Life Lately - Full of Veg

This last week has been filled with the general work and home, a few hours out here and there, gardening and just quality time with the boys doing art, crafts and movie watching together

The local community allotment scheme had a charity open day so we popped along for tea, cake and plenty of fresh vegetables which we've already devoured and savoured in our salads
My neighbour are always passing baked goodies to each other and I have to give her a shout out for the amazing dairy free brownie cookies we managed to scoff, they were delicious. Her pear tree had also given off a wonderful fruit load so I have a bowl full waiting to be turned into chutney ready for Christmas presents this weekend (thinking ahead and loving it)

I'm sitting here figuring out how I want my blog to take shape, snippets of our life through the week I'm loving, is that enough! I always have such grand plans to do so much more!!!

Maybe those plans will come to light once I've worked on them a little more, in the meantime my fur babies are keeping me company whilst I type, always by my side!

Have a fabulous week x

Bats and Blackberries!

We're a few weeks into our summer holidays! I'm mixing work with family and trying to keep calm in between!!
We've took the first week as a complete chill from the structure of school, letting the boys enjoy their freedom. Plans are made for mini adventures over the next few weeks from home art projects to days out

We are super lucky to have this amazing countryside very local to home and within walking distance, and amazingly a million and one blackberries to pick, which of course we obliged
I love finding wishes! I always wonder who's wish it holds and what they've asked for!

I treated the eldest to a boat trip with a difference to look out for bats! It was amazing, awe and fun filled, partly thanks to having to row a boat! sharing said boat with very large black hairy spiders! and rowing said boat back in the pitch black!
Hearing the bats through the frequency on the bat detector was amazing and we'll certainly be booking tickets again next year

The youngest has art stations set up in most rooms of the house! There's always pens and cut paper everywhere! If you ask him what he wants to be when he's older he happily replies 'an artist'

 We've all spent time in the garden whether its tending to flowers, veg, weeds!! or bouncing on the trampoline, its nice to all be in the garden together and I cant wait for it to be finished. Restyling our space is taking a long time but it will be great once its complete

The urge to seperate things!

Some time ago I had this overwhelming urge to separate life as I knew it!
I wanted to keep business, home and fun separate!
I tried and failed miserably!!!! It all seemed to fall apart around me! I had a blog account here and there and an insta/fb/online shop and this and that!
arghhhh, its just all become too much!

Trying to grow and develop a small business and have perfectly perfect photos and show and tell is just not who I am on a daily basis! I'm just little ole me! A 42 year old wife, mum and animal lover who's life is escaping her and who is desperately trying to reign it all back in!
Do you ever feel like this!!!
Sit back and think I've took on too much again! There are too many angles to this and that so lets just put them all together because that's who I am! That's how I work!

So sod the extra blog and insta that goes with it! My love and desire for food photography and sharing recipes can continue here in my good ole faithful space.
Sod the extra this that and the other! Its all staying here, the space that has kept me sane over the years as I've offloaded about life in general!

I hope you stick around to read more ramblings from this cat mad woman trying to make a mini empire and keep her home reasonably tidy!

For the love of Portugal and a good read

The past few weeks have been crazy with a busy workload and the Easter school holidays
We've managed to take some time out as a family and flew off to the amazing land that is Portugal, it was truly lovely to just get away, relax, refocus and spend time together

The pool was a welcome relief to the boys as no wifi was in the house (perfect) and it was used daily
We visited a few amazing places, my favourite town was Obidos, I just loved the buildings, the history, the castle wall (no way I was walking along that!), the most amazing bookstore full to the rafters and all in apple crates
Buddha Eden was amazing! actually beyond amazing, the statues and gardens were just unbelievable!
I even spotted some pretty yarn bombing in a beautiful park that also had black swans!

No holiday is complete without a good read and I managed to finish two books from the pile of must reads at home

Both were Jenny Colgan, she's kind of a my favourite go to author at the moment for a good chilled read.
I loved both these books and would recommend them to anyone, they both made me realise that life is too short and we must do things for the 'now' and not look back on life wishing I'd done just that!

Pancake Day Madness

It was pure madness as I truly believe this year I totally overdosed on pancakes! Which I didn't even know was possible!
We had work pancakes and way more than the intended amount per person but they were too totally delicious to refuse!

Then homeward bound and little man requested the big fat squidgy ones!
Rather than buy them I found a brilliant recipe so they were homemade and I will be using this again and again, possibly a weekend ritual!!
So many toppings to choose from but Nutella and Strawberries won the day with lemon and sugar a close second

Fabulous recipe found here

Was super easy to follow and we managed to make a batch of 14 fat squidgy ones!

...and I was lucky enough to use some amazingly fresh baby duck eggs in the mixture...delicious and free range

The Cornish Dream

After our recent break in the beautiful Cornwall (again) I (again) have the overwhelming urge to be there all the time, its makes my heart literally sing
One day...

St Michaels Mount - Cornwall

I truly believe that Cornwall is a place where dreams are made or at least dreamt up
Earlier this year whilst on a holiday in Cornwall we took a day trip to the beautiful St Michaels Mount, they have an amazing website to plan your day and the first page has you hooked on the tide viewings

We took the boat ride over and started our tour, sadly the gardens were closed so onwards and upwards to the castle it was, I cannot describe to you the beauty of this place, I mean everything, the buildings the gardens surrounding the walk, the history, the air, just everything

You can see by my photos how much of a beautiful day it was for us, the sky was bright blue and that Cornish flag flying in the breeze was just amazing. The boys loved it, by the time they reached the top and saw the canons and could see across the sea and land they were in awe, they loved joining in with the castle quiz, as they were asking more questions, they were learning more about the myths and history and to be honest so were we

One of my personal favourites inside the castle was the beautiful blue settee, the colours were so vibrant and I could imagine back in the day how grand they were, what really made it for me was knowing that our Queen Victoria had sat on that very sofa! A piece of history just there ..

After a fair few hours of walking, and learning the history and enjoying the area, we took the boat ride back to the mainland where an amazing hot chocolate was most enjoyed

We became members of the National Trust so we can visit more and more of our beautiful heritage and I'm so pleased we did as this day was so memorable for us as a family
Not only does been a member of the National Trust enable us to so many perks but they keep up the good work of maintaining these beautiful places that could otherwise fall into ruin

I fell in LOVE with Luxembourg

Our family holiday this year was in the beautiful Luxembourg, I truly believe I left a little of my heart there as I have terrible holiday blues

Heres our Holiday in pictures, in no particular order either!
We visited Trier in Germany, the chair lift in Vianden, Luxembourgh City, Mullerthal and generally driving around and seeing beautiful houses with pristine flower gardens outside each and everyone (sigh)