When I went to bed on Friday night I had a half formed plan to do a car boot sale on Saturday. Inexplicably I woke at 5:30am, and decided that if I rushed I could be there for 6 o'clock. So that's exactly what I did.

By 6.30am I was set up and already selling!

7.30am Wondering why I hadn't thought to put my coat in the car

8.30am Considering tucking into my car boot strawberry snacks. You'll see I took sun cream with me. Ha! that was a waste of time! I got so cold I had to wrap myself in a scarf that I'd intended to sell.

9.30am / 10.30am / 11.30am still booting. Photos aren't very interesting when you can't wander far and your view doesn't change.

12.30pm At home, £73 richer, warming up and tucking into microwaved leftovers. Some wedding photos had arrived ready to show relatives on Monday.

1.30pm Doing a spot of work, closely guarded by boy cat.

2.30pm Teasing boy cat and procrastinating. Other procrastination activities included removing nail varnish, writing a to-do list, tidying desk and making tea before giving up trying to work altogether.

3.30pm It was a day of snap decisions. Decided to dye my hair to cover the awful blonde streaks that weren't meant to be quite so blonde and were already showing through my last semi permanent colour.

4.30pm Hair dried, looking (and feeling) more like me again.

5.30pm A treat for dragging my ass to the shops for provisions. Eaten in colour order - green, yellow, orange, purple, red.

6.30pm Plans for supper changed (another snap decision) so I decided to do a spot of weeding

8.30pm Weeds gone and a new hebe planted

This was somewhere during Eurovision, between chinese food, a short nap and some wine.

This was whatever time I wandered off to bed leaving Andy and his friend to mull over the Eurovision result. Tinker followed, as she always does, and settled down on my pillow.


And as I missed so many during the morning car boot and the evening tellybox activity, here's an extra one of Socks hanging out with me in our knackered and rarely used greenhouse.

Thanks to Jane and Louisa for hosting. Follow the #photoanhour hashtag to see more...

What did you get up to on Saturday?

Indulge me again, if you will, and allow me to talk about our wedding some more. Here I'm sharing a few stills from our wedding video, they're not fabulous quality but tell the story of our ceremony. We'd briefly talked about having a videographer but didn't come to any sort of conclusion. And then, a few days before the wedding, Andy's sister asked if we wanted them to set up a camera in the corner.  Something simple, homemade (and free!).

I love that we have it, I can't tell you how many times I've watched it already. It goes out of focus and you can hear the whirr as it re focusses itself. We can hear the click of camera shutters, traffic, our two year old flower girl chatting away but on the day itself, we heard none of this. On the day we didn't really even notice anyone else in the room.

To watch it is so lovely. I get to see what happened in the room before I arrived, and get to see Andy as he waits for me, he didn't look round to see me walking in so he gets to see that, and each time we watch it we can see the reactions and expressions of different people in the room, including the random stranger peering in through the window. It's a pretty amazing thing to have, even in all it's amateur glory. I wish we'd filmed more of the day.

So to get to the the point I'm trying to make, if you're getting married have a video camera somewhere about the place, even if you hate the thought of being filmed, I promise you won't regret it.

Life has taken on a weird... thing - I don't even have a word for it - everything now falls into two distinct categories - Before Wedding (BW) and After Wedding (AW). BW seems like a lifetime ago, BW I was making plans for all the things I was going to get done after AW. I'm still working through this AW list.

BW wedding everything non work or wedding related took a back seat, piles of stuff that needed sorting appeared all over the house and some still remain, but one of the things I wanted to do was sort out my office (get rid of all the stuff dumped in there) and return to some form of normality.

Randomly, one day in Feburary I went out to get my haircut and came home having bought an armchair. I had every intention of putting it in my office, and I did. But it sat in the middle of the room for weeks BW, waiting to be moved into position.

A few weeks AW George at Adsa got in touch and asked if I wanted to choose something from their home range. Yes please. I knew I'd be looking for items for my office.

I love my new armchair but it's completely out of kilter with anything else in the room, I don't care too much, such is my love for my new chair. But I knew that a coffee table of some kind would be most useful, a few cushions would make it cosy and a lamp to light the corner would prove very handy.

It's turned the once chaotic corner of my room into a place for reading, resting and quiet contemplation, not to mention a place for cats to enjoy, they spend more time sitting here than I do.


Socks tried to stake his claim back in February, before I'd even got the chair in the room with the cushion in place.

The rug (on the arm of the chair) was a wedding gift and the heart cushion a birthday gift from Andy's sister a few years ago, the floor rug a birthday gift from Andy. I think all in all it looks pretty good, and you never know, one day I might actually get that Mucha print on the wall!

I love how the '&' cushion helps to tie the chair and the floor rug together (which is no mean feat for two completely differing patterns!) and the beam coffee tables are perfectly sized for magazines and cups of tea, and are a much better (and far easier to reach) option than the floor!



The lamp is really lovely and looks more expensive than it's £20.00 price tag and it has a gold tassel. A gold tassel.


I'm super pleased with the side tables, I didn't have room for anything too big and I wanted something simple. I love the combination of contemporary and ornate pieces, of old discovered items and new additions all mixed in together.

This is how the room looked back in January. Quite a transformation eh?


I did chose 'A' and 'H' cushions too, but four cushions on one solitary armchair is just a few too many, it was the adult equivalent to taking ALL your soft toys to bed. The cushions (lovely quality considering they're a mere £5.00 each) now sit on our bed, and will fit in perfectly with the new decor I have planned for the room... when I get round to it (it's on the AW list).

Thanks to George at Asda for sending me these items. All opinions are my own.

A few weeks ago I met up with Sophie and Kezzie and introduced them to the charity shops of Ipswich, shops that Kezzie later described as 'very superior' (good to know).


I always seem to come home with bags of stuff when I meet Sophie for a shop-a-thon and this day was no exception. We started at one end of town and made our way, charity shop by charity shop, to the other end. I say we started at one end, the first shop I wanted to go to had a tea room. What better way to start a day's shopping than with a cuppa? Embarrassingly, we got there to find it had closed down. Honestly, it wasn't that long ago I visited last.

Anyway, after a cuppa and a muffin elsewhere we started our shopping. I thought it would be a fun idea to set ourselves a little challenge. We were each to choose an item for one another and we'd style up the item and show how we wore it. Sophie and Kezzie chose a stripey, colourful dress for me, which I'll get to in a bit.


I also came home with 2 dresses, 2 cardigans, a jumper, a summer top and some summer trousers.


And this.


It's so cool - its transforms from a flat erm, thing, into a bag! Granted it'd be useless for your weekly shop but it's bouncy and made of orange felt - what's not to love?


This little chap was a real blast from the past - I had one of these as a child. I have an urge to take home all the unloved, unwanted toys I see, especially soft toys. I feel sad for them sitting in a shop unloved and no longer played with (honestly I think Toy Story is to blame for this). Luckily, my sane side takes over and convinces me to leave them where they are. Can you imagine the crap I'd have if it didn't?!

Anyway, it was a lovely day - great to meet Kezzie after reading her blog for so long, and nice to see Sophie again. A plan is afoot for a trip to Felixstowe for ice cream (and more shopping).

And so, here is the dress that Sophie and Kezzie picked out for me. It's something a little different for me but I like it and think it's something I'll wear. I like the length, most maxi dresses drag on the floor but this is just above ankle length and good for showing off my shoes - on closer inspection it has been taken up, so I have to wonder how long it was originally?


 It needs little more than shoes and a bag (and sunshine). The bag is also pre-loved and makes for a lovely pattern clash. The shoes are one of last year's unworn purchases so I'm pleased to get them on my feet, and although I'm not a fan of denim jackets, I think I'm in need of one - something lightweight and well worn!

Edit - See how Sophie styled  her dress here. And here's Kezzie's post.

What's your favourite recent purchase?

Do you ever get up some mornings and feel, for no particular reason, thoroughly blue? This was my morning yesterday. I tried to shake it off with my usual cup of tea but by 10:30am I knew that my normal routine just wasn't going to be enough to shake my melancholy.

I wandered about the house for a while trying to find something to engage me but nothing jumped out. I remembered Kezzie's recent post about self care and decided that it was a day for a spare of the moment adventure. I'd been meaning to hit the beach for a while, and ever since I'd discovered that Natasha Newton had an exhibition at Peter Pears Gallery in Aldeburgh, I'd wanted to go .

A quick look at her website confirmed it as the last day of the exhibition and that was all the reason I needed to grab my bag and go. When in Aldeburgh I always drive straight down the high street to the very end and park on the shingle. This means a lovely walk back to the high street (passed my favourite fish n chip shop).

I found the gallery, tripped into the exhibition (despite the 'mind the step' sign) and there I was immersed in a world I rarely visit these days. I love exhibitions, I used to visit them regularly as a student but they seem so few and far between these days.


Both my Dad and I have paintings of Natasha's, mine sits on my bedside table and is the only original piece of artwork I own.

I follow Natasha on Twitter and Instagram so I've seen some of the paintings in the exhibition go from almost a blank canvas to the finished article, it was lovely to see them in person. I wasn't disappointed, I loved it as much as I'd hoped I would.


I like her painted stones as much as the paintings themselves. I took a few sneaky photos, I didn't know if I was allowed so tried to make it look like I was texting. I very much doubt I fooled anyone and chuckled at myself for being such a twit.


It wasn't a one person show, there where others exhibiting. I liked the work of Emma Green (above) as it (very loosely) reminded me of the type of 'painting' I used to do whilst at college. I say 'painting' because I was a design student, my artistic skill was described as 'able to make things look nice' - that's raw talent right there people.

Anyway, once I'd lingered and pondered long enough I tripped (damn that step!) out of the gallery and went to the beach for a wander. The warm sea breeze and the sound of the waves had the desired effect, I felt calmer and brighter.

 After a bit of a sit and a look I headed off to the chip shop. The best, in my opinion, is the one at the end of the high street - Aldeburgh Fish and Chip Shop (I think all three are owned by the same people so I don't know why I prefer this one but I do). There is always a queue but it's worth the wait. I ordered a child's portion of fish and chips, it's pretty cheap at £3 and plenty for lunch. Back on the beach I enjoyed the vinegary, salty, fishy-chippiness and sat back to breathe and feel the sun on my skin.

I agree with Kezzie when she said "Oh how could I forget how restorative that sea-air is". How could I possibly forget? I came home feeling clam and rested, with a plan to go and see Natasha's permanent exhibition at Snape Maltings Gallery, and to visit Marlsford Mill, my friend has a space there selling some wonderful preloved furniture. And I've been meaning to go for ages...

So, here they are, photographs from our wedding day. I didn't think it would be possible to narrow it down to just a handful, but I decided not to show pictures of our guests. This blog isn't known to them all so I couldn't ask permission and felt it would be unfair of me to publish their pictures without their knowledge.

What I'm showing you here are some of my favourite shots, all of these where taken by Katie Drouet and, I think, show what an absolutely fantastic talent she is. She captured the details, the quiet moments, the action and the atmosphere of the day so perfectly.

Andy's favourite photos are those taken before the ceremony, the 'getting ready' shots. I have so many I don't know where to begin but the shots of my Dad when he sees me in my wedding dress make me go teary every single time. The shots of Andy's first look as I appear by his side bring back the feelings so vividly, and the outdoor shots of just the two of us make me smile so deeply that I feel like I'm right back there.

I hope you enjoy them.



















If you'd like to see some of the non professional photographs from the day just leave me a comment below x