Guilty pleasure confession...

No not Johnny Robinson. How is 'you're my guilty pleasure' a compliment and why did Tulisa and Kelly keep telling him that? They were basically saying that despite that the logical decision should be to not like him, that they still did. I think I'd take offence if my boss or friends said that to me.

Anyho, back to my guilty pleasure (and in this case I do mean I shouldn't like it but I do)

I'm currently embarrassingly in love with Cher Llyod's new video for her new single, With Your Love. I'm not a closet Cher Llyod fan (she freaked me out on X Factor the other week with her weird eyes and old lady make up) but this video is shot with a beautiful vintagey tone, like it has had an Earlybird or Toaster effect put on it from Instagr.am. Plus the balloons floating through the sky are awesome (even if they've been added by a computer, I'm not sure); I wish I had more colourful balloons floating through my life.

Anyone got any embarrassing obsessions they'd like to share? This is a safe space you know. 

xXx

Heavenly Chocolate Cake

I had a play with my new marco lens whilst I was constructing the cake

I made myself a birthday cake last weekend (not quite as sad and lonely as it sounds; I'd rather have fun baking than buy one). It was a Mary Berry recipe called Heavenly Chocolate Cake and it was indeed fairly heavenly tasting, if I do say so myself, but it wasn't so heavenly to make.

It involved splitting egg yolks and whites (I can't remember ever having to do this without adult supervision but I managed it without loads of shell going in the mixture, bonus), melting chocolate and butter before mixing it with the other ingredients, and 'folding' the mixture. I know egg whites need to be folded but surely cakes are normally 'throw everything in one bowl' recipes! I ended up creating about 3 times the amount of washing up I usually do; the dishwasher was so full I even had to wash things by hand, wtf! ;)

The middle of the sponge was nice and fluffy

It was delicious in the end, especially with the addition of some M&S giant buttons (which were even gianter than your typical giant buttons!), but I'll read a recipe through next time before I embark on doing it in case it involves all sorts of trickery like this one!

Humongous buttons! 

The recipe said to cook for 50mins,
I did it for 40 and I still managed to burn the edges a tad! 

Look how close my new lens can get, you can almost taste the sponge! I'm so in love with it. 

I baked more chocolatey cakes this weekend as well (more on that later); there is a bit of a running theme when it comes to baking in my kitchen. What can I say? I was raised as a chocoholic and those habits are hard to grow out off!

xXx

Are you ready for your close up?

It was my birthday last week and I got a new macro lens for my Sony NEX 5 from my wonderful Dad as my present. I was chuffed to bits (especially as Dad was told there was a waiting list of 3 months but he managed to get it in about 3 days!) so as soon as I got home after I'd opened it I was itching to take some pictures of any super duper close up! So here are a few very random (and potentially very boring) pictures of things I found to photo nice and close...(I haven't included the one of my nose where you could see all the pores, it seemed unnecessary, for your sake)

Husband's t-shirt, I know, wow right?

Husband's jumper, even better!

Use by date of an empty 2L bottle of Diet Coke

My Ironman running watch

Don't even know what this is - some kind of writing I guess...

And finally, the end of my water bottle! 

Impressive much? OK, no. But still, look how close! My normal telephoto lens can't handle the pressure of getting this close to objects so I was pretty much blown away by the skills of my new lens. And it was late on a Friday night, there wasn't much to take pictures of in my house. 

xXx

Sunsets



I love sunsets, and especially taking pictures of sunsets.

This dusk picture is from one cycle home a few weeks ago,
when it wasn't completely dark by 5pm!

Unfortunately I'm more often found gazing wistfully at a sunset commenting that 'I wish I had my camera', than being in the right place and time ready to snap away. I love photographing them so much that when we were on honeymoon I made my lovely husband wait in Kings Canyon National Park until the sun was going down so I could get some pictures. We had to race back up the tiny little vomit-inducing winding roads to where we'd remembered there being a good look-out point to see the sun disappearing behind the mountains. He was We were driving 4 or so hours to Yosemite after that but bless him, he still waited.

I think it was worth it...

But I'm not sure he does.

We also saw a tarantula going about his evening business whilst we were watching the sun disappear. 

This was as close as I wanted to get and this is using my zoom!

Turns out once the sun goes down, national parks are kinda scary places to be in. Nightime is truly dark there.

xXx

Twenteens

Do anyone else suddenly feel like they've fallen into a big casm where you're no longer in your early 20s but also not in the 30 club yet and you start to realise that you're actually living your life and should be making all kinds of big life decisions, saving loads of cash for possible future family, finding the perfect job that you enjoy and pays you huge amounts of said cash, and reading newspapers or literary classics over Sunday brunch?

No? Just me then.

I don't read newspapers, I prefer to watch News 24 for all I need to know about what's going on in the world. I kinda enjoy my job but it certainly doesn't give me huge amounts of cash, hence completely unable to save anything up. I am too selfish to think about starting a family yet and I have an inherant inability to make a decision about what chocolate bar to eat let alone big life changing decisions! To say I feel like I'm buking the trend is a bit of an understatement.

The past year has gone by so quickly with the wedding taking over all aspects of our lives so I've not really noticed until now that my brain has had a chance to catch up, that I'm starting that time of my life that always seemed so far in the future. The time that I thought I'd easily have things sorted by. When I'd have my life ahead all planned out. At the moment my brain can manage as far ahead as 'where will we be for Christmas this year?' and even that is a small concern until it gets a bit closer.

I know I should be pushing in my career and saving and figuring out when to start a family, but at the moment I don't feel like I'm old enough to make such grown up plans. I think I'll just snuggle under my newlywed duvet and come out once life has planned it for me instead.

xXx

A little honeymoon extra

Weight unfortunately. Despite months of trying to lose weight before the wedding (admittedly probably not hard enough) I managed to lose a couple of pounds if that. Then a couple of days before the wedding I realise some usually quite tight jeans were feeling rather baggy. Perhaps they just need a wash I thought, turns out I had been so stressed and running around like a crazed woman the couple of weeks before the wedding that I'd forgotten to eat very much. Or rather hadn't had time for my usual comfort eating! Very much unlike me which demonstrates the stress levels involved! So I'd actually lost half a stone or so. (Thankfully the dress still fitted!) Very good news indeed I thought as I headed off on my honeymoon, to America, I'll just eat so I don't put more on rather than trying to lose weight, keep myself level I said to myself. Easy peesy! Wrong! I've been to the US many times before and I know my eating habits over there consist of fries, M&Ms, ice cream and more fries so I'm not sure why I kidded myself that I'd manage not to put on any weight but I often have these stupidly unattainable beliefs that things will be fine!

Fast forward amazing honeymoon of lots of delicious fried and sugar filled food and I've come back weighing as much as I did a few weeks before the wedding, which isn't so bad for a whole month of 'more fries please', but I was uber pleased I'd gotten under a certain stone and now I'm back well over it. Eurgh!

So the exercise regime has started again. To tell the truth, the only thing I was looking forward to about coming back from honeymoon (Monday back at work was one of the most painful days ever!) was getting to do some exercise again! I'm one of those weird people who genuinely enjoy running. Not just because it means I can eat more bread, chocolate, cheese once I get home from one, but actually enjoy being out there and pushing myself. However, my leg got injured in May/June so I'd had to stop running (the panic that ensued is another blog post entirely!) then there was the wedding, then the honeymoon so I'd not run in about 3 long months. I think the longest I've not run in the last 7 years was for a two week holiday so this was torture for me! Anyway, I've wandered from my point. So I went running at lunchtimethe first Tuesday back at work for a short 30 minute run to get back into it and boy did my legs hurt the next day. Hurt like I'd done a half marathon when in actual fact I did a loop through a park and onto a footpath for 33 minutes! So my running needs work but it was so fun being able to run without my leg being super painful and giving way beneath me. (This time last year I was walking around with super painful legs but basking in the glory of completing the Great North Run in a new PB so I really have a long way to go to get my fitness back!)

The last couple of weeks I've been able to get back on my jazzy new road bike (wedding present from husband, which I may have gotten a couple of weeks early due to severe trauma of ex-bike involving metal brackets snapping) and cycle to work rather than the train, cue more legs-that-haven't-been-used-in-so-long-pain. But good pain, feel like you've earned the pain type of pain. Kinda sore backside though!

Unfortunately because I'm exercising my subconscious then thinks it's fine to eat my weight in nuts, crackers and biscuits once I get home, and then eat dinner, so I'm pretty sure I'm balancing out the calorie burning with my calorie intake. Dam it! Maybe I should just give up and put on weight and stop shaving, that's what you're supposed to do once you get married right?

xXx

Wanderer returns

I've been away. Both physically and mentally, in a parallel universe known as weddingdom. It was fantastic, stressful, amazing and all consuming. I started this blog last winter/spring naively thinking I could blog whilst planning the sh*t out of our August wedding all at the same time. Everyone else seems to do it so why can't I? Um because work and wedding planning was more than enough to try to balance for me (not that that worked out so cleverly either), let alone adding a blog to it. So it fell by the wayside.

Not that it left a huge hole in the blog world, or indeed a hole at all but it was something I was excited about doing, so is something I'm going to pick back up on now that I've returned from the the parallel universe I've been existing in for the last few months and from honeymoon (which was it's own kind of reality escape in itself!)

Thing is I now don't have any exciting wedding news to share with blogland or fun trips to suppliers, wedding dress shops etc. So it's just me and the simple (perhaps often a little dull) life that I'm glad to be able to get back to. Raw and uninspiring as that is, I love my life with my lovely new husband in our little house in the country, I just wish we could be on honeymoon forever...



Quadruple layer chocolate cake

I made a four layer chocolate cake last weekend and it was so delicious (if I do say so myself!)

It had blue, yellow and red buttercream inside (I bought food colouring at Tescos and went a little crazy) and then was covered in chocolate butter cream, yum yum! 

I love making cakes but have to limit myself and try not to make them very often because when I do we just want to eat our way through them until we feel sick! 

I had to cut two cakes in half to make a semi-circle 4 layered cake, which was probably wise for our calorie intake as the slices were massive and we'd still be eating it this weekend if I'd made a whole one!

The Cadbury's fingers were a last minute addition as we'd bought some on offer when making a dash into Sainsbury's for our dinner last Saturday. The problem was we then ate our way through the rest of the packets too! 

Bad weekend for our wedding diets. 

Royal Wedding

Oh my goodness I totally looooovvvveeeeddddd watching the royal wedding. It was even more exciting and fabulous than I'd prepared myself for! I know I'm a week late in commenting but I felt I still had to express how magnificent it all was (yes royal wedding haters, I just used the word magnificent). I was so happy for William and Kate/Catherine, it was a wonderful wedding and I was so glad we got to watch. You can really tell they are so in love!

{Source}

Oh and the dress was perfect!!! So elegant and yet understated. So Grace Kelly-esque with the dress and flowers. An excellent role model I'd say.

{Source}

I also particularly loved her evening one just as much and the fab little cardi. And didn't William look so handsome in his uniform?

One of my favourite parts was when the happy royal couple came out of Buckingham Palace in the Aston with all the ribbons on - a great tongue in cheek moment and fab to catch another glimpse of them!

 {Source}

I wished, after watching it all on the TV, that I'd gone down to London to see it and soak up the atmosphere. Can't see myself camping on the pavement though. I'm so glad I did get to watch it on TV though, it really did feel like watching a piece of history be written and made me proud to be British.

Oh and I was completely in love with the trees in the Abbey, they looked awesome. Even though I know all other brides in the country (and probably across the world) will be doing the same, I'm still very tempted to try to replicate the effect for our wedding in August. Only with much smaller trees.

xXx

Best laid plans...

The best laid plans always go array as the saying goes. (I think). Or in my case the best laid plans to plan. I'd been looking forward to the Easter break for the last few weeks as an opportunity to get some proper wedding planning done and get some things decided so we could feel more on top of everything with about 3 months to go (eeek!) rather than drowning beneath them! Unfortunately the weather intervened and instead we spent our time enjoying the sun in the garden and going for cycle rides exploring the countryside around us. And now the weekend has disappeared, dam and blast! Sunny Easters don't come round often though so I supposes we were within our rights to enjoy it.

And look how pretty...

Now I'm making plans for this long weekend but that is going to be taken up with royal wedding viewing (actually really excited about it now!) and seeing family, so I guess I'm going to get very little done again. Story of my life.

Finding new blogs

I found a new blog today.

It's all about wedding flower inspiration. I'm a new fan and will be heading to it for ideas while I try to figure out what flowers I want for our wedding. My mind basically changes everyday.

I love finding new blogs, especially when they are full of wedding inspiration. Coming across a new and interesting blog is one of the best things about blogland. There are so many blogs out there that that you will always be able to find a new one and find out about someone whether it be their job or hobby or likes etc, it's always fascinating to get a glimpse of someone's personality.

One third of the way through the short week already, phew!

xXx

Happy Easter!

Essential straws

Inspiration from Pipii

I want to buy these straws for the wedding. I don't know why I haven't yet, probably because they don't really count as an essential purchase.

Essential to make the arrival drinks look super cool though. And not really very expensive.

Yep definitely need to buy them then.

Congratulations Mr and Mrs O!

Congratulations are in order for Jenny aka The Urban Boheme for bringing gorgeous little William into the world on 25 March. He is an absolutely beautiful, handsome baby and from Jenny's blog she seems ridiculously happy so I'm so happy for the whole family.

For those of you who don't know Jenny, she inspired many of us with her fab wedding planning feature posts on Rock My Wedding (What Jenny Did) so I feel like I know her!

Her blog is brilliant and she is a fab writer so go check it out!

xXx

Back by popular demand...ok just back

Ahhhhhhhhh I've not posted in AGES! What a terrible newbie blogger I am! I was so excited at setting up my blog and starting to post and I've been so wrapped up in work and wedding planning recently that I've been completely remiss with my blogging, which seems ironic because the reason I wanted to blog was to have a space where I could share my thoughts and help keep me sane throughout the stress of planning our wedding! Stupid really. So I'm going to try to stick to it from now on and get back into the swing of blogging, even if no one reads it!

Wedding planning has been getting more stressful and less fun recently as the big day is now only T minus 4 months! I realised that the four month mark was approaching just before I went to sleep one night, this scared me so much that I promptly had a horrendous nightmare where I realised the day before the wedding that I hadn't had my dress altered and it was still one size too big! I woke up in a massive panic, extremely relieved to find it was just a dream but still panicked at how soon the wedding seemed to be now. I swear only a few weeks ago there were 6 months to get everything done still.

So I've been trying to get some of the big things we still have to sort done; trying not necessarily achieving! We've been to see some more florists so we can compare approaches and prices, I've been doing quite a bit of band research, and today we visited the hotel we will hopefully stay at on the night of the wedding.

The hotel has actually been a massive pain for us so far. The few really nice ones we've found have either been just that little bit too far from the reception venue or won't budge on their 2 night minimum stay for weekends. Thankfully the one we saw today has agreed to allow us and guests to stay only the one night if we book lots of rooms together and it is super close to the venue so fingers crossed we can book some rooms up and finally get that ticketed off the mahoosive to-do list!

Slowly but surely I guess.

The next major thing that really needs to get sorted is our invitations as I'm busting a gut trying to organise this thing but haven't actually invited any one yet, ah slight problem there! Big plans but very little budget don't seem to match up so we're trying to do these ourselves. Will let you know how successful that turns out in another post...

Bah! Rain

So no Bahrain Grand Prix then...

Rubbish. But according to Mr - I take everything in my stride - Webber it's not so bad. It is for those of us who are viewers and were looking forward to the season starting real soon and seeing whether Bahrain could make up for last year's uneventful start to the season.

Ah well, only a couple extra weeks to wait and I'm really looking forward to the new season and seeing who comes out on top at the first race and how the new drivers fair.

Roll on 25 March!

Is it spring yet?

The weather is toying with us at the moment. One day it is in the barmy mid-teens and the next you wake up to a frost! The dryness of my skin suggests it is still winter but my tulip and daffodil sprouts give me hope that spring is on it's way even though it seems to be taking forever this year!

I'm really looking forward to spring bringing some colour to my garden, lighter evenings and mornings, and rain...oh. Um well maybe not the rain.

Come on mother nature bring us some spring cheer!

Muddy trainers = a good day

These trainers are a sign of a good run through the fields on a rainy day, what a good use of a lunch hour. Bit slippery though. The trainers were light grey when they were brand new at Christmas, didn't stay like that for long!

They even had a little clean from the rain as I cycled home this evening (not so fun). Thank goodness they are Gore-Tex lined!

Why I am still up?

So I've spent the last couple of hours finally getting round to designing the blog I've set up and been meaning to develop for ages now, and just realised I should be asleep. It's a school night and I should be tucked up resting my weary eyes right about now but I'm sat playing with which fonts I want to use and which shades of blue and red I want things to be! Oh dear, I'm not sure why I do it. Time to turn the computer off for the night safe in the knowledge I've finally joined you fellow bloggers and can now start sharing all my thoughts and questions with the land they call blog from now on.

Night blog land, glad I've joind the party, I hope you make me feel welcome...

xXx

Hello blogger land!

This is my first post and foray into the land of blog. It's scary but very exciting!