House - Warmed.

One down, one more to go...

I feel out of the swing of hosting, still getting used to a new area and how to use our space have knocked my confidence a little but it was so nice to gather some of my closest friends to warm our new home, and hey, it's not even looking that bad - except the front room, but we don't need to talk about that.




*Spot the cat-botherer
Pro tip: if you are hosting a housewarming party, potlucks are the way forward, not only will you be surprised by some of your guest's culinary skills, you'll also have more than enough food to go around.
Starting to wonder how we're actually going to cater for twice the amount of people by ourselves when my family comes at the end of this month (omg!)

It was a nice, relaxing weekend, rounded off on Sunday with a trip to a (not so) local farm because we're left-field like that.




The smallest rabbit I've ever seen. SO SMALL.




In other news, we're on a painting break but even with just our stuff in and no paint, can we just take a minute to appreciate this 'before + after'? Parts of this house are resisting my love but I think the living room has my back ♥

Inbetween.

Here are a few snaps from a few weeks ago, all phone photos, sorry not sorry.


Spring-look.


From an insane 'garden centre' near our new house in Bicester.



My selfie stick gets its first proper outing that isn't just me showing people that I have a selfie stick, not bad.


#Cowfie




Accidental food-overdose at Nelson's Diner
I think for next year I'll work towards staying away from a late-winter slump - a Lumie alarm clock is high on my wishlist (I will also need some kind of bedside table at some point... and a bed).

Work has been busy lately and I've been sleepy but I've also been so lazy and that's not cool. I think with the moving house thing being at a complete standstill I'm a little reluctant to 'do' anything when eventually I'll have to spend money elsewhere, even if it's not right now... also, not all that much I do is 'blogworthy', do people even still say that?

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.