Mayday Fundayz.

So, on Friday, our friend Richard brought down his girlfriend, Fran, to meet us and they stayed for a couple of nights, along with Long, and it was nice. The main thing I learnt from this weekend is that I really, really can't drink how I used to, after a heavy one at the great (but much better when late) Snooty Fox, we spent Saturday night in with The Voice, Britain's Got Talent and 21 Jump Street, being 22+ is pretty wild.

I'm a bit sad that today's weather has been so unpredictable, all I've done is go food shopping, although after all the excitement of the rest of the weekend, I think a day hanging out in the flat is just what Moon and I needed.
Things that were good about this weekend:

My culinary skillz.
After seeing 'Home Cooking Made Easy' last week, I thought I'd give ol' Lorraine Pascale a run for her money with my own version of her cheese and bacon straws, they're as incredible as they sound. I also kind of followed (but mainly winged) a Gizzy Erskine recipe for the sausage rolls. I'm super proud of myself, but shamefully, both were nearly all gone before Richard and Fran even arrived(!)


Tasty drinks and fun games.
I tried Chambord for the first time on Friday and it was much, much tastier than I thought it would be, so Long got us two pretty great house-warming gifts.




Getting 'out-out'.


On Saturday, after nursing our sore heads with a Wetherspoons breakfast, we went over to The Living Rainforest, which is just outside of Newbury. It was okay, but felt like a bit of a rip-of considering it's basically just a massive, sweltering greenhouse, but we bonded over it's short comings and there were some fun things to see, even if there weren't any butterflies. You also get return visits for the one entry price so it's not too bad. Maybe I also didn't care for it much because it was really difficult to take photographs, I don't like the idea of a mouldy camera, plus it's much more fun to take photographs than constantly be wiping steam away from your lens.



Oddly-shaped flowers.


The noise this bird made.


Collective disgruntlement.




Newbury Farmer's Market.




My tomato plants have started growing!
And they've grown a lot just this weekend too. I might have to seek some advice from my Gran as to what to do next, but I'm so happy, not bad for The 99p Store. Sadly, Moon's chilli plant has yet to make an appearance.


This little lady.
She was on her very best behaviour, and didn't wake anyone up with yowling once, although Long did get a pretty bum deal having to sleep in our doorless lounge.



The beef Richard bought us.
All the house-warming gifts our friends have bought us so far have been wicked, but this was the most delicious. Richard picked this up for us from the butchers he used to work at and he definitely knows what he's talking about. This is less than half of it too, but it made for a perfect Sunday evening tea.
This sure was a nice way to spend a bank holiday weekend, I sort of immersed myself back in job hunting a bit today but I'm in a good place, and there's a new episode of 'Girls' to catch up with tonight!
I hope you've enjoyed the first of this month's bank holiday offerings as much I have. It's such a shame we can't really have more people than we did over at a time, we're nearly always thinking about ways to get around it, plus I still love our tiny flat ♥.

Newbury Home.

Hello! I'd like to begin by stating how freaked out I am that in my absence, Blogger appears to have had a complete personality overhaul, we'll see how it goes shall we?

I've spent a lot of this week sat in our new flat watching The Real Housewives of Orange County. What is a girl to do when it's pouring outside and there's no Internet? It took way less time to unpack than I thought it would and we were all done by Sunday evening - in time for The Voice, yes! - and celebrated with a post-unpacking-how-great-we're-moved-in Bucks Fizz toast.

I'll apologise immediately for doing such a 'everything'-heavy post, but it's been a while and I have so much to tell you. My job hunt, despite lack of Internet has been mildly successful and I'm officially signed up with two of the recruitment agencies in Newbury - I'd like to big up Newbury's Reed btw, their staff are fab - and I even have an interview with Crew Clothing on Monday. Don't get me wrong, retail has never been my first choice, but believe it or not this is actually the first shot I've even had at a retail role, as they seem to be just as good at ignoring me as other positions. A photography role I went for in Reading last week sadly wasn't to be, as I'm without a full driving license, but the new home and start have me in a positive mood so I'm not too downtrodden.

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Anyway, I'm sure that what I have to say really isn't thatfantastic, as as I said, I've been vegging out on the sofa all week. So here is our home, and it's becoming more so by the day, I can't wait to have our friends come and stay, we're in dire need of at least one comfortable chair though, which is what Sunday's planned monster carboot voyage is for.
This is from when things were a bit overwhelming. Easily the most boring and annoying thing to unpack was clothes, so repetitive and there's just so much of them.


This is Moon unpacking our bargain-tastic TV table.


This is from the first night, things look a bit different now, but similar. We concentrated on making up our bed and then doing the kitchen/lounge, we needed somewhere to sit once we were bored of unpacking, right?


Snug mug.


Long came to visit us on Sunday, he didn't pick a great day to do it, he's not too far away though so I'm sure we'll see him again soon. I just hope the next visitors we have don't coincide with more bad weather.


We're going to try and grow a few things, fingers crossed.


I promise to take an updated photo once the weather is better, I really love how light the whole flat is. When Long came, he brought us a bottle of Chambord and the cute Rex cushion shown here. ♥


The bluebells and the vase they're in are from my Gran :)


That breadbin is one of the main reasons I'm having a semi-love affair with Wilkinsons right now, and it matches my amazing toaster!


Tea-making station/Kitchen/Dining/Lounge.


Weird thing to move in somewhere and not have a bin, so we had to pick one up. I hated this at first but it is only a bin and Moon was so insistant that we needed something purple for our home.


Garden photo, to be continued...


Bedroom.


That black thing, opens up, I haven't filled my side yet, it did have our bed linen in it until I discovered that even our bed had drawers.


Amazing shelving unit, but thanks to less-amazing previous tenants we can't get a TV signal in the bedroom, I'm sure we'll work something out.


Office/spare room.


Hallway gallery, ho ho ho. ♥


Funny how even though I've moved the same things are still around me, it's pretty good though.


Moon's brother brought these back for him from Hong Kong, so cute!

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It's so amazing to have so much storage, and still have heaps left over. I was genuinely beginning to believe my mum when she was nagging me about how I have too much stuff. I think she'll find that I don't, I can barely fill a two bedroom flat. We have empty cupboards, and shelves and it's great. Although I'm maybe slightly annoying that I'm unable to stay and enjoy our new home's broadband offerings, another reason we're heading back to Surrey (as soon as I finish this) is to pick up little Dolly cat. After planning all week how to approach the issue, I just came out and said it, right after getting down to the business of why the previous tenants had cut off the phone line and how some people just came round and cut down all the trees in the garden - one reason why I've not shown you the garden, but another being because it's currently cold and wet. So yeah, we were looking like pretty favourable so we can keep her, and I'm so pleased.

I hope to keep a finger more firmly on the pulse of things from now on, I hope I've not bored you too much. How has everyone been?