to digest, I got offered a job the day after O did. Luckily, they were kind enough to offer it to me on a temporary basis so I was able to say yes to it. I'll be helping out at a local opticians until around mid July. My first day is tomorrow...how will I cope working full-time again?! ;)

On a slightly disappointing note, we've had to postpone our Canada trip next month :( Rubbish, I know, but we have so much going on that it just wouldn't be feasible to go. We were very lucky to be able to postpone our flights til later in the year and we managed to get full refunds from all our hotels etc, so we haven't lost anything by cancelling. 

Just to blow your minds a little more, O's family are organising a trip for us all next summer to...BARBADOS! Yup, we were given this little surprise on the day I got offered my job (many head explosions were had). So even though we've had to cancel one holiday, we've got another in the bag!

Moving down south is probably going to take a few months to organise. O's start date will be in June sometime, which means there will be a slight overlap. I'll stay up here whilst he heads down to Norfolk to start his new job. To begin with he'll be working one week on and one week off. This means that he'll be able to come back home to Scotland every other week. I'm so relieved about this, as I was dreading living in the bungalow alone for a few months. Once I finish work, we'll start looking for somewhere to live. We're both thinking of Norwich at the moment, but we have plenty of time to explore all the areas before we make up our minds. We might need help from any of you lovely people who have knowledge of the area! :)

So that's pretty much everything summed up for the moment and the reason why my little corner of the internet has been so quiet lately. I'm not sure how I'll cope with working full-time and blogging, but lots of you make it look easy so I'm sure I'll be grand! 

Now I'm off to spend my last day of freedom food shopping and catching up on all your lovely blogs! If you have any Norfolk recommendations for...pretty much anything, please be so kind and leave me a comment below. :)

My Morning Routine :: Yoga, Coffee + Lemons!

Routine and I have a complicated relationship. When I don't have any routine to speak of, I crave it. When I do have a routine, I feel trapped in it. What's a person supposed to do with that?! After many years of slipping in and out of various patterns, I think I've finally nailed it. I can get myself out of bed and after a few steps feel vaguely human and ready to face the day. Here are my daily rituals...

Recently my lovely friend Megan introduced me starting my morning off with hot water, honey and lemon. There's loads of health benefits to this (give it a google if you want to learn more), but it really does just wake me up...simple as that! Once Oscar leaves for work, I get up and make this little wonder drink and then climb back into bed to drink it. I'd love to say that I didn't scroll through Instagram and Snapchat, but alas I'm guilty of doing both of these first thing in the morning! Hands up who doesn't?

Once my honey + lemon and my social media scrolling if finished, I get into my yoga gear, grab my mat and block and head on into the living room. If I was clever, I'd set up my yoga stuff the night before, but I'm not that wise! So every morning I push back the sofa and spread out my mat. I get YouTube up on the TV and click on Adriene's channel. Yup, still addicted to her and her channel (girl crush, anyone?)! I think I'm on day 27 of her 30 Days of Yoga program. I love starting my day with yoga. Yup, there are some days when I'm not feeling it, but even Oscar notices a difference in my mood when I don't get on the mat. Plus, we all know how amazing that post-workout feeling is! Normally I'll do anything from 30 - 40 minutes of yoga and if I'm feeling a little cray cray, I'll do some Fitness Blender shenanigans too!

If I'm not on a fast day (you can read more about 5:2 here), I'll usually make the porridge of champions. There's no real recipe to this, I pretty much just through in whatever I have in the kitchen. Normally this involves banana, maple syrup and a little dollop of peanut butter, you know...just for good measure. 

If I am fasting, then I'll normally just make myself a coffee. There's nothing better than the first coffee of the morning! I've been seriously loving Taylor's of Harrogate's Columbian blend these last few weeks. I've also started storing it in the fridge and it's really making a difference to my coffee. We have zero room in our kitchen for a fancy coffee machine, so at the moment I use my moka pot and a Nespresso milk frother. On fast days I only have a little lick of milk, still not ready for the world of black coffee yet! Generally my coffee drinking is accompanied by more social media or some YouTube videos. Once the coffee is drunk, it's time to get off my butt and start whatever plans/chores/work I have for the day.

So, that's how I start my day...how about you? What little morning rituals do you have? 

C A N A D A

Just in case I haven't harped on about it enough over the last six months...O and I are off to Canada on June 22nd! ;) We're travelling between Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City, so I'm looking to you lovely people for some recommendations! Toronto and Ottawa are like second homes for me, but Montreal and Quebec City are brand new! So if you know of anything we should see, eat, drink (I'll be having all the poutine!) or visit in any of these amazing places I would love for you to share it with me. We would especially be interested in tasty food places, coffee shops and beer joints...you know me!

 

Thanks in advance friends! :)

 



Life lately {in verbs}.

It feels like such a long time since I caught up with life in general on here. I've missed a few of my 'Sunday Morning' posts lately, because life just gets in the way sometimes, you know? I've not been up to many exciting shenanigans recently, but thought we could check in on life's little mundanities today? Let's go!

E A T I N G :: a lot of omelettes and birthday cake. Can't beat a Colin the Caterpillar cake!

D R I N K I N G :: Coffee. I'm loving Taylor's Columbian blend at the moment, it's a morning game changer. Also thanks to my lovely friend Megan, I've been starting my days off with a little hot water, lemon and honey. She assures me the benefits are a plenty and it genuinely perks me up enough to get my yoga on.

L I S T E N I N G :: to the radio in the kitchen. I've moved one of our DAB's in here and I love pottering away with it playing in the background.

W A T C H I N G :: New Game of Thrones, The Island (I'm no Bear Grylls fan, but I'm addicted!), Nashville and Mr Selfridge...a little late to the party I know!

R E A D I N G :: not much at the moment...any recommendations?

P L A N N I N G :: Our Canada holiday next month! I can't quite believe it's come around so quickly. If you have any must do's for Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal or Quebec City, I'd love to hear them!

C E L E B R A T I N G :: O's birthday. I planned so many little surprises for him, it's good to keep him on his toes! Right now he's on his way down to Staffordshire for a weekend long paintball festival. That boy has more hobbies than I've had hot dinners!

W A I T I N G :: On my friend coming over to stay for the weekend. We have many girly things planned and the fridge might just be stocked full of tasty morsels and wine!

W E A R I N G :: Mainly yoga pants and the new slip on Vans I got for holiday times. Not sure it's a great combination to be honest, but it's a comfy one!

B U Y I N G :: a new tire for the Volvo, some ice skate laces for Oscar and possibly some Birkenstocks...are they really that comfy?!

L U S T I N G :: after all of Chloe's cocktails she keeps posting!! 

P O S T I N G :: Continuously on Snapchat...I'm addicted! You can find me on there @weezyduffy, my apologies in advance!

H O P I N G :: The rain will stay away this bank holiday weekend....

R E A L I S I N G :: That the rain will come either way... :(

B A K I N G :: ViviannaDoesMakeup's cookie monster cookies for Oscar's festival. May have had a few myself...

W O N D E R I N G :: How long a can wear my hair in a pleat without O mocking me...

C R A V I N G :: Pizza. Always pizza. Oh and doughnuts. 

L O V I N G :: Yoga! I honestly can't get enough of it at the moment. I literally jump on the mat as soon as I've finished my hot water with lemon and honey every single morning. I think it's definitely helping with my back issues too. Oscar even commented that I'm grumpy if I miss a day...ha! Still using the Yoga with Adriene videos. She is a total babe and even makes me feel like a little yogi!

What's life been like for you lately? :)