Sage + Mint.

*and how to easily spend £40 on candles and disappoint your boyfriend.


You might remember back in June when I visited the Wealden Times Midsummer Fair that I was head over heels with Produce Candles and their beautiful packaging. Well, knowing that winter is on its way and that once it gets to this time of year as soon as it's time to turn the heating on and the living room gets darker, it's time to light some candles and start hibernating.

After my sweet friends Kirstin and Dan picked me up a rhubarb Produce Candle to warm our house, I felt confident that Produce Candles really are as good as they look.




A beautiful trio - and I'm sure I can do something fun with the jars once the candles are used up.
So far, despite burning for over 8 hours (and other things candle bloggers say), they're less than 1/3 way through and by the standard of the kind of scented candles I usually buy, I'd say that for their size, that's pretty good.


It's very simple, but I love that they sort of keep with the gardening theme and package the candles with straw-like padding.


Another nice touch, for the record, tomato is delicious!



I Love Produce Candles stocks the whole range of candles, and they're actually also the company from the stall I saw at Wealden Times all those months ago.


The main touch that I love is the tips for growing the plant that your candle smells like. I already have mint and sage growing from plants in the garden but this is good stuff to know for next year's plants.


There are so many to try, but I went for sage and mint as they're my two favourite herbs. I'd be really interested to give radish and carrot a go and I'd love fig if this winter lasts as long as it's supposed to - still, I'm slightly on reserves given that they are pretty luxury. That said, I'd definitely say they're worth it, not only do they smell great but they're made from natural soy wax, which burns much more evenly and slowly than beeswax, so you get to enjoy them for longer. ♥

Blackberry.

It's getting colder and colder, and it looks like most blackberry bushes have been all but depleted in recent weeks. I saw a lot of people were picking blackberries pretty early this year, while I kept holding off and off, and I'm glad I did.


So these were taken during the final weekend in September, back when it wasn't so cold cold. We actually went back again a week later, this time with Moon's dad in tow, coming home with a much better haul.



A big clearing by our road is pretty much all brambles, they were only small berries really but what a treat!
In my opinion, same goes for raspberries, there's not really any better way to eat blackberries than as they come but I've been pinning away finding all sorts of recipes, the first was a blackberry yoghurt cake, which thanks to a loose base cake tin ended up mainly all over the oven door, and the second were some delicious but kind of over-done apple and blackberry crumble cupcakes, I seem to have lost my mojo when it comes to a few things since we moved, and baking can be added to that list.





I wanted to show off my most recent charity shop find, a Monsoon dress down from £80 to £25 from Blue Cross Witney, sadly the pictures haven't quite turned out how I'd like but I'm sure this dress will be getting plenty more outings so I'm not too worried.


Friends and family have blackberry gin to look forward to this Christmas, it's infusing as I type, and we even tried our hand at blackberry jam, delicious but next year we'll definitely need more blackberries.






I find myself very much transforming into a forager once the blackberries come out, in fact on our trip to Wales last month, I was so excited about finding so many, I even brought a bottleful home and made myself a tart.

Now that it looks like winter arriving far sooner than we would like (why is waking up in 7am darkness now a thing?), I'm really looking forward to crumbles, stews and all that other hibernation food. What are some of your favourite autumn-to-winter recipes?

Brizzle Sunday.

Newbury may not be the most exciting place to live, but one thing it definitely has going for it is the fact that it's in the middle of everything we need. Trips to either Bristol or back home to Surrey can be done in just over an hour, and then there's commuting in to Oxford, popping down to the seaside or heading to the New Forest, it's all easy. Not the mention that Newbury generally isn't to bad to hang around either, we've got a John Lewis, don't you know?!

Last Sunday, before going to the Trampled by Turtles gig at Thekla we figured going to Bristol for the afternoon was a good way to make a day of it and Bristol is just one of my favourite UK cities.


We actually walked past a 'street art of Bristol' tour while we were milling around and actually, even though it seems super-contrived, I think I'd quite like to go on one, it seems like a cool way to learn about some of the more established pieces. They do them in Brick Lane too and we overheard some pretty great historical facts last time we were there.





Stumbling upon the Christmas market had us feeling all festive a little before time but it was quite nice, particularly as December moves ever closer and we're probably going to put up our tree some time next week (it's only a month to go on Tuesday, guys!).






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Moon's growing a beard for No-Shave November and currently hating life. I quite like it and definitely think it will get less itchy over time but if he wanted to get rid of it I wouldn't cry over it or anything. Still, that macho pride is getting the better of him and it's here to stay until 30th November.







Some absolute bantersaurus-rex put bubble bath in one of the fountains, chaos ensued and it just seemed to get worse (and more fun) each time we walked past.


We filled our tums with delicious fried chicken from Start the Bus, which didn't quite meet up to our recent Big Society outing but certainly did the job.






There aren't many better ways to spend a late autumn afternoon than browsing the shops before eating lots, this Sunday is a little less about travelling to the city and more about wrapping up and relaxing before a sure-to-be busy week - I'm good with either option really though. ♥