Christmas Is Coming

The run-up to Christmas is always extremely hectic at work and this year it was no different - I clocked up 80 hours over Halloween week, took a mild breather at the start of November and then it was full festive steam ahead, culminating in several 15 hour working days. Oof.  The plus side to all of this is that we shut up mid-December and I get to use up my annual leave by having three weeks off over the holidays.

It's not exactly peaceful to start with - I get no chance to do anything at home when I'm basically at work all the time, so when I'm finally off there's a lot of housework to catch up on! Also I don't know why but I always manage to forget about the pre-Christmas socialisation. I've been out for a party, a retirement meal, brunch, pub dinner and a birthday meal in the past six days! For shy old retiring me, that's quite some effort.

But the house is finally ready for Christmas and even if I do say so myself, it looks awfully pretty. My endless to-do lists are nearing completion and I am very much looking forward to a relaxing, fun, family time.


My stash of books to be read on Christmas Eve are waiting for me.



As it consists of Wodehouse books this year, I've christened my book tree the Whathohoho Tree.



I've even put baubles in the bathroom. Well, why not?



The stairs are garlanded



Appleyard London sent me this gorgeous Advent Bouquet which is brightening up the hall a treat. This is my usual spot in the house for fresh flowers but I was despairing of finding a Christmas bouquet I actually liked. This one is beautiful - the perfect solution!




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Advent calendar has nearly all been scoffed



Cards are up wherever I can fit them and Father Ted is being brightened up by some holly lights.




Altogether, things are looking festive and jolly.





I'm now ready for a whole lot of loafing around, snuggling with Phil and reading books. Bliss.

Happy Housewarming

I seem to be at that stage in life where everyone is buying houses. Sign of the times when you hit 30, I suppose. It's better than everyone being pregnant. I know what to do with houses and I am excellent at helping paint, decorate, buy cushions and haul lots of crap to the tip (I've had a lot of recent practice). I can also be relied upon to be v. enthusiastic about decor schemes and all things house. Babies I have zero idea what to do with. The whole process baffles me. I once distinguished myself by writing "Have a good baby!" in a card for a colleague about to go off on maternity leave...

However I think you'll agree it is much easier to buy a present for a baby than a house. All cute tiny things are automatically great so you're never short of options. I find housewarming presents much more tricky - trying to judge other people's taste in homeware is a lot more fraught than picking clothes, jewellery and the like. Hopefully you know their taste in most things but if there's a whole new house to decorate, you don't always know what look they're going for. There's nothing worse than landing someone with that deeply misjudged horrible present that they despise but have to hide in a cupboard and get out when you're due to visit. *shudders*  I don't ever want to be that sort of giftgiver. Especially not when all my pals did so well buying me lovely (green) things for my place!

The obvious place to turn is somewhere like Not On The High Street but they're a smidgen predictable for my tastes. I prefer sites like Etsy and Uncommon Goods (especially as the latter has a cracking sustainability policy which you can read about here) for the personalised touch and can merrily spend hours browsing through random things I've never have discovered otherwise. The more mainstream shops shouldn't be left out though - I'm a total convert to The Range (shop in store btw - their online CS is pretty dire) and have you been in Asda or Matalan recently? Woodland animals ahoy!

So what have I been buying/drooling over recently?

You don't know how hard I wish I'd known about this mixtape doormat back when my brother and his wife last moved house! (It's customisable, which is a good job, cos their surname isn't Smith).

These coasters are on order for a Game of Thrones-loving pal of mine. Not too in-your-face.

I don't know where these little bear tumblers from Asda will end up but they were too cute not to buy! Someone will love them.

Is it weird to buy someone a clock as a housewarming gift? It probably is. But it's so lovely! Told you The Range were great at the mo.


I think I'm fighting (and losing) the age-old battle of buying things you secretly want for yourself. Must...resist...

Whilst I'm talking house, it occurs to me that although I moved in nearly a year ago, I never did do any celebratory welcome-to-the-new-abode posts. I've got this week off work and am attacking all those pesky little DIY jobs that I was too exhausted/lazy to do after moving in. It may well be ready to take some photos of by the end of the week!


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Beautiful Blooms

Remember when post used to be exciting? Nahhh, you're probably all much younger than me and don't remember a time before email. Nowadays I get hardly anything through the letterbox other than takeaway menus and when I do get actual post, it's all dull homeowner type bills. Bah. Being a grown up is not as much fun as it's cracked up to be. Getting a rather stylish flower delivery in the mail is a rare treat, trust me.

Appleyard Flowers sent me the Forget Me Not bouquet from their seasonal range to review and when it arrived, it was exactly as promised - a super elegant selection of blue hydrangeas, avalanche roses, white germini and alstroemeria. Perfect to brighten up my living room! An awfully nice touch too, as no-one ever buys me flowers and it's somehow not quite the same when you have to buy your own in the supermarket.

My tragic lack of romance aside, what about the flowers? It's over a week since they arrived and the majority of them are still going strong and looking really beautiful. I had to remove the hydrangeas yesterday as they'd gone a bit floppy and sad-looking but a week isn't bad at all for a flower that's notoriously tricky to keep looking perfect! The rest of the bouquet is still looking great. Two large thumbs up from me.

What makes them stand out from other companies? Well, I'm quite the connoisseur of internet flower shopping. I may have occasionally often been known to forget important dates and frantically had to organise something at the last minute (see this post - it's nothing personal if I forget your birthday, honestly!), so anywhere that does next day flowers is top of my list. I'll freely admit I'm a bit of a deal ho when it comes to choosing which company I use to send flowers though. It's always really hard to tell if what gets delivered will bear any real-life resemblance to the photo on the website so I'm more easily suckered in by a money-off voucher or Quidco cashback than I am by a pretty photo and hence I've worked my way through a good few companies.

Appleyard get top marks in this truth stakes - their photos are indeed pretty, but so are the real-life bouquets that turn up. Take my word for it: I'd tell you if they were disappointing and they're really not. Should you wish to take advantage of a discount code (and who doesn't love one of those?), use BLOG33 for 33% off their range of luxury bouquets. Bargain!! It doesn't include the flowers by post bouquets but there are lots of other beautiful options.

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Living On My Own

Two months into solo living...how am I finding it?

Mostly I love it. Just me (and Oscar, obvs) pottering around my little house, surrounded by an awful lot of books. It's not that life before this was particularly constricting in any way - far from it - but no matter how much you love the people you live with, sharing a house is not the same as having your very own space.

I'm typing this while curled up in my big armchair in the library, listening to the radio and casting the occasional glance into the living room where young Catpants is snoozing happily on his blanket on the sofa. It's a modest enough achievement - I'm sure people dream of grander houses and newer furniture and big massive televisions - but it's something that I've wanted for a long time and I've worked and saved so hard for it.

Living solo doesn't bother me.  I like my own company and I'm perfectly happy like this. We did Insights training at work last year and it's official: I'm an oddbod. Most people have a very similar personality profile in and out of work but mine is completely different. Like, freakily so. I'm red/green at work (which is unusual enough anyway - you're meant to clash with your opposite segments, not be half them!) and blue/yellow at home. In simple terms, I'm an extrovert at work but a massive introvert at home. I need my quiet time and space where I don't have to talk to anyone. It suits me down to the ground to have things this way.

The thing I'm not loving is the anxiety. I really hope this will die down with time because it's a pretty constant nagging feeling in my stomach at the moment and I don't like it. It's probably just post-purchase blues: that sudden whack of realisation that all the slog and then the excitement of renovation/redecoration/moving in is over and you now owe the bank an absolute fuckload of money and that everything that goes wrong is your responsibility to pay for/fix (ooh, what will it be that breaks first?) and you still haven't finished paying off the carpets on the credit card (and how chuffing expensive are carpets btw?!) and you're never going to have any money ever again. Only that's all on my shoulders. No-one else to split the bills and share the worry with. Just me. Freaking out about it somewhat.

Like I say though, I'm hoping this will dissipate eventually.  As one of my oldest and best friends said at the weekend, "You should be really proud of this, Alex." 

I am. I really am. I just need to settle into appreciating that.

Nearly Ready For Christmas

Minor Christmas tree fail the other day. I wrestled it into the tree stand (not that easy to do by yourself) , got decorating and was most pleased with my efforts. Doesn't it fit nicely into the alcove?



Then I went out and came home a few hours later to see this:



TREE DOWN!!!! Nooooooooooooooo.

I was lucky that only one thing broke but it had to be the biggest, loveliest vintage bauble didn't it? Smashed to smithereens. Minor waaaah-ing took place but the tree was propped back up and doesn't appear to have made another bid for freedom. The massive stack of presents is probably helping keep it upright!







I'm having great fun decorating the rest of the house too! The living room is obviously Christmas Central:





But in the library I have advent corner:



With my truly beautiful advent calendar:



I pinched a leftover floral decoration from work to liven up the hall:



The stairs have been garlanded:



I've even decorated the bed!



Just need to have a quick hoover round the place and then I'm ready to put my feet up and dive into my stack of special festive books. Can't wait! I chuffing love Christmas.



Merry Christmas everyone. I'm signing off for a week or so - I like my time offline over the holidays. Hope you all have a lovely time, full of as much food/drink/presents/family fun/peace and quiet as your heart desires.

The House: The Boudoir

I am muchly enjoying the new place. It's slightly odd wrapping my head around the fact that I can merrily spread my stuff all over the house rather than having to wedge everything into my bedroom, but I'm coping ok with that. Ha! Who'd have thought I needed encouragement to fling belongings everywhere?

Now that everything doesn't have to live in my room, I'm trying to keep it less cluttered and more of a soothing space. A boudoir, if you like. The decluttering isn't going fantastically well and it's still really messy, hence the lack of stylish wide-angle interiors shots. The basic things are in place though!



I gave the bedside table a spruce up last year and although it's not a match with the shade of green of the wallpaper, it tones rather nicely. We don't want too much matchy matchy, do we? The initial lamp was from Out There Interiors but I don't think they stock them any more.




The bedding and clock are both from Asda who are doing some seriously good homeware at the moment. Bargainous prices too! It looks as if they've changed the clock design slightly but the duvet set is very much still available.



This gorgeous snuggly throw is c/o The French Bedroom Company. My little house is quite toasty warm anyway but there's something lovely about having a super soft, beautiful blanket at the end of the bed when some extra warmth and comfort is needed.



I love toile. Like, an awful lot. Surprisingly hard to find in green though - red and blue are loads more common. I tracked this wallpaper down on Direct Wallpaper.



Not gonna lie. I had a lot of fun searching for knobs on ebay. I was in mild despair until I hit upon a seller called The Barrister's Horse (excellent name!) and found approx 957685 different styles of amazing knobs. I pretty much wanted all of them but these Parisian ones were perfect for the boudoir, especially as the black matches the all the metalwork on the bed frame and hat stand.



Hat stand! Or should that be bag stand? It was an ebay purchase about four years ago and now I've got the room settled and decided that there's space for another one, I can't find the same flipping style anywhere. Gahhhh. Might have to go for a mismatched approach.



This bedside table was another little painting project. I bought it for £5 in a fit of frivolity after signing the contracts for the house and it was a gruesome shade of pink. I was gonna try and recover the fabric part but I don't think I can get it off without ruining the trim. It's still vaguely gruesome but it kinda works, doesn't it?

Also, please admire the luxurious boudoir carpet. Turns out it's very hard to pick a colour that matches white woodwork and that particular wallpaper. The bloke in the carpet shop took pity on my aimless wandering around and suggested this one. I hadn't considered grey at all but it looks lovely.



Books, glorious books.

I'll do the library next. It's nearly sorted!

I'm In!

I finally moved house!

Now you might be expecting lots of beautiful interior pictures but you'll have to make do with some arty closeups instead.  The house is still in quite the state of chaos and mostly looks like this:

However, those cardboard boxes contain four shiny new Billy bookcases and once I've got them finangled together, I can actually start to make the house take shape. Oh my, I have a lot of books. This is about half the collection still waiting to be moved in.



The carpet fitters did their thing last week and everywhere looks super lovely, but there's still one room to finish so currently there are bits of bed frame and other assorted stuff everywhere. Carpets though: yoicks!

It'll all come together over the weekend, I'm sure. For now there are small pockets of loveliness dotted around the place and that's keeping me going.