Time flies when you’re having fun

I cannot believe it has been 3 months since I last posted, oopsie! Monday is my last CIPS exam for this academic year. Yay! I have been trying to concentrate on studying and generally shorting my shit out. For the past 3 months I have genuinely just been enjoying life to the full, I have tried to take a step back from social media and blogging so I can enjoy those quality moments with my wonderful husband.

I tell a lie, I wrote a post for our first wedding anniversary whilst we were away and there was no internet or phone signal so I couldn’t post, and that was the beginning of my hiatus from blogging, but I am back! *mini fanfare*

We stayed in a pretty little Sugar and Loaf Cottage. just outside of Crickhowell in Wales. The cottage was warm, cosy and oh so quaint. We spent the weekend walking, we climbed a mountain! For those of you who know me, know that this is a huge feat for me, coming from the girl who used to cry on family walks which would result in my dad having to push me up the hill. Oh how times have changed!

We curled up in front of the log fire and ate some delicious food and of course drank lots of wine! It was a truly wonderful weekend filled with us being us, away from the trappings of everyday life. There was no phone or internet signal at the cottage, I was not sure how I was going to survive but I relished the challenge. (I kind of had no choice) It was definitely interesting as I rely on google so much! What did we do before we could google things?

We are off to the Lake District next week, staying in a Camping Pod. I am literally so excited, we are going with two of our close friends, I cannot wait to go walking and of course a visit to a country pub or two may be in order. Bliss.
I shall keep you posted of how we get on. Keep your fingers crossed for nice weather!

What have you lovely lot been up to?

Keep Smiling my Lovelies

Nip hayfever in the bud

Now that spring has finally sprung! Many of you, like me, will begin to suffer with allergies. I suffer from hay-fever, cats & some dogs and peppermint.

Out of all my allergies peppermint is the most nuisance. I’m the weirdo that asks what type of mint is in mint tea, 9 times out of 10 most people don’t know. I’m constantly obsessively scouring ingredients and frequently buying beauty products that contain peppermint for me only to have to either bin them or give them to a friend.

The allergy that affects me the most is hayfever. It is the constant tickle in the back of my throat, the constant embarrassing sneezing fits, I manage about 7 sneezes on average in one burst!

1. Take antihistamines. Take the full course and start early. Don’t just take one feel better and then take another when you start to feel groggy again as this leaves you at the mercy of each exposure to pollen.

2. Vaseline. Swipe a tiny bit of vaseline at the end of your nostril, the pollen will stick to it instead of going up your nose.

3. Shower in the evening. It will wash away all the pollen stuck to your hair, body hair and eyelashes that would in turn stick to your pillow/bedsheets and then be taken into your body leaving you waking up feeling congested and groggy.

4. Eye drops. Works a treat at relieving sore itchy eyes.

5.I’m going there I have found my holy grail soother for extremely sore eyes. Last summer I rang my sister in tears because my eyes were so sore, eye drops were not working. I had tried Vaseline, eye masks and anything else going to sooth my sore eyes. You name it I tried it! This lead to me turning to my sister, Frankie who is a beautician and hairdresser, and a bloody good one at that. She did my wedding hair and make up and has saved me from all my bodged home dye jobs over the years. Anyway, I digress she suggested I tried Dermalogica Ultra Calming Barrier Repair which is honestly amazing, it not only soothed my sore eyes/eye area almost instantly it repaired my sore sensitised skin in 3 days!

I apologise if this is teaching some of you fellow seasoned allergy suffers how to suck eggs but you never know you may learn something new.

Keep smiling my lovelies.
XO

5 Little Things

Happy Easter! I hope you all have some wonderful plans for the Easter Break, I would love to hear what you get up to? I thought I would share 5 little things I am currently enjoying at the moment, as I have previously said before, I believe that the key to being truly happy is being grateful of those little moments/things in life that make you happy. 56a284d287a2d01544770fac3b4b037e I just love Easter and spring. The pretty pastel colors the gorgeous spring bulbs beginning to open up and reveal their pops of colors in my garden. I have definitely been getting my garden ready for summer! Kieran and I are going to undertake a very exciting project in the garden soon. I cant wait to share it with you but at the moment all is hush hush…..Only joking its really, just in case it doesn’t work out the way we want it too. Haha! Oh and Easter means mini eggs. What is there not to love about mini eggs?

Not watching television. Kieran and I kept discussing all those projects we repeatedly said we were going to start but never got round too. Now that I have my own desk I can actually sit at it and sew so we took the plunge and stopped watching television. We actually feel so much better and more relaxed by the time we go to bed and rather than talking about things we are making it happen. Obviously I am still recording programs as I cannot go without my weekly Alicia Florrick/Olivia Pope fix!

Good Friday I am going to my Mums and I seriously cannot wait to have some well needed family time with my sisters and parents. We are also going for a curry, which if I haven’t mentioned before is one of my favourite foods. Pass me the mint sauce and Poppadoms!!

Raw Chocolate. Kieran and I went to Cheltenham races last week, it was a really fun day, we were very fortunate with the weather. On the way back from Cheltenham we made a cheeky little stop at Whole Foods. Oh Yes! I ran round like a kid in the sweet shop looking at all the fresh produce and things that you can’t get in our shops round here. My main purchases were Tabbouleh rice, smoked olives and raw chocolate. I have been dying to try raw chocolate for an absolute age and I am so pleased I finally did. a tiny little bar instantly satisfied my chocolate graving. I am definitely going to be placing and online order!

Our First wedding anniversary is just around the corner, I know, can you believe it? It feels like the longest shortest year ever! What I mean is it feels like we have never not been married but at the same time feels like the wedding was only five minutes ago. I have bough Kieran a DAB Radio for his present and it was definitely worth the investment as it is literally always on! Radio X is where it’s at guys!

I hope you have a lovely Easter.

Keep Smiling My Lovelies

A Colour Crisis

As i am sure you gathered from my previous post, or if you are a follower on Instagram, my color pallet for my house is largely neutral with lots of textures thrown in. As my sister kindly put it my house is 50 shades of grey, but not in the kinky way!

I thought I would put together a wish list of cushions, I am definitely not going to get all of them if any but this is the kind of thing I meant when I said new cushions as I feel the other ones are the wrong tones and are looking a bit shabby.

Cushion Collage

Aren’t these cushions just to die for? Obviously it would not be my house if i did not squeeze an elephant in somewhere! The lounge is actually one of the few rooms in our house without an elephant in. Although I’m not sure I can justify £45 on an elephant cushion, can I? I think I have a problem! Elephants anonymous where you at?

Whilst discussing the cushion saga with Kieran, a saga because I made reference too it in my blog and I buy far too many cushions as it is,we decided that we should put more colour into our house as the moment downstairs is sage green, grey and cream and upstairs is blush pink, grey and cream. We want to paint our dining room table and chairs, but are toying with painting the chairs bright colours. We are having a colour crisis. My idea was to paint them bright like the ones featured on A Beautiful Mess. I have literally been obsessed with this table since we decided to move out. However I am not sure we are quite ready to take the bold step with this yet! We are going to tie in the kitchen to the dining room and paint them sage green I think. What are your thoughts? Keep your eyes peeled for an update on this!

How very dramatic! We had a bit of a crisis in confidence of our styling of our house. I love our house but I am constantly finding new things to do, there is always something I want to tweak slightly, some new thing I have seen that I would like to make. I think most people think I am stark raving mad as our house is gorgeous and is loaded with style with a pinch of our personality.

Keep your eyes peeled for a Kitchen tour next week!

Keep Smiling my lovelies.

Living Room Tour

Finally after promising you guys for so long! I have begun the first in my series of room tours…. my living room! Let me just put this out there before I show you the details of my living room, I am no photographer so some of the images aren’t the best but I’m sure you’ll forgive me for that one, won’t you?

Firstly we have our sofa and chairs, they are from DFS and are literally the comfiest sofas I have ever sat on. I’m not 100% sold on the cushions so may need to find some alternatives. Kieran if you are reading this ignore that bit tehehe. Apart from the Botany Illustrations cushion which I have been in love with ever since I saw it in home sense. The record player was a present a moving in present to ourselves it just sets off the room wonderfully, yes it does actually work we just need to get a new needle for it and smaller records. Of course it would not be my living room if I didn’t have a billion and 1 candles everywhere.

This is my gorgeous fire place. I just love it, the antlers they were one of Kieran’s birthday present from The Weird and Wonderful. If you haven’t heard of them before and are into taxidermy/entomology or anything like that definitely check them out. Can we all just take a moment to celebrate my succulent is growing! I thought I had killed it but obviously not as it has glorious green shoots. Yes, I definitely danced around my house when I realised. I actually painted a normal terrocotta pot rather than paying the price of an expensive bronze pot. We’re debating painting the wooden fire surround but i’m not totally 100% sold on that idea yet. What do you think?

This is actually one of my favourite corners of our living room. Totally sad as it is just tucked away by the door, but its our little welcome table where I put my keys when I walk in the house as I can lean in and dump them in the oliver bonas dish, which I dont think they sell anymore. Anyway I digress every time I walk in the house I see the picture of one of the happiest days of my life (so far) and makes me smile. I also love my basket filled with blankets. If you are yet to feel the joys of a bunny soft blanket then get yourself to home sense, you will not regret it. I promise.

My coffee table! I didn’t get a very good picture of this before we painted so unfortunately I have had to use one I took before we paint so lets just use our imaginations that either side of the chimney breast are a glorious grey not ugly gold floral wallpaper. We up cycled two old trunks that we found at Malvern Flea Market they really set the room off perfectly now that we have exposed the original wooden floor boards and got a cowhide rug. It is sooo soft.

What room would you like to see next? I would love to see your upcycling projects use the #sophieupcycles on twitter and instagram to show me your projects!

Keep Smiling my Lovelies.

Guilt Free Chocolate Chip and Banana Muffins

As we all do around this time of year we start January as we mean to go on, healthily and doing exercise. Unfortunately it is normally around week 3 I fail, I get bored of eating nothing but chicken, avocados, eggs, broccoli, spinach and sweet potato. I exaggerate a tiny bit as I love all these but I am left longing for a guilt free treat, I thought I would give some low calorie wheat free muffins ago as I am more determined than ever to succeed.

These muffins are incredibly healthy, the oats give the muffins their shape and the yoghurt keeps them moist. You could replace the chocolate chips with something a tad healthier but boy oh boy did I need a teeny bit of chocolate in my life. Normally its not eating crisps that bothers me when on a diet as I am a self confessed crisp addict…. Mmm Pringles but at the moment I am seriously craving chocolate.

Guilt Free Chocolate Chip and Banana Muffins
Makes: 12 muffins.

Ingredients:

8fl Oz Plain Greek Yoghurt

2 Ripe Bananas

2 Eggs (although I left out this time and were still yummy but a little dense)

180g Rolled Oats

50g Brown Sugar

1 1/2tsp Baking Powder

Chocolate Chips

Method
1. Preheat oven to 200C and line a muffin tin with muffin cases.

2.Add all ingredients apart from the chocolate chips to a food processor and blend on high
until the oats turn into a smooth and creamy batter after this stir in chocolate chips by
hand.

3. Spoon mix into the muffin cases filling each about 3/4 full. I find having a glass of hot
water and dipping the spoon into each time allows the mix to slide off the spoon easier.

4. Bake for 15-20 mins until the top of your muffins are a golden brown and set. Also insert
a knife into the middle and if it comes out clean they are done. Allow to cool before
removing from the pan.

I hope you enjoy! I think these muffins are really tasty would you like me to keep posting about what I am eating?

Keep Smiling my Lovelies.

What I wore on my birthday

On Sunday I turned the grand old age of 24! I had a truly wonderful weekend surrounded by my gorgeous family. On Saturday evening we went out for dinner and a few drinks. We started our night in a cute little wine bar called ‘Bottles’; As always, I had a large glass of white wine. They also do wine tasting, which I am quite tempted to try. However it is a wine tasting vending machine! I find this whole concept very odd, but would quite like to give it ago as the wine vending machines seem to be popping up everywhere! We then went for dinner at No35 The Provenance, which has the most fabulous ethos:

“‘Food provenance’ means where your food comes from, it’s point of origin. By working together with local producers, regional farmers and British fishermen, who are without a doubt passionate about their food and how it is produced, we are able to offer quality dishes from our Bar menu, Lunch or A La Carte, all demonstrated not only by their taste but by their provenance”

The food was absolutely delicious, truly a treat. To start I had, Seared Hand Dived Scallops with Textures of Cauliflower. I have honestly never had scallops that were so perfectly cooked and flavoursome. The cauliflower was light,creamy and had the most delicate flavour that complemented the scallops beautifully.

For my main course I had Pan Roasted Hake, Shelfish Stew, Creamed Mash. Now anyone who knows me well knows my love for fish and mash potato so either way this was going to be a winner for me. However it was absolutely out of this world, the shelfish stew was unlike anything I had tried before. Would definitely recommend to one and all. The meal was rounded off with Pistachio Ice Cream. Both mine and my sister Frankie’s favourite, except Frankie will only eat it if it has no bits. Something I find incredibly cute.

Anyway, I shall tell you all the details as to what I wore on my birthday, most of which are all new purchases, if not I have found something similar.

Dress – Bag – Shoes

I have made some headway with my 10 at 25, the two most notable is to write more and take a class, I am currently studying for my CIPS and actually enjoying every second.

I feel truly blessed to have been surrounded by my wonderful family and friends, I am honestly grateful and surprised year on year how much effort they all go to, to make me feel special, but my favourite part is watching my sisters open their presents I have bought them. What is your favourite part of your birthday?

Keep Smiling my Lovelies.