Usually Photo An Hour lands on a day when I have no plans and spend the day reading, pottering and doing very little. But this month I had a blogger meet planned with Sophie and Kezzie for a charity shop rummage and a spot of lunch.

Sadly my phone battery died half way through the day but Kezzie kindly let me use her camera so I could continue to document the day until I got home and back to a charger.

Every time we get together for a charity shop rummage we all always find loads of stuff, I wonder if we encourage each other a little too much...?

7am - The day started as it usually does with a cat sleeping on my dressing gown, looking too cute to disturb. But I did - ha! (it was chilly).

8am - The usual rituals of getting ready for the day

9am - Breakfast of kings - snap, crackle and pop.

10am - Sophie arrived and we bundled in to my car to collect Kezzie from the station.


11am - A quick coffee in a rather sweet cafe in Ipswich - Applaud Coffee - after the one I was going to go to had shut down (this happened to me last time Sophie and Kezzie came to visit too). But I think I like this coffee shop better, so not such a bad stroke of luck after all.

12pm - We're all already a handful of purchases in. I bought a fab Laura Ashley midi skirt in here and the first of what would turn out to be many book purchases.

1pm - Fed and watered we venture on. We still had seven charity shops to rummage in.


2pm - Straining under the weight of our numerous bags. I had to buy a bag as I'd filled the one I'd taken with me.

3pm - Four charity shops still to explore...

4pm - I lost track of time about now but with all the shops visited we were in great need to a cuppa and a cake. Red velvet for me, Victoria sponge for Sophie and Kezzie.

5pm - Having left Kezzie at the train station, and deposited Sophie back to her car I was at home admiring all my purchases. Socks took an instant like to my new tote bag and slept on it for the next few hours.


6pm - I'm always shattered after a charity shop romp so a cuppa and a bit of a lay down was much needed.

7pm - Having bought 12 books, been given another two by Sophie, and remembering I'd purchased two others last week I thought I should crack on with reading my current book.

8pm - Popcorn appetiser. We didn't get around to the main course. I was asleep before 9pm.

A lovely, lovely day.

Thanks to Jane for hosting, it's always good fun taking part, and I really like looking back on these posts to see a day in detail.

I've been pondering signing up for the Day Zero Project for a while, it's basically just a big long list of cool things to do, and you know how I love a list! I've found that by thinking about things I want to do, and documenting them in some way, makes me get off my ass and do them.

My stumbling block was thinking of 101 different things to do, but when I read through Lucy's brilliant list I decided it was time to knuckle down and just get it done (Lucy, you might recognise a few of these...).

I also took some inspiration from the Day Zero website, and as I was reading a few ideas came to me, things I'd intended to do anyway, so on the list they went. Somethings are definitely going to be achieved, plans are already underway, other things I have no idea how I'll go about doing, but there is nothing impossible on this list. And it would be boring if everything was easy, right?

So starting today and finishing on 14th January 2020, the 101 things I would like to accomplish in the next 1001 days are as follows:

001. Read 101 books
002. Put all posters / pictures / paintings I have into frames and get them on the walls!
003. Buy / make shelves for the kitchen, kitchen cupboard, bedroom, and bathroom
004. Decorate the kitchen
005. Decorate the entrance hall
006. Decorate our bedroom in a gorgeous deep bluey green
007. Decorate the downstairs toilet
008. Buy a printers tray, hang it on a wall and fill it with mementos
009. Spruce up the front door
010. Kondo the kitchen
011. Kondo the pantry
012. Kondo the cupboard under the stairs
013. Sand and repaint the side entrance door
014. Go on a date with my husband at least once a month (outside of harvest)
015. Learn something new
016. Go on a yoga retreat
017. See a ballet / opera
018. Run a marathon a month
019. Finish my patchwork quilt
020. See Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
021. See a psychic
022. Get one of those Ancestry DNA things done
023. Make lemonade
024. Go to a gin festival
025. Organise all my photos - hard copies and digital
026. See the Harry Potter exhibit at the British Library
027. Visit the Forbidden Forest at Warner Brothers studios
028. Go on a picnic
029. Grow something edible in the greenhouse
030. Yarnbomb something
031. Paddle in the sea on all Suffolk beaches
032. Visit five new museums / places of interest
033. Sell something I’ve made
034. Go on a boat
035. Sleep somewhere unusual
036. Attend a live music event
037. Visit a city I've never been to before
038. Read a book every month with that month in the title
039. Make something from each craft book I own
040. Make a rainbow cake
041. Find and master a dessert recipe that will become my signature dish
042. Make elderflower cordial and gin
043. Visit a maize maze
044. See the Giant's Causeway
045. Donate blood regularly and get my silver medal
046. Grow a fruit tree from a seed (lemon?) and keep it alive
047. Create a bee friendly area in my garden
048. Bake and decorate a chocolate cake for Andy's birthday
049. Plant a magnolia tree
050. Find seaglass
051. Try basket weaving
052. Get a tattoo
053. Make roman blinds for my office
054. Take part in a beach clean up
055. Explore my local area
056. Re acquaint myself with my local town
057. Take part in a world record attempt
058. Climb a tree
059. Go camping
060. Photograph the same landscape across 12 months and make it into a calendar for the next year (my chosen landscape is the image at the top of this post)
061. Learn to make three different cocktails - Mojito, Cosmopolitan, and one other
062. Be a World Book Night giver
063. Create a second a day video for items ticked off the list
064. Get my wedding dress dry cleaned and packed away
065. Find a lampshade and curtains for the landing
066. Replace all the interior doors
067. Design the kitchen of my dreams
068. Create a gallery wall in the dining room
069. Complete the 365 day photo challenge
070. Make five more loans via Lend With Care
071. Visit Stonehenge
072. Do ten things I've pinned on Pinterest
073. Go on safari
074. Decorate a mug with a sharpie
075. Use up all my empty notebooks (19 in total)
076. Give geocaching a go
077. Write a letter to myself to open in 10 years
078. Answer the "50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind"
079. Watch the sunrise and sunset in the same day
080. Go to the beach in inclement weather
081. Watch 26 movies I've never seen starting with each letter of the Alphabet
082. Attend the midnight premiere of a movie
083. Spend a day at the beach
084. Keep a change jar for a year and buy something frivolous with the proceeds
085. Visit seven restaurants in seven days
086. Read a book set in my hometown
087. Visit a lavender field
088. Don't eat sweets / chocolate / cake for a month
089. Create a new family tradition
090. Take a one second clip of myself every first day of the month and create a video
091. Make and decorate biscuits with my niece
092. Sleep in an overnight train
093. Spend a day without technology
094. Make fresh pasta
095. Create my own personal stationery
096. Sleep in a treehouse
097. Open a cookbook to a random page and make whatever is on it
098. Host afternoon tea
099. Eat battered pizza, followed by battered Mars bar. Just once.
100. Make a video about a typical day of my life (I think that's what the cool kids call 'vlogging')
101. Make an iTunes playlist of 101 of my favorite songs

Well done if you managed to read through all of that lot! What would you have on your list?

1. Wasting hours scrolling through social media feeds on my phone
And go out and do something less boring instead (those of you of a similar age might remember that from Why Don't you? A kid's TV series from the 70s and 80s about not watching TV. An odd concept if you think about it...)

2. Eating supper slumped on the sofa
My digestion and posture will thank me, we can have a conversation instead of mindlessly watching whatever crap happens to be being broadcast. A chat with my husband will always be infinitely more interesting than The One Show.

3. Compare myself to others
What's that saying? Comparison is the thief of joy. Ain't that the truth. I only ever feel that I need to do more, earn more, be further along in life when I start with the pointless comparisons. I like my life and where I'm at, I need to remember that.

Image source

Celebrating our Wedding Anniversary

Two years. It's gone by in a flash! Cotton is the traditional gift for a second anniversary, so predictably I bought Andy a shirt. But I also made him a cross stitch. I'd been planning to do this for months, but of course I left it to the last possible minute. I ended up bunking off work on our anniversary to finish and mount it before Andy got home.

Heavily influenced my Pinterest I plotted a chart and pinched my Mum's collection of silks to stitch with. It's not perfect but I'm happy with it. Andy seemed to like it too.


Of course I saw this as a perfect opportunity to wear my wedding dress again. The chill in the air had me reaching for my tweed jacket, but it didn't feel any less fabulous!

We opened cards, looked though our wedding album, and read our guest book. He gave me the biggest bunch of flowers, and then cooked supper.

The bunch of flowers was so big it had to be split between three vases, and with all the cards up, our lounge felt very much like it did just after the wedding. Lovely.

Making daisy chains with my niece
 
This should be done every spring. A daisy crown was made for me and I wore it all afternoon, answering only to 'Your Majesty'.


Pottering in the garden

It's that time of year when I start to  pay attention to my much neglected garden. After a visit to a local garden centre to pick up a box shrub and a rather lovely metal yellow watering can (an absolute essential for any garden) I've planted some seeds, pruned a few shrubs, re-potted a few things, had a general tidy up and made a few plans for some new plants and shrubs. I can lose hours just doing bits and pieces, lost in my own little world, it's the best therapy there is.

Have you had a good week?

Some thoughts on my winter capsule.

I was excited to start my second year of capsule wardrobes, but I have to admit that I didn't enjoy this capsule as much as the previous four, but I can't quite put my finger on the reason why. I had a lot of outfits I liked but overall it just didn't hit the spot.

I've been able to weed out some items that I'd been hanging onto despite not wanting to actually wear them. My cat jumper is the perfect example of this. It's lovely but I never feel the urge to wear it. I only wore it once over winter and that's because it was in my capsule and I thought I should.

To my surprise I don't like my new cable cardy as much as I thought I would, but I do like my pre-loved cocoon cardy a lot more. I bought it as a 'chuck on at home in the evenings' type thing but I ended up wearing it every where. It's slouchy and warm, and has super long sleeves. It's like wearing a hug.


Annoyingly my black jeans have suddenly lost their stretch, and my long sleeve stripe t-shirts have seen better days, they're becoming baggy and misshapen. They're staples that I'll definitely need to replace.


I think having 36 items is probably more than I actually need in my capsules but it is nice to have plenty of options. Even if I don't wear something much, as long as I enjoy wearing it it's worth hanging onto.

I'm so glad to have moved on to my next capsule. Yay for spring!

I've been really looking forward to swapping my winter capsule for my spring edition, it means I can wear some of my old warmer weather favourites again, and get my new purchases on my body too!

It took me a while to decide on the final items as spring is a tricky season to predict weather-wise. I've got more dresses to wear, some that can be worn over skinny jeans if the weather isn't brilliant, and of course some options for cooler or rainy weather (fingers crossed these days will be kept to an absolute minimum though), and I've left three spots open to give me some added flexibility.

With more colour and some much more interesting pieces than in my winter capsule I'm looking forward to putting outfits together, mixing new with old and coming up with new combinations.

I've missed dresses for the past few months, and it's so nice to be heading towards cardigan only (or no cardigan at all) territory. Coats are boring. I like to be free from layers, I've had enough of layers now, I just want sunshine and warm days.

I wish spring and summer could last forever.