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.

Our Great Space.

The longer days and the recent sunny weather have really made me appreciate our garden a lot; the outdoor naps, the barbecues, it's pretty great. The amount of time I've been spending outside has also made me realise how much time Moon must have spent on his own while I was working at the cinema and he was working a regular 9-5. I really don't think that I spent even half the amount of time sitting on our lawn last year and I'm fairly certain the weather can't have been really all that bad, I think I was just always on the go.

Now we're spending pretty much every weekend together, doing things, seeing people and really using our spare time wisely, even sleeping in counts. I'm not quite sure when or how we got here, but it's quite nice actually.


I finally have French lavender in our garden and it seems to be taking to our (terrible) flower bed too, I hope it grows and grows!



I wish our strawberry plants would give us more strawberries, we only got a few - still much better than last year's mouldy offering - and even though they were only small, they were so sweet and juicy, much nicer than any I've had from supermarkets.



Even though there are ants, alfresco dining is pretty great.




Broad beans were the only thing we could grow last year, and they seem to be thriving again this year too - at least I can definitely grow something ♥


The sunflower that I didn't really look after last year has come back, and with 5 flowers, I can't wait for them all to be in bloom.


I made us refreshing fruity drinks last weekend as at that point it was far too early for Pimm's o'Clock, I knew saving the cocktail accessories from Turkey was a good idea. I can't get enough of mixing the Blood Tonic Cordial from this month's Flavrbox with fruit juices, it makes them extra sweet, with a little mediciney twang in the background, so good!




I guess all that fluff means she's extra hot at the moment, she hates us suncreaming her nose and ears and only walks so far before slumping down - a little pathetic for such a young cat but her recent wuss-puss tendencies also seem to mean she's much more affectionate in this heat too.



Just because we happened to bathe her last weekend - she wasn't happy at the time but seemed a little revitalised afterwards, the cutest E.T I've ever seen.
Being able to lay out on the grass with a pillow and a book, admiring the vegetables and plants we've actually been able to grow this year make me really appreciate how stable things are at the moment, yes, it's not perfect but I'm much happier than I was a year ago. Maybe it's the heat talking, but I just feel good - but still grumpy, and I thought you should know that.

In other, less wispy news, I've entered Belvoir Fruit Farms' Wildlife Photography Competition, since I last checked I was third on the leaderboard, so your vote would be very much appreciated, if anyone even read down this far that is...

Photo A Day April: Day 01

Day 01 — Your Reflection

I guess this is a pretty boring one to start with but my skin is relatively spot-free and definitely makeupless.
I'm sure there are plenty of others but I'm currently following FatMumSlim's Photo A Day April.

NUJ Delegate Meeting roundup.

So, I've had a little bit of time to reflect and catch up on the extreme lack of sleep I had to deal with over the weekend and I have realised what a brilliant weekend NUJDM was.
I've met some great people and if I gain nothing else from working with the NUJ Student Team, I've got that great experience. I don't know what I was so nervous about but now I know I could do it again and for some reason my confidence actually feels as though it's through the roof.
A link to all the work I did has been set up on a profile on the NUJDM 2011 website.

Eventually I'm going to get round to uploading my personal images from the weekend, but I think between editing my profile and looking at other people's articles that that is quite enough for today.

Now it's back to reality and concentrating on starting my project report for my final unit as well as finishing off my RDB, not as exciting as tweeting and photographing all day. I've got some fun things planned for the Easter break but I really do hope that I can muster up the enthusiasm to get this work out of the way, just because, apart from Viva, that's it.
I hope the weather stays nice for me, just because I've basically been underground for 5 days and it would be nice to catch some rays.

Here is a photo of me taken by fellow student delegate photographer, Dougal Wallace, it looks much better than I thought it would when he took it. The girl who thinks that she isn't in the photo is Angie, she was my roommate for the weekend, I definitely want to keep in touch with her.