Friday 12 February 2016

January Cat Lady

I'm sort of from a family of cat ladies, so for Christmas, my sister and I treated my Gran to a spot of afternoon tea at Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium. Since we lost Suzie at the grand old age of 20 a few months ago, I know my Gran has been a little sad - having come to the conclusion that she probably won't get another cat of her own, we thought this might be the next best thing.

Quite a bit has changed about the café since I visited it shortly after it opened back in 2014 but it's still a nice experience. I've heard mixed reviews over the years, with a few complaining that the cats seem bored, that the food was average but I can't say that either time I've visited that that has been the case.




I feel like I've been quite lucky to go when it's not been busy and the cats have been pretty active. There's something so relaxing about petting a cat. Even though most of the cats aren't lap cats, it's not like that's something I'm not used to so it was just nice to be there. The staff were a little more strict about touching the cats while they're sleeping and things like that but other than that it was a really lovely afternoon.





Wookie is still my favourite, with his human face and the fact he's about 15 times the size of a regular cat :)










How cute are these little sandwiches? ^_^










We spent a little over two hours there, unfortunately my sister had work in the evening so it meant we couldn't keep on mooching once we'd finished. My hipster Gran was quite taken with the Sunday markets of Brick Lane.




It's so lovely to sit inside and see how happy people walking by are when the see the cats in the window

I can't really recommend Lady Dinah's enough, we actually weren't the only people to take our Granny there that afternoon either. It's such a cute way to spend a January Sunday

Saturday 6 February 2016

Photo An Hour » January 2016 » 31/01


As I'm feeling a bit more like getting in on the blogging thing, I thought I'd kick it up a gear and do a Photo An Hour.

A few years ago, I did one a month for the whole year and I've been doing them on and off for the whole time I've had this blog, even taking part in the 1 Day 12 Pictures occasionally too.

I do enjoy how they're a little bit of a snapshot into what I was up to at the time. So, without further rambling, here is a Photo An Hour for the last day in January 2016.


9am: // Moon and I are in a pretty solid routine of waking up only a little later than we normally would on a weekday at weekends. Our bed is ridiculously comfortable but it is pretty good, even on a Sunday to feel like you've got up and done some stuff that day. This Sunday was a little bit of a struggle, thanks to the grey weather though.


10am: // Catching Doll in the act – she's actually settled in to the house really well and seems so much happier than she ever was at the flat. Over the winter she's become a bit of an accidental house cat, just because of how the house is, we can't let her come and go as she pleases as much but I think she's cool with it, and actually, she doesn't seem to fancy going out all that much either.


11am: // Taking in a new magazine – I have so much magazine reading to catch up on, Ernest Journal was a nice little find at the Old Fire Station in Oxford. I'll have to head back there to see more of their arts mag collection soon.

Sometimes sitting and watching Sunday Brunch of a morning can do a world of good. And what kind of contemporary couple would we be if we weren't doing that while on our phones?


12pm: // On the road to hit up Banbury for a Sunday mooch.



1pm: // Discovering the lovely Little Amsterdam, Banbury Café of the Year 2015. A lovely restaurant specialising in dutch pancakes, absolute dream for a real-life Sunday brunch.


2pm: // Moon modelling his sweet new cap.



3pm: // Spotting some filming on Banbury town centre, which fooled us into thinking there was a crime scene... I'll tell you, post-Making a Murderer, that fact was a lot more disappointing than it should have been.


4pm // Home again with a few goodies from Tiger.


5pm: // Continuing the Dutch dining theme of the day with a tasty stroopwaffel


6pm: // Playing a new video game, Moon downloaded The Long Dark, which might actually be one of my favourite games ever. I'm not a big gamer or anything but I do tend to dabble, and The Long Dark is not only quite pretty to look at but much more my pace in that I'm not having to shoot anyone and I can completely take my own time - except not actually because I'll freeze to death.


7pm: // Whipping up dinner for the evening, a tasty red Thai curry soup.


8pm: // Sunday night shower with the best shower gel of all time.


9pm: // Sunday night movie, 99 Homes in case you were wondering - you can see my review here.

I'm hoping to stay just as chill this weekend, perfect for this time of year I think, have you got any nice plans?

Friday 5 February 2016

Home » 1 Year On...


It's a year this week since Moon and found, put and offer in and were accepted on a mortgage for our new home and I can't quite believe how quickly that time has gone.

While working on a few things from Google Drive last week, I found the photos I took from when I was showing my Mum the house that I would then go on to show anyone who asked in the lead up to us actually living there and it's crazy to think that we even went for it. It's not that we've changed all that much about the house, I mean, structurally it's exactly the same but we've had to do so much painting and we're still not even finished!

I guess we just really loved the potential, but I'll tell you what, decorating a house is so far removed from the cutesy painting montages from the movies, like, it's the least fun thing I've ever done. I am really happy with the result so far though and even though we won't have been here a full year until April rolls around, it's still pretty fun to see the changes our house has gone through in the last 12 months.

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