Spring in my Step.

Last weekend and the weather have put me a little way towards 'getting back on it'. Such a good feeling for a Monday.


For the most part I just wanted to post this to share the photo below; because who would have thought that when we were first getting hammered together at university in 2007 that we would have been sat around the breakfast table on Sunday morning, eating sausage sandwiches and discussing which vacuum cleaner is best (in value + suction, in all seriousness). It really did make my heart feel quite happy. ♥


When selfie sticks go right (y)
Despite the fact that the 6 Nations final meant we spent most of Saturday inside, the whole weekend was a great opportunity to catch up (& eat & laugh & laugh) and I'm looking forward to the plans we've made together this year already. Speaking of which, WHERE HAS THIS YEAR GONE?!





We attempted to get an earlier ferry but after discovering it was rammed pointed the car in a direction to explore for a couple of hours. That's how we found adorable baby cows - who were more than willing to slobber all over any hand that petted them (my hand).



I feel like I've been waiting around a while to take decent photos and while these were all on my phone, they've inspired me to get snapping again and to realise that I actually have quite a few more nice photos from other weekends than I realise (stay tuned). The photographer in me will always think that phone photos are a little lazy but my phone camera is pretty damn great and it's too easy to keep snapping. Still, phone photography is a habit I hope to at least break out of a little by the time we go to Hong Kong in May.

Christmas on the Island.

I do love this time of year, it's such a great excuse to get together. It seems that heading to the Isle of Wight for Christmas has become somewhat of a tradition for Moon and I and I don't think I'd have it any other way.

It's pretty great to have friends that live in nice places to visit. Pip and Stacy are great hosts and we really made the most of our short trip, it was such a nice weekend.


Isn't their cat, Puss, lovely? She's so friendly but she used to be as aloof as Doll, still hoping.



We went to Arreton Barns to kill a bit of time before the rest of the guests arrived, it has not one but two(!) glass blowing workshops, a few cute gift shops, a farm shop and a pretty good penny arcade, as well as one hella sad snowman that we caught dragging his feet to an unknown location on the grounds...










After a beautiful walk up along the headland near Brighstone we headed into Brighstone village to catch their annual Christmas Tree festival, a kitsch celebration held across various locations featuring, you guessed it, a lot of Christmas trees. Each tree was sponsored by different businesses from across the Isle of Wight and they'd each decorated them in their own way. It was hard to pick a favourite but I think I liked Grange Farm's offering best, there were eggs and lots of lights! My picture doesn't really do it justice.






The tree on the left is from the Isle of Wight Donkey Sanctuary, which visited last time.



We exchanged our Secret Santa gifts before heading to a great restaurant called, The Coast Bar where I had my first Turducken and the best crab mousse.






For the rest of the evening we played games, sung along to Christmas songs and watched as much as we could of this video (you're welcome).

A slightly hungover early afternoon was spent in Sandown bowling on the pier and eating chips before it was time to head home.



I'm pretty excited that it's now less than two weeks until I see some of this lot again as usually we go for a few months. For New Year's Eve it will be our turn to entertain and the bar has been set pretty high(!) ♥

You can have a peek at the last two Wight Christmases here and here.

UpdateSchmupdate.

I've been a bit busy doing Christmassy things and catching up on my movie-watching. Here are some photos from the last week.

At the weekend, Moon, Chris and I went over to the Isle of Wight to stay with our friends Pip and Stacy and see our other Uni friends. It was a quick stopover but it was great to see everyone. They live in Cowes, which is lovely, even if they don't know what a carnival is.

Look at my cool 1980s socks that I found at the back of my sock draw, lovely and warm. ♥

As you may be able to to gather from this photo, this is clearly a parade of some sort, not, as advertised, a carnival. It was quite pretty but it was so cold, the kids that were taking part definitely had some guts.

Rather than needlessly following the parade, as the rest of Cowes seemingly was, we decided to go to a pub, which was much warmer and played better music than the one we had had lunch in.

In the morning we went out to a greasy spoon café called Eegons, which was delicious and had a great interior. It also had some cool challenges, Long completed the bronze one with gusto, but didn't look so hot afterwards.

For some reason, Stacy was still hungry when we got back to the house, so decided - as Richard had brought him down 1kg of bacon - to make a bacon weave. It was fine, but then they covered it in cheese, I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever seen bacon in such an unappetising light.

I told you it was just a quick stopover, anyway, we're now in the full-on lead up to Christmas and despite minimal playing of Christmas songs and still not watching 'The Muppets Christmas Carol', I'm feeling very festive. I've got all my wrapping done and I'm well and truly feeling a proper Christmas run down, i.e. lazy and relaxed.

I am in charge of table decorating this year for the second year in a row and picked up this beaut reindeer from Paperchase. I've been feeling a bit let down by Paperchase's Christmas collection this year as last year was so good, but I've still managed to source a few things. I think this will make a nice addition to the table and it's swirly antlers are going to go really well with the swirly christmas tree candle I have from last year. #decoratingnerdend

This is the wrapping paper I'll be using this year. The Hello Kitty one was a bargain from BHS and the others were 3 for 2 from Paperchase, after a lot of rooting. I love the starry one, they're fuzzy, amazing!

I'm feeling a bit groggy today, not sure why but I hope it clears up. No exciting plans at the moment but maybe some nice photo opportunities will come up. I've had a few job leads in the last couple of days which is encouraging as we begin to approach the new year, not sure how much point there is in applying for much as everyone is pretty much wound down for Christmas now...