An accidental month off. April summarised...

I don't quite know what happened but I seem to have gone over a month without blogging quite accidentally, I just never had that urge to sit and write about anything, I'm really not sure why. I also felt the longer I left it the less I knew how to come back and what to write. So, I'm sat here at my laptop with no real plan hoping that I can summarise what I've been up to while I've been  away from the blog! I got the idea from Charlotte to do a Someday Summary from blogging days of old, but I felt I needed to update people reading (and my future self that I see reading to remember like a diary!!) about the month I was absent for!

Okay so this was actually at the end of march over Easter weekend, we finally had all of our family together for an engagement meal/party, a difficult task when Sam's siblings are based all around the country, with us also at the opposite end! It all started well with a lovely Italian meal booked and a few bottles of champagne paid for. It ended with me hugging my Sister in Law and bridesmaid to be after I fell asleep on the stairs and hugging the toilet not long after. I discovered after not being much of a drinker since my college days that I actually quite like champagne. Especially it seems when it's being used to toast my future ;)

These are probably 2 of my favourite pictures from the month of April. The top one is where I pulled over on the side of the road on my way to the place where I was going to learn to take blood (yeah!) and I realised how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful part of the country. The bottom picture was of our first day off together in the month of April, around the 20th, where we packed ourselves off to Keswick and got the boat round to do the fairly introductory walk called 'catbells'. I'd highly recommend it to anyone in the Lake District to walk, we're not hardcore walkers and this is very little work for great rewards of amazing views! It definitely felt better than slobbing around and tidying the house! We also went for a particularly lovely meal and ice cream in Keswick afterwards.

I can barely make it through a conversation without mentioning wedding planning these days so I could hardly leave it out of this! The month of April is our wedding month to be and this sweet little countdown is something I got for Sam (and myself, I mean, we live together) for our pre-wedding anniversary. It's also reversible with something for after the wedding so I feel like it was worth the investment ;) I honestly can't believe we're under a year to the wedding already. this whole year is going so quickly. We got engaged in January!!
The picture to the left is the best response we got to someone receiving our magnetic save the dates, Sam and I really do not face swap well. I had never really considered save the dates but we're having a weekday wedding and so wanted to give people more notice than just the invites. I just did a simple design and got them printed through printed.com as recommended by Rosie. We're doing the same with our invites (although they won't be magnetic and face swappable!) and hopefully, if I can manage it, our stationery too!


Hope you've enjoyed my little disjointed summary of April and a bit of March, I'm hoping I won't leave it quite so long next time!! I always post over on instagram if you're ever really looking out for what i'm up to ;)
I'm so excited at the moment because we had our engagement photoshoot this week with our wedding photographer and he's slowly releasing a few sneak peeks of our pics as he edits them, so exciting! I'll do a whole post on them once we get them all i'm sure!

Sunday through my iPhone.

This is going to be one of those posts that I'm not sure anyone except my future self looking back and reminiscing will find interesting, I was going to do another photo an hour post like I've done before but if I'm being completely honest I forgot for the first few hours so instead this is like a Sunday highlights reel, a fairly mundane Sunday but a good one.

07:32

I woke up naturally today at half past 7, it's easy to see why when you can see the sunlight already streaming through the windows, honestly though it's not something that bothers me. I find my health and energy levels feel much better if I try to stick to some kind of sleep routine, plus we had planned to be up and at the gym for 8am (haha). 

10:30

We did eventually make it to the gym! This was when I accidentally opened the camera trying to swipe up to change the song, spotted my reflection and remembered I had planned to take photos today. Unfortunately I didn't take a better one than this because I was far too scared of being caught taking selfies at the gym! 

13:04

Today was the perfect first day of Spring here in Cumbria and being garden-less we decided to try make the most of it with a walk around Talkin Tarn. We took some strawberries, smoothies and iced fingers and just did a circuit of the tarn. If it weren't for the really quite cold breeze I could be fooled into thinking this was a picture from midsummer, the sky was blue, the water was blue and people were eating ice cream at every part of the walk! Some with gloved hands but I think it counts. 

14:19

The much more mundane part of Sunday came next, an hour long blitz of the house, Sam tackled upstairs, me downstairs and then we joined forces with the laundry. I love our little (deceptively large) terrace so much and although we're never short of space it really doesn't take long to get it all cleaned up nicely. 

15:16

Always the reward for some Sunday cleaning - a bath. For me there's nothing more indulgent than a bath during the day, before I changed jobs I had far more midweek days off and I used to luxuriate in the fact I was soaking in the bath while everyone else was at work. Amazing. I used half of a Lush Milky Bath, I've mentioned this so much it's my absolute favourite bubble bar and this amazing Golden Egg which putting in the bath made me feel like a Triwizard Tournament contestant. (Come seek us where our voices sound, we cannot sing above the ground...) I hadn't tried this bath bomb/melt hybrid from Lush before and it's so lovely, it has the Honey I washed the kids scent and it left my skin feels so so soft. 

16:58

What else is there to do after a bath other than put on lovely fresh pyjamas? I did get dressed again later on but that's besides the point. Here I'm holding my new favourite not bad for you snack, mozzarella and pesto Kettlebites, and an apple. The apple was meh but oh boy, those kettlebites. They're so good. 

Right:18:29 Left:18:49

Oh baby. These were worth getting dressed for. This pizza van comes to Carlisle and the surrounding areas each weekend, we had never tried it before but wow, this will not be the last time. There's something about a wood fired pizza, the dough is so perfectly crisp around the outside and just cooked to perfection in the middle. There was barely a drop of grease on the boxes after we'd finished these pizzas and although they're indulgent I really don't feel sluggish or heavy after eating them. I feel like I have to go back and try all the flavours. If you're in the Carlisle area and haven't tried these guys you're seriously missing out.

20:18

The last picture of the day because I am a true granny and all I'm planning on doing now is deciding whether to watch Louis Theroux on Netflix or Derren Brown on All 4 or whatever they call 4od these days! Got our delicious new candle burning from TK Maxx (they don't ship the UK yet but if you're lucky like we were and theres a vanilla bean in your local TK, get it!) and I might make a peppermint and liquorice tea soon, wild! 

Hope you've enjoyed this utterly mundane Sunday run through, it really has been a great, if uneventful, first day of spring for us here. 

A community that should be proud. #CumbriaIsOpen.

As I'm sure you've all seen Storm Desmond hit parts of the UK this weekend. We're currently living in Carlisle which has been hit terribly by devastating floods throughout the city. Thankfully we haven't been flooded, but the waters came up to the end of our street and we were without power for a few hours. Massively lucky in the grand scheme of what has happened round the city.

8am Sunday. 

What I'm going to write about here isn't about how terrified I was when the rain wasn't letting up and I was checking the severe flood warnings religiously every hour to see if the red line had crept up our street yet, it didn't, it stayed just about 10 metres away, but rather I'm going to talk about how proud the people of Cumbria, and particularly Carlisle (because thats what I've been exposed to) should be about how well the community has come together.
We only moved here in July so looking as an outsider, I can't imagine how it must have been waking up on Sunday morning knowing that your city was under water again, or even worse, watching the severe flood warnings on Saturday and knowing that evacuation and losing so much was inevitable. Following what was happening on twitter there were preemptive offers of places to stay that would be free of floods, people offering comfort to each other and making sure people they didn't even know were safe. It immediately felt like a community gathering even on the internet.
When we got up on Sunday morning we could see the water from our bedroom window and despite it being 6:30am there were people everywhere looking to see how they could help. We were without power but thankfully we had running water. Sam went off for his 13 hour shift at the hospital which his fellow doctor left a flooded flat by boat to get to so he wasn't covering the wards on his own. So I was home alone with no power and no one around that I knew.
I was going to go round and offer hot drinks with water boiled on the hob but someone had beat me to it and there was a steady stream of tea being passed around the people stood looking at the damage and those helping that could, people who had electricity were offering to let others charge their phones to stay in contact with relatives and all the while twitter was still inundated with offers of help and places to stay for people who were stranded. It really was something that Carlisle should be proud of. There was massive devastation throughout the city and yet all people could think about was others.

I have since seen unbelievable offers on the internet of help. I'm linking some here in case anyone in need hasn't heard, and so everyone else can be as amazed as I am about the lengths people and local businesses are willing to go to.

Free hair wash and blow dry for anybody affected.
A rally for all builders/plumbers/electricians/plasterers etc to help where they can. 
Hairdressing seats and equipment for the hairdressers who have been flooded. 
Generous money donations.
Pet sitting. 
Restaurants and cafes taking food to the refuge and community centres. 
Carlisle football team helping those affected. 
Lots of cafes who weren't affected were offering hot food and drink to anyone out on Sunday and Monday.
And more than I could ever list throughout Carlisle and the rest of the county.

The floods around us looked devastating and seemed they wouldn't clear for days because of the huge expanse of water that just looked endless, lots of homes and businesses near us were flooded. I have been amazed at the clean up, in less than 24 hours this was the difference, and by Tuesday morning, only 48 hours after the flood, the road around us was open again.

3pm Sunday and Monday afternoon. 

This has really made me realise how scary nature can be, especially being new to the area and not particularly remembering the devastation in 2005 or 2009, this relatively small place has banded together so impressively and stood up to show that even in the face of such devastation they are proud to be Cumbrian and they will not be defeated. Shops are opening, people are out doing their shopping, neighbours are helping each other with the clean up and the small businesses are the ones offering whatever they can to help.
Be proud of yourselves Cumbria, I am feeling very grateful to be living here with all of you.

#CumbriaIsOpen

Little Loves.

My little loves of the moment, no particular theme or order, just as they come to mind! Hope you enjoy.

This guy!

Since moving in together in July I often look over at this lovely bearded face with a mushy look of appreciation that my past self would hate. He makes me laugh every day even when I'm a big ball of anxiety and I feel like there's a cloud looming that will never go away. Plus that beard is pretty magnificent. I know, I know, mushy mushy but we've just moved 200 miles across the country together, its a big deal y'know?

Lucy Rose. 



I had heard Lucy's song Like An Arrow on Radio 1 a while ago and really enjoyed it but once I'd arrived at wherever I was going forgot about it completely, I was then looking for local listings for who was coming to the Brickyard in Carlisle and saw her name on it. Unfortunately Sam and I are both at work when she's playing here but since discovering her again through that website I've been playing her songs non-stop on both youtube and spotify. I don't know enough about music to describe why I like her music so much but it's just my cup of tea.

Jillian Michael's Burn Fat, Boost Metabolism. 

Let's pretend when writing this section that I didn't spell it motabolism and wonder why spellcheck was being such an idiot trying to correct me, it didn't happen.
I have always had a thing for Jillian Michaels, something about her telling me 'not to phone it in' and 'you don't get to where you want to be by just taking the stairs every now and then' really manages to get me to try harder. I kind of hate her, but I love her so much. I've been on a 'weight loss journey' (yuk, I know, I don't know how else to phrase it, I sound like a dick all the ways i've tried!) since the beginning of the year, I've lost 3 stone (not looking for praise) and I've only been to the gym twice, I like to workout at home and I really feel like Jillian's videos make for the most effective workout I've tried but without making me feel like i'm going to collapse. I track calorie burn using a polar watch and I always get a bitchin' burn that makes me feel like a superhero and I only sometimes counteract it by ordering pizza. Like 30% of the time probably. You can find most of Jillian's workouts on youtube, this one is my fave because of the kickboxing aspect of it, makes me feel bad ass, even if I don't look like one ;)

Goodreads.

I've always been an avid reader but last year I really felt I hadn't made enough time to read as much as I usually did, it was my first full year of proper employment and Sam and I lived 100 miles apart nearly so there was a lot happening all year! I had seen friends and Sanna from books and quills doing 'reading challenges' before on Goodreads. I decided to download the app and set myself a reading challenge, it started off as 30 books but when I realised how behind I was getting I cheated a bit and reduced it to 25, I don't like failure okay?! It's really helped me keep track of what I've read and i've found some amazing recommendations on there. My favourite book of the summer was 'I'll give you the sun.' and I saw it on their homepage one day. My goal is to spend a day scanning all of my books so I have a list of all the books I actually own, it would take me such a long time though, so maybe it's a task for a week off, done shelf by shelf a day at a time! You can follow/add me on Goodreads here.


There you have it, pictures from my phone on this post, some from instagram, follow me here :)

A 'Saturday style' Monday.

I've seen hour by hour posts floating around the blog world and always loved them, I decided to try it for myself as a photography exercise. I actually studied photography at A Level but always stuck to film photography meaning settings and buttons and electronics in a DSLR confuse the hell out of me.
I've tried reading books and blogs about photography to enhance my skills but really I think I'm only going to improve by doing. So here we go, a photo (or 2) an hour for a Monday that we treated like a Saturday. I love that about working shifts, my Friday feeling can come any day of the week depending upon my days off!

7am

Even on a day off I always try to wake up reasonably early to make the most of the day, gone are the days where I could sleep in until 1pm and feel okay, if I even lay there for too long now I feel a bit iffy. On this day the alarm was set for 7:20 and I only snoozed once! When we moved in together we decided to get some decent high thread count (i think high is better?!) bed sheets and let me tell you, they improve your sleeping situation times probably 1 million, you can quote me on that. Another thing which improves your sleeping situation is cartoon character pyjamas from Primark. Grown up bed sheets, not so grown up pjs. That's the scientific formula you can quote. 

8am

Being a nurse and often having to leave the house before 6:30am to go and do fairly manual work I don't spend time on my makeup very often. I have a fairly modest collection and it's something I really enjoy shopping for and doing. All the make up in the first picture is what I put on my face, I feel like it looks like absolutely loads for a fairly natural make up look! The naked smokey palette is the newest big addition to my collection and I am loving it so far, I can't wait to try out its's full potential with a properly smokey and maybe a bit glitzy look in the coming months. 

9am

We decided to head into town fairly early for our first PSL of the year, I am an unapologetic lover of the PSL, they are delicious, granted they don't taste like real coffee but boy do they instagram well. 

10am

After spending a good hour in Starbucks catching up (the joys of a couple who work shifts) we headed into Lush, I had a note on my phone of 2 things I wanted to buy, shampoo and lip balm, very sensible, but of course the bath products beckoned. My collection has depleted since I figured out my way of storing them was making them go a bit crumbly but I've stocked up a bit again now! The staff in Lush Carlisle are always so lovely and were quite happy to let me take these pictures, asking about my blog and if I was on instagram. (I am, follow me here, that segway!) I could always spend hours in Lush and it's always been my idea that if I weren't a nurse I would have loved to end up working in Lush or somehow with the company. 

11am-12pm

This hour was spent doing some more shopping, going to the bank and taking a slow walk home via Sainsbury's, very exciting stuff. I had to have a look in Waterstones as I always do, managed to avoid the novels by repeating to myself how long my 'to read' list is but I had to pick up this 642 things to draw but, yes I really did have to! I also need some validation that I'm not the only person to buy random cards in Paperchase with the idea that I'll frame them for our as yet unframed picture wall. 

1pm

Sam was taking pictures of me on my laptop editing the photos from earlier on in the post and complained so much about my resting bitch face, I actually quite like how the pictures turned out but you wouldn't think it! We then decided to order some lunch from our favourite American style deli in Carlisle, they do proper Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (I know you've seen it, don't pretend) style sandwiches, all freshly baked bread and amazingly cooked and seasoned meat. Drool. 

2pm

Im cheating a little bit because the food arrived at 1:50 but the estimated delivery was 2:05 so I had already planned to do this as the 2pm picture. Sorry. 

3pm - 4pm 

After our lunch time carb-fest it was a struggle not to just nap on the sofa, so instead of napping I just slobbed on the sofa, caught up on youtube, read a magazine, watched everybody's snapchat stories. I wish this post was #spon by Starbucks but really I just love their coffee and this is the biggest and best mug I have for the afternoon slump. The day is getting more exciting as time goes on. My particular youtube favourites at the moment are The Michalaks (pictured above).

Lily Pebbles.

Vivianna Does Makeup. 

HayleyGHoover. 

5pm-6pm
After a thoroughly lazy time in the afternoon we decided to head out for a walk around a park near us, they call this a park but I would say it was much more, with a river running through, a cenotaph, and a whole herd of cows wandering around i'd be loathe to call it just a park. Having only moved to the area in July we're still exploring and finding places to go and when I spotted this on my way to work one day I couldn't wait to go, the only thing I miss is having a little pup running around with me on my walk. That has to wait until we go home to visit our family since we're in rented accommodation. Boohoo!

This was where the pictures ended as it got pretty dull and there wasn't much more to be seen, the rest of our Saturday style Monday was spent catching up on An Inspector Calls, (yay, Lupin!) eating pasta (yes, more carbs, my fave) and watching Fear The Walking Dead, I can't stop watching despite the recurring zombie dreams I have.

Thanks for reading, speak soon! 

Can I call it a hiatus?

Oh hey!
So, I used to do this blogging thing and I've been thinking more and more lately about coming back to it, not as the blog used to be because I ended up hating it and it's probably the reason I took a 2 year break from the blogging and internet world.  I was definitely comparing myself to other blogs and bloggers and making myself write about things I thought would be popular instead of what I enjoyed.
I was so unsure about if I could even remember how to blog that it put me off for a long time, that and not being able to think of a name. So, creatively, I decided to just use my name. I know, groundbreaking.

Since I've taken such a long time off blogging I'm not going to be so egotistical as to think anyone remembers anything specific about my life, so lets treat this as a little intro, a lot has changed in the 2 and a half years since this little blog was used last. Mostly the fact I will never use iPad photos in my posts again, iPhone is a different matter!

This is me, in my current home county of Cumbria, I moved to Cumbria with my boyfriend Sam in July of this year for his job. Previously we both hailed from North Lincolnshire so that's nearly a 200 mile move for the both of us! I'm a staff nurse, which is lucky in that my job really can move anywhere. I feel that this blog will be my outlet for anything and everything not related to my job, quite different from those who's job is related to blogging or even is blogging but thats the beauty of it I've realised now, you do you boo! (Why can't I put the sassy emoji here?!)

It was really this move that has made me want to start blogging again, it's such a scary, exciting and sometimes lonely time living so far from family and friends that I really felt like for me it needed documenting, it also might be just a little bit more interesting to read now! 

I kind of don't know what else I can say at the moment, so I suppose I'll just sign off here and see how we go! I'm hoping to make it through without another 2.5 year break ;)