Sunday Mornings #30

I suppose this post should technically be called 'Sunday Afternoons' since I'm typing it at 5pm, but I'm sure you'll let me off with a little late one, won't you?

It feels like forever since I did one of these posts. Five months to be exact! I can't believe it's been so long. So I think we should use this to have a little November catch up. (Can you believe November is almost over? How did that happen??). 

It's been over a month since we moved to Norwich now and it actually feels like we've been here much longer. The house is finally coming together, we have some new furniture arriving in a few weeks and I'm slowly trying to persuade Oscar to let me put some Christmas decorations up. I've managed to start burning some Christmas candles without him noticing, so you never know...

We're making a conscious effort to start exploring our new surroundings a little more. On Monday we went to Horsey Beach to see the little seal pups and oh my goodness, I think it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. I kind of expected just to be able to see the seals off in the distance, but they're actually right there on the beach in front you. There were hundreds of them. We took some photos, so hopefully I'll get a post up about it soon. But if you're in the Norfolk area, it's seriously something to tick off the bucket list. We've also hit up some of the shops in Norwich city centre too, of course. I'm a fan! :)

Last week we got a little crafty and decided to make our own candles. I thought it would be a real faff, but honestly it was really easy and I was pretty impressed with our finished products. I may be stocking up with some Christmassy scents to make some homemade pressies!

I have been counting the days til advent begins. The lovely Mr bought me a Liberty beauty calendar and I am dying to open it! I've somehow managed not to google what's inside, but I don't know if I'm strong enough to wait until Tuesday to open the first little drawer! 

Both O and I have been eating to much healthier since we moved. I've been meal planning like a fiend and we're trying to stay on the healthy wagon until Christmas eve. I even bought a spiraliser from Lakeland...what has become of me? I'm trying to persuade O that we should invest in an ActiFry, but I'm not sure he's convinced. Do any of you lovely people have one? Would you recommend it? 

Oh one last thing, lets talk about what TV you've been watching. I need some recommendations! I just finished Jessica Jones (brilliant), and about half way through Newsroom (amazing - West Wing fans will love it!). Oh and can we talk about how happy I am about Luther coming back? Far too excited!

Sunday dinner is now calling me, so I'll sign off for now. Let me know how your life has been lately, I've missed you all! Hopefully it won't be five months until my next post! 

5 Things I Want to Make More Time For.

{Full disclaimer: I have totally pilfered the idea for this post from the ever lovely Estée Lalonde.}

When I was trying to make my list of 5 things, the first one that popped into my mind was pizza. Can I have that? Let's be honest, everyone needs to make more time for pizza. You know how it goes, there's always stuff that you want to do but never actually get around to it. I probably have more spare time on my hands than the average human at the moment, yet I still don't seem to do the things that I keep putting off. So here is my bonafide list of things that I want to make more time for.

1. Exploring.

What with all the moving and job changing, O and I have put adventuring on the back burner recently. But now that we're living in a new city, we have plenty of opportunities to explore - starting with the little coffee and pastry food truck in the local park. We will hit that up this weekend! PS If you have any Norwich or even Norfolk recommendations, please comment below!

2. Reading.

I have about five unfinished books on my bookshelf at the moment. Whenever I get time to read, I always think of something else that I should be doing. I used to love reading before bed, but I've gotten out of the habit of it lately. My mission is to finish at least one of them in November.

3. Yoga.

I used to jump on the mat every single week day religiously in the summer. But again, I've let this slip recently and my downward facing dog looks more like a snoozy poodle these days! It probably doesn't help that my yoga mat is still lying in an unpacked box in the spare room. I want to do Adriene's 30 days of yoga cycle again to get me back into the flow. 

4. Offline.

Oscar and I are both guilty of being slaves to our phones/iPads/laptops/Xbox's. Before we moved we used to eat dinner on the sofa and watch many many episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Now that we have a dining room, we eat dinner at the table without our phones. We actually speak to each other now (shocking I know). I waste so many hours being online doing absolutely nothing when I could've been finishing all those books I have on the go. I need to turn off my devices and be more productive. Sorry Netflix. 

5. Date Nights.

These have been pretty few and far between of late. We usually try to have one at least every two weeks, but I actually can't remember when our last one was. Tomorrow evening marks our first date night in Norwich. We're off to see Spectre and then for some dinner. I think we just need to pencil these dates into our diaries like any other appointments so that they don't get forgotten about. 

How about you lovely people? What do you want to make more time for? I know at this time of the year, some sofa and blanket time will also be high up on my list...along with ALL the pizza! 

Almost at home in Norwich

I come to you today from a very raining Norwich. It's so dark outside that I've had to switch the lamp on...and it's only 12pm! Hello Autumn! For those of you who don't know, a few weeks ago we packed up all of our belongings and said goodbye to our little seaside bungalow in Scotland and headed south to Norwich to start a whole new chapter. If you've been around these parts for a while, you'll know that the Mr and I tend to move about on a regular basis. Normally for work reasons or sometimes just for a little adventure. So here I am, planted on the sofa in our new living room trying to write this post (on my shiny new MacBook Pro - thanks O!) whilst O plays a very loud Assassin's Creed game on his Xbox One. Don't worry, he's leaving for work in a minute or two, so soon I'll be able to concentrate on the task in hand!

Right now I'd say we're about two thirds of the way through the unpacking. We're in that in-between stage of grabbing things from boxes and suitcases and throwing anything we don't have a place for yet into the overflowing spare-room. I'm sure we'll get to that eventually! We've pretty much got a semi-livable living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom, which I think is pretty impressive. I did try to assemble an Ikea Alex drawer set on my own this morning, but lets just say that flat-pack DIY is not my jam. 

I'm slowly getting used to our new surroundings, we're about twenty minutes walk from the city centre (within the Golden Triangle apparently). I think we've got the best of both worlds with being super close to the city (shops!) and having a huge leafy park right around the corner (where I took that photo right up there). Did I mention that we now have Deliveroo and super fast broadband (thanks Virgin!)? I think those are two very important facts that you should know about our new home! 

There's definitely something to say about feeling 'at home'. For me it's all about comfort, security and some sense of familiarity. I think you leave little pieces of 'home' scattered all over. If you search you'd likely find mine in a few places: in Scotland, Toronto, Manchester, the North East and good old Essex - to name but a few. Where are your home(s)? Norwich is slowly beginning to feel a bit like home already, especially with our furniture and little trinkets finally being unboxed. 

Once I unpack my camera and have a little more time to do some exploring, I hope to get back on to this blogging wagon. Sorry for my lack of 'being here'. See you soon! :)

3 + 1/2 {and a little wedding chat}

Today is our three and a half year anniversary! This little date snuck up on me this time and it wasn't until yesterday that I realised. How are we celebrating? O is in London at the beer festival with his old work buddies and I am staying with the parents, as I'm helping out a friend with some work early tomorrow morning. I am so looking forward to a little reunion tomorrow evening, where we shall be ordering pizza, getting comfy on the sofa and watching some trashy TV (or O will no doubt try to get me to watch Blade Runner again without falling asleep...).

 

We did manage a little date night last night, as we had booked a last minute hotel in Glasgow (O had a super early train to catch in the morning) and went out for some Greek food. I seriously can't get enough of Greek food at the moment, anyone else with me? So much so that I've almost persuaded O to book a little villa somewhere in the Greek islands for a week. Almost.

 

This coming December we'll have been engaged for three whole years (I know I know, shotgun engagement! But when you know you know, right?). With all our moving around, our wedding has pretty much been put on the back burner, but we finally have some (secret) plans in place. We've decided on the ceremony, have an almost date (2017 - we have Canadian and Barbados holidays booked next year) and just need to narrow down a reception venue/country! It's hard work wedding planning when your friends/family are scattered all over the world...but we're getting there. What I can tell you is that we're going for a low key affair and that O has already planned his outfit. He's way ahead of me in that respect!

 

At the moment I'm pretty much obsessed with honeymoon planning. We have a huge travel to do list and narrowing it down is proving a little harder than we thought. So if you have any recommendations, we'd be more than grateful to hear them! :)

 



Camping! {+ a video}

Did I mention we bought a new tent? Well we packed up our shiny new car this past weekend and headed to Tarbert for a few nights under the stars. Before Oscar and I met, he used to be one of these minimalist campers. These days however, he has more camping swag than Go Outdoors! I have to take most of the blame (credit) for this, as sleeping on the hard ground is not my thing. So instead, we compromised and bought a heck of a lot of new camping gear. We now have a much bigger tent, some seriously comfy camping chairs and a huge blow-up mattress (amongst many other glamping accessories!). We tested the new tent out in the Lake District a few months ago and on Sunday we pitched our little canvas (is it even canvas?!) home up in Port Ban. 

Our campsite was right on the west coast (near Tarbert) of Scotland and we literally pitched up right next to the beach. I genuinely don't think I've ever seen anything to rival these views. We took a shed load of food with us, but of course decided to drive 16 miles to find the nearest fish and chips! 

If you fancy seeing a little more of our trip, I might've just made a video of all the best bits! You can find it right here...

I'm still trying to find my way around filming and editing, so if you have any tips, please let me know! Please do like and subscribe if you like it! Thanking you kindly! 

P.S. Please forgive me for the Crocs...they really are the ugliest thing I've ever worn, but they are the best footwear for camping (my Birkenstocks got soggy at the beach!)... #sorrynotsorry

Video :: Glasgow!

So I know I've been a little AWOL on the blog front lately. What with the move and all the craziness that goes along with it, I've had to put my blog mojo to side for a while. However! I have made a little video of a Glasgow adventure! Now go easy on me and excuse my shaky camera and editing, I'm a YouTube newbie! I used iMovie to edit this one, but the Mr just installed Premiere Pro on his big boy PC, so I think I might give that a go...if I decide to give this YouTubing thing another go! Hope you enjoy! 

Oh and you can subscribe to my channel here if you fancy! :)

thirty four

Last Thursday {July 2nd, in case you want to pop it in your diary! ;)}, I turned 34. Oscar arrived home from Norfolk at about 1am on said Thursday and then promptly swept me away to a little surprise getaway. He was very naughty and booked us into The Midland in Manchester for three nights, along with a ten course (you heard me right, TEN COURSE!) tasting menu at The French by Simon Rogan. The hotel was beautiful of course and the dinner was actually the best food I've ever tasted. The plates were the prettiest I'd ever seen and there may have been an optional cheese course with an obligatory gin or two. We decided on a no phone rule during dinner, so alas, I have no photographic evidence, which is pretty much how the whole weekend went! 

Of course, we couldn't not go to Moose Coffee for breakfast every single morning. Their pancakes and french toast are *almost* as good as their Canadian counterpart and their coffee is legendary (they sell their own beans too!). If you're looking for a secret little lunch spot, Pancho's Burritos is amazing. Oscar had the lime pork burrito and I had the burrito bowl. Serious value for money and the portions are huge!

We bumped into a few of our friends in the city and had some serious belly laughs over copious pints of Deaf Mermaid (amazing Brewdog beer) and Rosebud cocktails (we had these in the Alchemist). We also hit up Red's True Barbecue one evening, because some days you really need all the BBQ that's going! We loved it, the ribs are seriously drool-worthy and their own craft beer is perfect on a hot summer's day. 

We finished the weekend off with even more BBQ at O's family's. A lot of burgers, steaks, cake, beer and cider were had before we almost missed our train back to the city! Props to O's Mum and Dad for an amazing spread, as always and to Holly the dog for keeping us entertained with her digging skills!

No trip to Manchester is complete without a trip to the Trafford Centre where we popped into Selfridges to buy a birthday Nespresso machine (as if I hadn't been spoiled enough...hello all the Charlotte Tilbury make-up!). I can honestly say that I'm in love with this little beauty (caffeine shakes optional!). 

You wouldn't be wrong in thinking that the weekend revolved around food and the odd alcoholic beverage. It's pretty much what O and I do best! All in all, turning 34 wasn't as painful as I imagined and with all the exciting things we have coming up later this year, I have a hankering that it's going to be a good 'un!