Move?

I am pondering moving this blog to Wordpress.... I do love blogspot and I've been using it for years, but Mark and I have been running Butterflies & Bread over on Wordpress for a few months and I am enjoying that platform rather more than this at the moment. Apparently I can import all the content over so I will get investigating, watch this space!

Ins Kino gehen

Woke up this morning wanting very much to spend the last day of 2013 at Cafe Kino on Stokes Croft in Bristol. So that is where we made our way, currently enjoying sweet potato chips and falafel, and a relatively sunny view out over the Boycott Tesco mural. Also, listening to Big Fox. Back to Notts tomorrow, and into the New Year.

Christmas is coming...

The tree is up! To make up for last year, when we left it so late we ended up tree-less, we were ready this year on December the first! The Pretty Dandy flea market also happened the same weekend, so we went along and stocked up on all the lovely handmade decorations, including the ceramic 'love' heart and the little fabric Christmas tree you can see in the picture.

I'm enjoying the soothing glow of the lights right now after a pretty crazy day at work. All our IT systems went down just as I was frantically trying to meet a deadline, so that was a bit of a pain; all has been sorted now though and I feel back on track. To top it all off, the heating at the office was also suffering an engineering fault, meaning that when I arrived this morning the thermometers were showing 13.8 degrees! We all sat there painfully cold, bundled up in whatever we could find until the engineers came to sort it and it slowly returned to comfortable conditions this afternoon.

After all that, I wanted comfort food for dinner, so I turned to one of my favourites: smoked haddock topped with grated cheddar and breadcrumbs, with creamy garlic mash (and for ultimate joy I used 3 cloves!). Creamy, smokey, heartwarming joy on a plate.

Catching up

Wow, the last time I posted anything in this place there was snow on the ground. Well things couldn't be more different now and the weather is warm and sunny. I love this time of year, when the days are long long long, and early nights mean you rarely see the sky darken completely. I am so energised by the summer.

I am climbing/bouldering 2 or 3 times a week, and really working hard at yoga over the past few months too. I am enjoying learning to better control body and mind. It seems to help me maintain a general sense of positivity. If I can break through the anxiety that sometimes envelopes me, I am an optimistic little sausage at heart, a sunny pie! I am exploring meditation techniques lately too, and am getting the hang of controlling my thoughts a little better. Allllllll good.

We had a little jaunt to Hunstanton on the north Norfolk coast last month, blessed with lovely weather by the fates. Sand and sun, maybe some sea although it was quite far away most of the time. We also visited the Queen at Sandringham, which is a lovely lovely house.







The gardens at Sandringham are so idyllic!







Old Father Time lives in the Sandringham gardens!

Springtime...snow

Well I can honestly say I wasn't expecting this:


That was the view on the University of Nottingham campus earlier this afternoon. We are under quite an unexpected amount of snow at the moment! Strange to think that this time last year, I was sitting in the garden in 25 degrees on my week off, with the magnolia in full blossom, drinking dandelion and burdock tea and watching the bees start to come out. I really hope the weather gets a bit nicer for next week and the Easter long weekend, as we are hoping to take a trip to Bristol. Then in two weeks time we are off to Paris!

Anyway, we did have two nice snowdays this weekend. I managed to persuade Mark to drive me to the library on Saturday afternoon (yes I know it's only round the corner but the pavement was iiiccceey!), I needed to return The Blue Flower and I managed to get my hands on two books I have been after for ages! Underground Time by Delphine de Vigan and Monkey Grip by Helen Garner.

I was actually planning to buy Underground Time (or rather, Les Heures souterraines) while we are in Paris but once I saw it I thought, nah, I'll read it now! I'll get another of her books in Paris.

Saturday evening was time to try out a new tart recipe, which was SO GOOD.


Lay puff pastry into the tart tin and crumble in some big chunks of stilton. Cover with some chopped walnuts. Layer with thinly sliced pear and bake the tarts for 30 minutes or thereabouts, on 180 degrees or thereabouts. The added bonus of this recipe is that the making process involves one of the GREATEST SINGLE PLEASURES OF HUMAN EXISTANCE: crumbling blue cheese with your hands and then licking your fingers. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Auld Lang Syne

Beauty from Ashes...

Mark and I spent Friday in one of my favourite places to be - Stokes Croft in Bristol - drinking coffee and red wine and eating cake at Boston Tea Party and the Canteen.


I popped into the Amnesty Bookshop on the way down and picked up some Cees Nooteboom for 75p, so spent the afternoon flitting between that and The Fire Gospel by Michel Faber. When I finished The Fire Gospel I drank some more wine, contemplated what was in 2012, and what may be in 2013.

Auld Lang Syne

2012 was an odd year of ups and downs. I passed my Legal Practice Course with a mega-Distinction, despite spending most of January thinking I'd failed the interviewing module. Mark finished writing his book, despite it nearly giving him a nervous breakdown (it is now under review pending publication). We redecorated our living room, did a lot of gardening, and both developed a deep love for Benedict Cumberbatch (Parade's End...Parade's End! Oh my!).

The major flaw in the year was my 3 months of unemployment. It was a truly demoralising, soul-crushing experience, not to mention financially a bit horrifying as having not been resident in the UK for long enough in the last few years, I was not entitled to the pittance that is jobseekers' allowance. Gutted. I spent the whole time avoiding meeting people I already knew, in case they asked how the jobseeking was going. I also spent the whole time avoiding meeting any new people, in case they asked me what I did and I would have to admit to having no job, at which point I am pretty sure any last remaining threads of optimism and self-esteem would have snivelled out through my ear and promptly left the country.

Of course, being offered my job was a highlight of the year - not only was it the perfect job for me but in my dream law firm as well! Life definitely got a lot better, and the last few months have been fun, with trips to Cambridge, Oxford, London and even a day at the Thermae Spa in Bath for my mummy's 60th birthday a few weeks ago! I'm looking forward to more of this in 2013!

Hogmanay

I don't really do anything on New Year's Eve anymore. After 3 fun-filled NYEs in Sydney, out and about in the balmy night air with fireworks and friends and full-service public transport running all night, I don't really want to spend a night being overcharged for everything in an otherwise regular venue, before waiting for hours in the freezing cold to pay £6758688676 for a taxi home. I'll be at home in Nottingham, with a nice bottle of wine and, hopefully, some good food. I'll probably be in bed at five past midnight. So...Happy New Year and I'll see you on the other side!

Weekend voyaging

Had a nice little weekend away in Cambridgeshire on the farm at the weekend, primarily to celebrate Mark's dad's 60th Birthday! Daytime ambles through the Backs and the shops all twinkling with Christmas lights, and evenings in front of the fire (although it did spring a leak and try to smoke us out at one point - not quite so cosy!)

Mulled Wine

I also fulfilled a LIFELONG AMBITION (sort of) of drinking mulled wine in the fireplace nook at The Eagle. The Eagle does the Best Mulled Wine and we always try to get in the nook but it's always got people sitting in. BUT all of a sudden it was empty! RESULT!


Looking forward to another wee trip to my hometown Bristol next weekend, and my mummy's 60th Birthday which means a special secret treat on Friday!

Anniversaries...

I celebrated two small but lovely anniversaries in the past week or so... Firstly, 10 years ago on the 31st of October, I found my way to the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham which was hosting Will Self for the evening. Will Self is my absolute favourite writer of all time equal with Vladimir Nabokov. But more on that in another post for another time. On 31st October 2002, Will Self did a reading from his (then) new novel Dorian, followed by some questions from the audience and an opportunity to talk to Will and get your copy of the book signed. I spent about 3 weeks thinking up glorious deep and intellectual remarks and got all prepared, waited politely with my book in my hand. But it was not to be. As Will Self turned to greet me, I froze for a few awkward seconds, before thrusting my copy of Dorian at him and spluttering, slightly too fast and too loud, "HELLOMYNAMEISANNA".

In mitigation, I was very young (only 18) and already a bit nervous as I had only moved to Nottingham a few weeks earlier and was unfamiliar with my surroundings and was there on my own (couldn't persuade any of my new uni contemporaries to join). And he was, as far as I can remember, very pleasant and eloquent and patient and engaging. And he signed my book thus:


Will Self's latest novel, the Booker-nominated Umbrella, recently both was published and lost out on the Booker to Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies (which Mark has declared one of the best books ever and so perhaps we can allow this indiscretion on the part of the Booker judges...). On 31st October 2012, I went to buy it from the bookshop after work.


It's my Christmas present, really, so it's wrapped up in its bag until then, but I am so excited for my Christmas reading time. Especially so since Umbrella has been featured in the Guardian's list of the '10 most difficult books to finish'. I do love a book challenge.

And secondly? Secondly was my 9 year anniversary with Mark, on the 5th November. After a few fireworks-free years in Australia, it was nice to be back at Forest Fields watching the fireworks after a bottle of champagne and three courses at Petit Paris...

The best type of flea

So I was planning to walk up to Beeston Library this afternoon to return my Edward St Aubyn books but it suddenly started pouring down with rain. So I am stuck in on the sofa, getting a bit emotional listening to Ed Miliband on Daily Politics Conference Special. But there is a benefit to you, dear readers, and that is that you get a lovely blog post!

Last Saturday we headed into Nottingham for a lovely brunch at Jam Cafe followed by a trip to the Pretty Dandy Flea Market held in the Congregational Church on Castle Gate.

The church was a great venue for the flea. You can see some photos of the day taken by one of the stallholders on their blog, here. It was the first time the market had been held, but I hope they do another one soon as it was amazing - so many wonderful stalls with artists and collectors selling beautiful handmade/secondhand homewares.

It would have been very easy to spend a LOT of money at the market, but we restrained ourselves as I am still out of work right now. One thing we have been doing recently in our home is trying to build up our cushion collection - it's amazing what a difference they can make to the living room! There were a couple of stalls selling cushions made from vintage fabrics and we this one really jumped out at us as soon as we saw it...

The front is a screenprinted fabric from 1964 called 'Stanhope' (you can see it in the V&A textile archives). The back is a Harris Tweed. We got it for £35 and it makes such a statement, it looks amazing on the sofa!

Most of the sellers at the market had online stores so we collected fliers from the stalls we liked so we can buy from them another time. In particular there was a lady there selling her own prints, I can't remember her name right now and Mark has the flier, but they were really nice and bright and hopefully we'll get one to hang on our wall soon.

Otherwise, Mark picked up a few records from the second hand record stall and we also bought this set of 4 bowls for only £4!

According to Pretty Dandy's Facebook page they are looking at trying to arrange another flea market before Christmas, which would be brilliant for present-buying! *fingers crossed*

Sunny afternoons....

So I couple of posts back I made the somewhat grumpsome indication that proximity to the Peak District may be the only good thing about living in Nottingham. This isn't true, there are a (very small) number of other good things about Nottingham too. One of them is Wollaton Park. An Elizabethan stately home (Wollaton Hall) lies in several hundred acres of beautiful parkland, less than a mile from where we live. The park is a deer park too, so wonderful if you like a bit of wildlife spotting! Anyone who's seen the new Batman film may also recognise the Hall as Wayne Manor, residence of Bruce Wayne/Batman!


We spent several sunny afternoons over the past couple of months at the park, with picnic basket in tow, relaxing and sunbathing. Although the weather is cooling down now, I'm still looking forward to some autumnal walks as the trees turn golden red.


I even brought out my old Australian sunhat! Haven't really needed that in the UK so much, sadly. That dress is one of my old ones from my Australian days too. I love it *sigh*.


The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit on the Kindle - one of my all time favourite children's books. I always go back to E. Nesbit's Psammead series when I'm in need of calming - they're such magical books, perfect escapism for any age!