'Happiness can be found in the darkest of places if one remembers to turn on the light'
Author: Roseanne's Blog
I'm Roseanne :) 33. Married to Tim 💗 I'm a Harry Potter fanatic ⚡ and a Bookworm 📚 I started this blog to document our wedding planning and its grown from there!
This week me and my twin sister had our 34th birthday (errr where did that time go?!?!)
Here’s what we got up to!
Birthday morning
In the morning, I enjoyed some breakfast pastries and juice prepared by Tim. I then opened some lovely cards and presents with him before work.
Birthday afternoon
In the afternoon, once I had finished work, I got changed and met my sister in town for a late lunch. We went to our local Revolution and saw outside in the sunshine. We shared some of their delicious picky bits, a cocktail each, and we exchanged our presents.
And of course, we took our traditional photo booth photos…
We had a bit of extra time to kill, so we headed over to Boom Battle Bar and played an hour of augmented darts, which was fun!
Birthday evening
In the evening, we headed over to our mum and dad’s with my husband, and my sisters husband and my two nephews.
We hung out for a bit and opened our presents from our parents, which was nice 😊
Me & Tim went home when everyone else left and enjoyed a little bit of dinner (didn’t need much!) We watched some tv together and then I started one of my birthday books.
A lovely day 😃🎈
Happy Birthday to us.
👭🏼
(Special mention to Agatha, the Caterpillar cake I made for us this year. Really happy with how it came out.)
Have you started planning your birthday yet?
What sort of things do you like to do on your birthday? 🎂
Train journeys are the perfect time to pick up your book.Coffees, walks & catch ups.Sunshine & sea.Takeaway Nandos 🙌🏼Lil ice cream at the cinema treat.My fave reading spot.Shorts in April? Who dis?Cinema with hubby 💗Breakfast with my nephews.Mediterranean brekky, delish.Colour hunt – I spy purple. Colour hunt – I spy yellow.Spring floral nails by moi.Colour hunt – I Spy orange.AC birthday tradition photo. Book one of the hols.Work ✌🏼 at least it’s sunny.The Sims ⭐️ Brunchin’ with a friend. Book 2 of the hols. 20° – whattttt!?
Week Two
Out for lunch with Mum.Breakfast crossaint 🤤Fun playing The Sims.With my favourite 3.Easter craft session with the kids. Easter Egg hunt time.& finally, chocolate Easter Nest making.Enjoying Good Friday on the Waterfront.Our yummy brunch sandwiches.Playing Catan at Geek Retreat.My Easter Egg.Yummy Easter desserts for a family lunch.Out for a lovely Easter Sunday afternoon walk.Me & Tim 💗Our traditional family Easter Chinese in the evening 😀
I hope you’ve enjoyed the long Easter weekend, if you celebrate it 🐇
So, I had an idea to document some more memories on my blog. I used to do a lot more of these sort of posts before I started posting more book/reading content, and when I had more time haha, life seems to be busy these days!
So I thought as we are a quarter of the way through the year, I could do a quarterly memories update to capture 2025.
This is part one, the first three months of the twelve of 2025!
Let’s take a look.
January
I’m not always a fan of January. It always seems such a miserable month after the festivities if Christmas, but this one wasn’t too bad! Me & my husband went to London together for the day, we saw ‘Harry Potter and The Cursed Child’ (again) and had a delicious dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant.
There was more footie with my nephew and lots of reading this month!! I love making my new reading lists and new book purchases for the new year. I also had two baby showers to celebrate, which was lovely! Not a bad start to the year, really!
February
In February, we had some fun sleepovers with my Nephew’s and Niece, me and my twin sister played the OG ‘The Sims’ game on its re release anniversary special, so amazing nostalgia there! I went to London to meet up with my Uni friend Kirsty and we watched ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ Musical… we also had dinner with another friend afterwards which was a great catch up (The show was really good).
Me and my Twin sister also saw a show, but in Norwich, we watched Giovanna Fletcher in ‘The Girl on the Train’. It was so cool to see Gi in a show and it was done really well on stage (I love the book!!) Speaking of books, Me and some friends from work started up a reading library in our staff room which has been going well and is nicely stocked now.
This month I also added some colourful accessories to our bathroom to finish it off, (we had it redone at the end of last year), and I have been meaning to add some colourful for a while! And we, of course, enjoyed a lovely Valentines evening together at our favourite Turkish restaurant.
In the February Half Term me and my husband went away for a long weekend. We stayed in Norfolk at a lovely inn and enjoyed a chilled weekend! The pub was lovely and cosy, the food was brilliant (breakfast included, always a winner with us!) And we had a little trip to Banham zoo, which I haven’t been to in years. We even had a Meerkat experience whilst we were there as they were only £15 each, bargain. It was a lovely relaxing weekend, much needed.
March
We had lots of fun in March, including the football and limited edition Ed Sheeran stickers!! My besties little boy had his first birthday party (under the sea themed), and our new sofas finally arrived!!
There was lots of yummy food, including a work meal at Prezzo, Wagas with my sister and our friend Dan, as well as our traditional Mothers Day homemade Afternoon Tea with my sisters and a Mothers Day lunch with Mum. I’ve also been ill a lot this month with coughs and colds, which is not ideal, so here’s to a healthier April.
We are into the second month of the year, and we are on a book count of 10 (.5 halfway as halfway through one 🤣)
Let’s take a look at this months books.
Month Two – let’s go!
The Other Tenant by Lesley KaraBridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding (RE READ)The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (RE READ)Friends Forever by Danielle SteelThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark HaddonCompany Of Liars: A Novel Of The Plague by Karen Maitland
This is bit of a different take on this challenge by @katie_ellison (instagram) whose lovely template I have used.
I have chosen 25 books from my tbr shelf that I am finally going to read in 2025!
My double stacked shelves were getting a little out of hand, so what better way to clear them a bit than to actually read some of the books I’ve bought!!
I tried to go for a mixture of genres, there is still a lot of thrillers in there because it’s me so that’s what I buy 🤣 but I do also have some fantasy books, romance, a sci fi, some historical fiction and some crime in there. It’s not a bad mixture.
Here’s my selection…
A Court of Thorn and Roses
That Night
How to Kill Your Family
The Suspect
The Castaway
The Air Raid Book Club
The Lies You Told
The Woman On The Ledge
The Teashop Gurls At War
A Slow Burning Fire
An Unwanted Guest
Hold back The Stars
The Paris Apartment
How To Stop Time
The Wake Up Call
The Split
Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Traitors Gate
The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time
The Boyfriend
Come Back For Me
With This Kiss
Love Untold
The Night She Disappeared
I Died On A Tuesday
Have you read any of these?
Wish me luck with my challenge ✌🏼📚 I will try and remember to do a little update halfway through the year.
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, New years, and are surviving through the longest month of the year! Gotta love January.
I got some lovely books and bookish presents for Christmas, so I thought I would do a little haul post for you.
Let’s take a look!
‘The Woman on the ledge’ by Ruth Mancini
‘I Died on a Tuesday’ by Jane Corry
Both of these thrillers were chosen for me by my twin sister. I love it when people choose books for me! (Although I have been told that it is harder to do these days due to the amount I’ve read 🤣)
I have read ‘I died on a Tuesday’ and really enjoyed it.
‘Stranger Things’ novels
My Mum picked up these two ‘Stranger Things’ novels for me for Christmas.
‘Book Love’
My mother in law bought me this very cute little book that is perfect for any of you book lovers out there! It’s full of cute little illustrations, bookish quotes, and comics.
I also got a few book themed presents.
A little purse/zip bag.
A very apt sign! I will be hanging this by my bookshelves.
A cute little book themed tote.
I also got a few National Book token vouchers, a Waterstones voucher, and a voucher for my favourite independent book shop! So, all in all, I am sorted for my book purchasing for a little while.
I am very lucky ✨️
I have bought a couple of books so far with my vouchers…
From Waterstones…
The first two ACOTAR books. My friend has been suggesting I read these for ages!
The 2024 Booker Prize Winner ‘Orbital’ by Samantha Harvey
That’s all for now, folks!
I hope you got some lovely books this year 📚 I can’t wait to get stuck in.
Roseanne Byford 