Friday again already  – and what a lovely week it has been! Here are some of the highlights:

1. I collected G and her friend from their first week of NCS last Friday, and was relieved to hear that they had had a fantastic time. They had got on so well with their group, which makes all the difference, so much so that G was missing them by the time we had got home! A good sign, I think!

2. I had a lovely evening out with friends from the village I used to live in on Friday night. It had been ages since I had seen most of them so it was good to get together and have a catch up over a nice meal.

3. B was home for the weekend, as well as G being home from NCS, so we had a lovely family time. It was more relaxed than usual, as B had an inset day on Monday so didn’t have to leave us on Sunday afternoon, as he usually does, which meant that we had a lovely family hot tub session on Sunday evening.

4. B also took the opportunity to make us a delicious cake while he was home – truly yummy!

5. For the first time in goodness knows how long, we had a really lovely, lazy Sunday morning. We had a late breakfast outside of pancakes, fruit compote and coffee, and then followed this with more coffee whilst sitting out in the garden, so didn’t get dressed until past midday. Bliss!

6. Once we had eventually got going on Sunday, we headed out for a lovely walk and drink in the sun at Barton Marina. It was such an unexpectedly beautiful day!

7. So Monday morning saw us departing for the north, to deliver G for her day and a half of sixth form induction at her new school. Thankfully, she had an absolutely lovely time, made some new friends,  got equipped with her new uniform and is now raring to go for September.

8. We then headed off to Harrogate, which we love but have not visited for an age. We had B with us for the first part of our time there, so we had a lovely lunch, again out in the sun, with him before he caught the train back to school.

9. D and I then had the luxury of the rest of the time to ourselves, so we happily pottered and ambled around Harrogate and the surrounding area. We stayed overnight at a lovely hotel – The White Hart Hotel in the gorgeous Montpellier area  – and had a fabulous (and huge!) meal and drinks there on Monday night. It was a truly lovely mini-break.

10. D and I then enjoyed a great night out at the theatre in Nottingham last night to watch “The Play That Goes Wrong” which was absolutely hilarious. It is currently touring the UK so if you get a chance to see it, you really should – a great fun night out!

Anyway, that’s it from me for this week. I hope that everyone has had a lovely one. Happy weekend!

16th June – the day we have been waiting for, as today G finishes her GCSEs! The whole exam period has been remarkably stress-free though, it has to be said – she has just got on with it extremely well and with them being spread over a few weeks, has had plenty of time to revise in between each exam. But it is still very exciting- for her especially, of course, but also for all of us – that they are over! (Well, they will be by 10am!)

Anyway, here are a few more highlights of my week:

1. We went to a great Robbie Williams tribute night on Saturday at Branston Golf and Country Club, which was a good night out – we had a nice three course meal, followed by the act, Dan Budd, who is a very good Robbie (and his Gary Barlow impression is uncanny!).2. We then spent a wonderful afternoon at my sister and brother-in-law’s house, celebrating the upcoming wedding of my niece with the most beautiful afternoon tea. The table was so pretty, with vintage China and roses from the garden, and the food was fabulous, especially the delicious array of cakes. It was a lovely afternoon, and a great way to celebrate.3. Over a lot of serious over-indulging at the afternoon tea, healthy eating had to resume this week – this has been my favourite breakfast of the week, which is a great start to the day – Greek yogurt with honey, homemade nutty cinnamon granola, coconut flakes and blueberries.4. Tuesday evening saw me heading out for a meal and theatre trip with my lovely friends, Hettie and Lindsey. We had a very tasty Mexican meal, then watched “A Judgement in Stone”. We have seen such a huge range of productions at Derby Theatre – comedy, musicals, plays – both “home-grown” and nationally touring – and nothing has ever disappointed. However, this, despite being a Bill Kenwright production on a large national tour, came the closest. The first half was pretty good and we were sufficiently intrigued, but the actual denouement really was rather a let down, with the final lines in the play being quite ridiculous. This did not detract from it being a great night out though with the nicest friends.

5. I have decided that I need to get a rose for the garden, as I absolutely love them and seem to have come across some beautiful specimens this week, from my sister’s very impressive rose garden to ones growing and blooming wonderfully on the wall of the charity shop that I volunteer in, to the “doorway of dreams” that I spotted whilst out and about this week. Stunning.

6. Some simple everyday things have made me happy this week, such as the new nail varnish I bought last Friday – lovely mint colour – and my amazing peonies, which have graced the sitting room this week. Sadly they have now died, so hopefully I can buy more whilst out shopping today.

7. I am very excited to welcome my first customers into my new dog grooming studio next week – I have three Lhasa apsos booked in, so can’t wait to open my doors for business at last! (Hopefully, today really will be the workmen’s last day!)

8. Just in time for the end of exams and the promised hot, sunny weather, we eventually took delivery of our hot tub yesterday! It came early in the morning and so was ready to use later in the day (not soon enough for G’s liking, who kept checking the temperature at VERY regular intervals to see if it was ready!) but we had two sessions in it – G and I tried it out as soon as it (almost!) hit the right temperature, and then again when D came home – our first “double bubble” night – prosecco in the hot tub. I can recommend it!

9. We have been eating a very low sugar diet for quite a while now, and have found some really lovely recipe books over the past few months with great sugar-free recipes in – Fearne Cotton’s and Clean Eating Alice’s are particular favourites – but on Saturday, at our lovely little library, I found two of Davina McCall’s sugar-free cookbooks, which look fabulous, so I am looking forward to trying some of her recipes over the next few days.

10. Well, we are hoping for a really fantastic weekend! We have quite a few “chores” to do, which mainly involve cleaning and tidying everywhere after the builders leave, and getting my studio fully ready to open next week, but we are also going to make sure that we fit in some fun things. B comes home tonight, so we are going straight out for a meal to celebrate the end of G’s exams, then we are hoping that the forecast weather does arrive, so that we can spend lots of time outside, especially on our new garden furniture (once the screws arrive tomorrow – yesterday the furniture arrived but with no fastenings or instructions!) and in the hot tub. Lovely!!

Have a great weekend everyone!

As you know, I love documenting the everyday little things here, as it really makes me  think about the week that has passed.  The time very often whizzes by and I forget to appreciate the tiny moments for what they are, so here are a few things that have made me smile this week:

1. Sunny walks have been few and far between this week – what a washout it has been for the most part. However, the sun has been even more welcome when it has put in an appearance. Let’s hope we see more of it over the coming days and weeks.

2. After being aware of it for a while and then seeing a TV programme about it on Monday, we have eventually tried rooibos tea this week. It is supposed to be very good for digestion, amongst other things, so we thought that it was worth a try. We have so far sampled the original and the Earl Grey varieties, and are suitably impressed. It has a very different taste, but it is quite nice and very versatile – my favourite way to drink it is with lemon – delicious!

3. My favourite meal of the week has to be this seabass with spicy chorizo and bean stew. There are so many amazing flavours involved – and it is good and healthy!

4. We had a lovely family night in on Saturday, to make the most of B’s last night at home before he went back to school on Sunday. We had a takeaway (in fact, we had two – a savoury and a sweet!), watched the final of Britain’s Got Talent (very disappointed with the winner though!!) and then all had a “sleepover” in the sitting room. Great night enjoyed by all!

5. Another hit on the food front this week was this halloumi salad with mango and fennel – light and refreshing and delicious.

6. This week has seen me pushing ahead with the marketing activity for my dog grooming business. I have collected (and begun distributing) my flyers, collected the sign for our gatepost which I am hoping that D will put up this weekend, and have had adverts published in two local free magazines.

7. The rain has caused some delays to the work being done at home this week, but progress is now being made with the patio, which will hopefully be completed by the time that the hot tub arrives next week!

8. I have been interested to ready more about hygge for a while, so was really pleased to receive this book for my birthday a few weeks ago, and I have made a start on it in the past couple of days. So far, so good – I love everything about the hygge manifesto!

9. I bought some stargazer lilies when I was food shopping last weekend and they are now beginning to bloom beautifully. I absolutely love them, as I had them in my wedding bouquet, so I am enjoying seeing and smelling them whenever I go into the sitting room.

10. We have a lovely weekend ahead, which I am really looking forward to. Apart from the fact that G is nearing the end of her exams, which is relieving the pressure and the amount of time that she will have to spend revising, we are going out tomorrow evening to a Robbie Williams tribute night, which should be lots of fun, then we are heading out for a champagne afternoon tea on Sunday afternoon to celebrate my niece’s upcoming wedding, which is very exciting.

So, we have everything crossed for dry weather and sunshine, so that we can make the most of the weekend and work can progress on the patio over the next few days.

Have a great one!

Well, where did this last week go? It has absolutely flown by, so here we are again, with a little round up of some highlights from the past seven days:

1. More healthy new recipes have been tried and tested this week, and all of them have been great hits. Two of my favourites were the Breakfast Bread with homemade Raspberry Chia Jam, and then the Squash, Feta and Pomegranate Salad.

2. This has been a week with a strong focus on family time, with B being home from school. As we have been lucky enough to have some lovely weather, we have spent a lot of time (in-between revision sessions) in the garden – the impromptu obstacle course that G and B set up and did on Sunday was hilarious to watch!

3. This was followed later on Sunday with a fire pit, which we then decided to use to barbecue our evening meal on – unplanned barbecues are the best – and we love eating outside, so it was great.

4. Although Monday was a bank holiday, it was also the final day of my dog grooming course. The past four months have passed so quickly, but so enjoyably – I have loved doing the training, the group were great, and we couldn’t have asked for better trainers. It was an interesting last day – my most unsettled and aggressive dog to date (I still have the scratches and bruises to prove it) – but it was a good learning experience, and we then finished the day with a trip to the pub across the road, where our trainer had organised for some fizz to be waiting on ice for us, which was a lovely surprise. It will be very strange not going for more training next week!

5. Homemade Nutty Cinnamon Granola – the best! I have made a few different granolas over the years, but this new one is definitely my favourite, and is fabulous with Greek yogurt and fruit.

6. This has been a busy week, as my new building, which will be my dog grooming studio, is nearing completion, so D and I have been painting it inside. It is all looking good, so we are getting excited about the final bits being done now – the plumbing and electrical work will be completed over the next few days, the flooring will be fitted by the end of the weekend and my final delivery of equipment arrives today.

7. I have to say that I had been absolutely dreading this week – revision week! G is obviously very much in the swing of revision, being in the middle of her GCSEs now, but it is always a huge battle to get B to see the importance of revising for his exams, so I was expecting lots of stress and frustrations this week. However, on the whole, he has settled to it pretty well, and has done a lot more than in previous years, so it has been a very positive week.

8. My new shoes from Abbott Lyon – love them!

9. Last night saw me heading over to Oakham for a night out with a university friend. We had such a great night – a really good catch up, plus lots of delicious food and drinks – so I can’t wait to do it again in August!

10. It’s June! And the significance of that is that we can say that we are going on holiday NEXT MONTH!! To say I am excited about that is an understatement – St Lucia here we come (soon!).

So here’s to a lovely, sunny weekend (hopefully!). What are you up to?

Well, shockingly, here is my first Happy Friday post of this year! It’s not that there has been a shortage of happy events, you understand, just that life seems to have been running away with me over the past few months, so it has been an issue of time – plus the fact that the camera stopped working on my phone, which left me without the ability to take photos of everyday moments of joy. But I’m back, so here goes:

1. The first one this week has to be the weather! It is currently so beautiful – hot, sunny, blue skies, my favourite – and probably even more welcome after the ridiculous amount of rain that we received last week. As we know, we are all pretty obsessed with the weather in this country, but the variety that we experience really makes us appreciate the “good times”.
2. This obviously makes for some very pleasant dog walks – so long as I get them out before it gets too hot! But few things beat walking in the sunshine.
3. It was my birthday 11 days ago, and D bought me lots of beautiful flowers, most of which are still going strong, so I am loving still seeing them around every day – the colours and fragrances are fabulous.
4. Speaking of flowers, I am a little obsessed with peonies, and we have some stunning deep pink ones growing in the garden. However, because they are situated at the far end, where we can’t see them very easily, I have picked some of the blooms this week and had them in the house instead, where I can appreciate them every day.
5. Much of the busyness of the past few weeks has been down to my dog grooming training that I have been doing for the past few months, as I was working up to taking my exams. However, with my written and practical (100% and 93% respectively) out of the way and only one more training session to go, I am getting very excited about embarking on this new career for real – once we get the building work completed! The photo below shows before and after images of Honey, as she was my practice for my practical exam last weekend (I can’t wait to get all of my equipment out of the garage where, as you can see, it is currently being stored, and into my studio).
6. So our summer holiday is now looming – only 59 days until we go to St Lucia – so a little bit of healthy eating is on the cards. It is much easier to eat healthily in this sunny weather though, I find. Here are two of my favourites from this week – porridge with apple, pecans and maple syrup, and a summer salad made from lovage from the garden, prosciutto, peaches and halloumi.
7. Of course, life is too short for missing out on all treats though, so we have been enjoying some new gin cocktail recipes recently. This one is proving very popular – gin, ginger ale, with a piece of homemade honeycomb in – amazing!
8. So it has not just been me taking exams recently – G is currently in the middle of her GCSEs. She is working incredibly hard, so I hope that she does well. Some of the exams seem to have been quite challenging but her spirits are high and she is certainly doing her best – we are so proud of her.
9. We now have half term upon us, so B will be home tonight for the week, so we are looking forward to both of them revising hard during the day time (B has school exams as soon as he returns after the break) and then plenty of family time in the evenings.
10. The final one for this week is the great night out that D and I had last night watching Rory Bremner’s Partly Political show at the theatre. He is a fantastic impressionist (his Donald Trump was THE BEST!) and so funny, as were the two performers on with him, comedian Fred Macaulay and impressionist Jan Raven, so it was a really good night.

So, hopefully it won’t be another almost 6 months until I write again – it’s good to be back!

Well, it’s been a while! The last few weeks have been so busy, with our Caribbean trip, half term breaks and then catching up with real life, that I haven’t had any time to post any updates here. So, better late than never, a little round up of the highlights of the past few weeks:

1. Obviously, our trip to Grenada has to come first! G and I had an absolutely lovely time – to say the least! We spent most of our days lying by the pool reading, making the most of the 30 degree heat, with regular dips in the water. Unfortunately, the sea was too rough while we were there for us to be able to try out our new snorkels, but we had lots of fun on G’s birthday present inflatables – I have to say, the unicorn was incredibly comfortable and relaxing! We did take two trips out whilst there too, which were really fun – one a jeep safari and river tubing, then another into the capital for the market and a visit to the House of Chocolate.

Well, last week turned out to be a pretty quiet one, hence the lack of blog post – not a bad week, but just not too much happening, but there have been plenty of things to make me smile over the past few days, so here goes:

1. The weather has definitely changed over the past week or so, and now feels truly autumnal. I have still been loving the bright sunny days, especially good for dog walks, but I’m also pretty happy that it’s got chillier, as it’s the perfect excuse to cook some delicious seasonal fare. The highlights have been the butternut squash soup with cheese and herb scones, and the pear and almond cake – yum!

Well, how we got to the last day of September so quickly I’m really not too sure, but here we are! The weather has definitely felt more autumnal this week, which I am pretty happy about – much as I absolutely loved the long summer, I am definitely ready to embrace the boots and jumpers now required (well, for the next two weeks anyway, until G and I fly off to the Caribbean for our little holiday!).

Anyway, the highlights of the week:

1. First this week has to be the gorgeous snowberries that I bought last Friday. I always buy fresh flowers when I do my weekly shopping on a Friday morning, so I opted for these beauties last week – they are so pretty and even G commented on how lovely they were when she first saw them