Blogmas Day Three: Festive Decorations Haul 🎄

I love it when you start to see the Christmas decorations in the shops and now that it is December all the shops are full of the most festive of displays.

Me and my eldest Nephew had a look round one of our local stores (The Range) to see what festive decorations they had to offer, and we weren’t disappointed.

Here’s our little haul 🎄


Hanging decorations


Hanging berry star with gold glitter.

Rustic Heart woodland wreath.

Hanging bell decorations.

Tree decorations


Red glass ‘Merry Christmas’ bauble.

Clip on red and gold glitter birdies.

Rustic bell decoration with foliage.

So festive!

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

Blogmas Day Two: The Christmas Tag 🎅

To start Blogmas off I thought that I would do a Christmas tag. Christmassy questions to get into the seasonal spirit. I love hearing about peoples Christmas traditions, food, favourite songs etc so I thought this would be a bit of fun.

I have chosen these questions from various different lists, and hopefully you guys will find these questions interesting. I’ve split the questions up into categories just to mix it up from last year.

Lets go!


Decorating

Is your Christmas tree real or fake?

Our Christmas tree is fake. Its what I always had growing up and so that’s what we had when we moved into our own home.

How do you decorate your home at Christmas?

Like a grotto! (that isn’t an exaggeration!!) I go all out with a different colour scheme for each room, just to maximise the festiveness.

I also love to have a wreath on the door.

What is your favourite Christmas colour?

I love the traditional Christmas colours of red, gold and green.

What tops your tree?

We have a red star that tops our tree. This came as part of the tree decoration set that my mum bought us when we moved into our own place.


Food

What do you usually have for Christmas dinner?

Tradtionally, my family always had turkey and gammon for our Christmas dinner. We usually have either Turkey or Chicken at my father in laws.

What is your favourite sweet treat at Christmas?

A Terry’s chocolate orange.

What is your favourite Christmas food?

It has to be the Christmas dinner, in its entirety. All those delicious components together to make one amazing meal. Pigs in blankets tho.

What is your Christmas day breakfast?

Although I am a firm believer that chocolate is 100% a legitimate breakfast for Christmas day, as a child my mum always made us have something proper for breakfast, therefore I always make me and Tim something. I usually make something we wouldn’t usually have such as dippy eggs and soldiers (A classic) or Pastries (Pan Au Choclat, Crossaints etc) and fruit juices.


Christmas Day

Do you open any presents on Christmas Eve?

No. We have Christmas eve boxes for the boys but we open all our presents on Christmas day.

Do you wake up early on Christmas day?

Oh yeah! I’m such a child when it comes to this aspect of Christmas. Anything from 6am is fair game to me. You get more Christmas day if you are up earlier haha.

Christmas day attire, Smart or Casual?

When I was younger I used to wear something nice or new to my Nana’s for Christmas lunch. However, as an adult I now choose comfort. I have even been known to wear a Reindeer onesie all day. I do usually opt for a Christmas jumper at the in laws though.

What would be your dream place to visit for the festive season?

I would love to go back to Florida at Christmas. I bet the theme parks look so cool and Disney would be SO magical. America does holidays well.


Christmas traditions

What is your favourite Christmas tradition?

My favourite tradition is driving around our local town together, on Christmas eve, to see the Christmas lights. Its a fun Christmas eve activity and makes you feel really festive and excited for the big day.

Name a Christmas tradition from your childhood.

When we were children and went to my Nana’s for Christmas day we used to have little present bags from my Nana. We would open our main presents from Nana at home in the morning with mum and dad, and then once we had, had Christmas lunch Nana would get out the little bags and we would open those. It spread the presents out a bit and it was a nice little bag of goodies, usually chocolate, socks, Shower gel and so on.

When do you start getting excited about Christmas?

Urm October??!! haha. As soon as Halloween is out of the way its fair game I’d say. Although, from the 24th November on wards I start decorating and that’s when it gets super exciting.

Do you have an advent calendar?

Of Course! I always have a chocolate advent calendar which is usually Cadbury’s. I have previously had different beauty advent calendar’s but I couldn’t decided on which one to get this year (Some are so pricey!!). I’ve also had colouring advent calenders too which are cool and super fun!


Christmas favourites

What is your favourite Christmas Song?

Last Christmas By Wham!

What is your favourite Christmas Film?

I don’t know if I have a favourite but I like ‘Deck the halls’ and ‘Elf’. I also love to tape the ‘Made for TV’ Christmas films haha.

What is your favourite Christmas activity to do?

I love going to the annual Christmas panto in our local town, a bit of Christmas shopping, stopping for a hot chocolate, decorating.

What is your favourite TV to watch at Christmas?

The soaps usually get pretty good at this time of the year, especially Eastenders. I also love watching I’m a celeb which is usually on at the beginning of December. The Doctor Who Christmas special, Harry Potter & the Philosphers Stone.


Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

🎅🎅 BLOGMAS 2018 🎅🎅

Its that time of year again!


Blogmas is back.


If you aren’t familiar with Blogmas then basically it is 24 (or 25) festive posts from the start of December up until the big day itself.

The rules, one post a day, and make them fully festive.

Christmas is 100% my favourite time of the year.

Yeah, it’s a bit chilly but I am so ready for some serious festive fun.

I hope you enjoy these posts throughout December and if there’s anything in particular I can do let me know.


Which sort of Blogmas posts are your fave?


Until next time,

Rohohoseanne 🎄

Bonfire night 🎆✨

I love an excuse for a get together and since I met my husband we have started up a little tradition on bonfire night.

We do usually go to a local fireworks display with our friends, as well, but unfortunately we couldn’t make it this year which was a shame!

But as the 4th was a Sunday and we usually head over to my father in laws for dinner, we were able to at least carry out our other bonfire night tradition.

It wasn’t too cold, just enough to warrant wrapping up and making yourself nice and cosy.

We had our traditional jacket potatoes and hot dogs to eat.

We followed that up with hot chocolate and baked apples, both of which were delicious and super warming.

It was so cosy sitting outside by the light of the tea lights and fires.

So yummy.

Inbetween the food we also had some large, gold sparklers to add to the bonfire night feel.

I love the smell of the fires and sparklers in the crisp, fresh evening air.

Gotta love a sparkler! 🎆🎇✨

& we even managed to finish up the festivities just in time for Doctor Who.

A lovely, cosy family evening. Good food & good company.

I hope you enjoyed your bonfire night celebrations!!

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

Staying in a Hobbit hole!

So, last weekend me, my husband Tim, Bestie Roxy & her partner Mike went on an adventure.

We are all fans of LOTR (Lord of the rings) and The Hobbit and when Roxy told me about the Hobbit hole to stay in we knew we had to book it up for the boys.

It was a surprise for them, they had no idea where we were going and what we were doing. So exciting.

We stayed at ‘West Stow Pods’ in their Hobbit Hole. This is in Stowmarket.

We stayed over from Fri-Sun, a perfect weekend stay (although we all agreed we could have happily stayed for longer!!)

It was SO cool, we just kept turning to each other and saying ‘We’re staying in a Hobbit hole!!’ with big smiles on our faces.

The boys both loved it and just kept saying how cool it was (mission accomplished)

It looked so authentic inside and out with the iconic round door, sloping, curved walls, wooden interior, fireplace and so on. The furniture was all wooden too and there were even a few props and stuff which were fun 🤣

There were all the films if you wanted to watch them, all the books and even some board games too.

We did a high ropes activity nearby, whilst we were there, which was good fun.

It had everything you needed for your stay. All we needed to do was shop for a feast, a feast fit for a Hobbit.

It was in its only little area of the forest and had it’s only fenced front garden (which we ate our lunch in, on the Saturday, when the sun came out, bliss) so although you knew there were other pods nearby you could totally emerse yourself in the experience and get lost in the magic of this quaint and unique place.

I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for somewhere a bit different to stay for a weekend and for any LOTR and/or Hobbit fans, it’s a must.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

Summer diaries: Week Five & Six 🌞

Here is the final instalment in my ‘Summer diaries’ blog series 🌞

Enjoy!

Monday 27th August 2018

As its a bank holiday me and Timmy went out to Woodbridge.

We went out for lunch and then had a lovely walk through the shops in town, sat in one of the parks to start planning our next holiday and walked back to the car, along the river.

It was a lovely chilled out bank holiday and it was lovely to spend sometime together.

Tuesday 28th August 2018

I spent my Tuesday in the library as it was my last day volunteering for the Summer Reading challenge.

I’ve really enjoyed helping out again, this was my 6th year.

I LOVE reading and I hope by volunteering I’ve helped some kiddies carry on their love of reading too.

Friday 31st August 2018

Today was an awesome day, it was mine and Evie-Mae’s Auntie & Niece day ♡

We had lots of fun together.

Our first stop was the park to eat our lunch…

Our second stop was the library to have a look at some books. We had a lovely time exploring the library and we read a few books too.

In the night garden was her favourite.

Our third and final stop was soft play! She loved going in and out of the soft tunnels, sitting in the ball pit and going down the slide together.

I can’t wait for our next day out together !!

In the evening I went to Chiquitos for dinner with some of my lovely work friends.

It was great to have a catch up, accompanied by some yummy food.

Saturday 1st September 2018

Today I went into town for a spot of retail therapy. I love shopping and no matter what my husband says, it’s a legitimate hobby!! Haha.

Whilst I was in town I went to Debenhams to see my friend Demi. Demi works for Dior and she wanted me to try out some of Diors new Autumn collection.

If you want to see what I thought of all the beautiful products you can check out my blog post here .

Sunday 2nd September 2018

Today I went to my first football match of the new season. It was a very important one for my local team as we were playing our local East Anglian rivals.

The match wasn’t the best but it ended with a draw which isn’t a bad result.

After the footie me and all my friends from our group gathered at Sam & Livy’s to celebrate Livy’s birthday.

We had a lovely BBQ in the sun and it was great to chill out and catch up with each other.

In the evening the boys came over for a sleepover, which was awesome!

We didn’t do much as it was late by the time we got home from the BBQ but, there was just enough time for a treat!ice creams all round.

Tuesday 4th September 2018

Me and Noah went to the cinema together this morning. Our local cinema does ‘Movies for juniors’ showings in the mornings and this morning it was Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’.

We had a great time watching a Disney classic and enjoying some snacks.

As this was my last day off I spent the afternoon chillin’ out. The perfect end to the summer hols.


And thats it, the end of the Summer hols! I can’t believe they are over already,

They seem to get quicker and quicker every year.

I hope you enjoyed this little mini series, taking a look inside my Summer hols and what I got up to.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

Summer diaries: Week Two, Three & Four!

Apologies for the delay! But my ‘Holiblog’ series kind of took over!

But, the summer hols are only just over so I thought I would finish the series up and update you guys on how I spent the middle weeks of the holidays.

The reason I’ve lumped a few weeks together is because I’m not going to actually explain what I did in weeks Two and Three as that is when we were in Florida…Instead I will leave the links to my holiblogs…

Weeks Two and Three

Florida 18 Holiblog pt1

Florida 18 Holiblog pt2

Florida 18 Holiblog pt3

Week Four

Thursday 23rd/Friday 24th August 2018

Tonight (Thurs) I slept over at my twin sister Sarah’s house.

We had a treat dinner before heading to bed ready for the celebrations the next day.

Friday 24th August 2018 marks two years since my beautiful youngest nephew Casey James was born.

I am so happy I am waking up there and being able to experience his birthday with him first thing. We have a fun day planned!

Our first stop was the cinema to watch

‘Luis and the aliens’

It was brilliant and we had a great time, especially with some yummy snacks and drinks included.

The film was one of the best kids films I’ve seen in ages!

Next stop! McDonald’s for a birthday treat lunch.

Stop number three, Pennikkity Pots!

Here we did something a bit different but fun and creative. The boys both chose a ceramic and they painted it. Casey chose a fish whilst Noah painted a shark.

They loved it!

Nana & Grandads in the evening for more presents opening and cake!!

It was a jammed packed but fun day to celebrate Casey turning two!

Saturday 25th August 2018

Me & my friend from work met up this evening to have a meal together.

Nandos was delicious as usual and the halloumi starter proved as difficult to avoid as always.

It was great to catch up after my holiday and have a good old chat!

Sunday 26th August 2018

Casey Jame’s second birthday party.

It’s kind of a tradition to have a little party each year, with all the family! So of course this year was no exception.

At Sarah & Dans we had party food, present opening, fun, games and of course cake!

There was a definite dino theme amongst his presents and he loved his dinosaur Jurassic World birthday cake.

We rounded off the day with a delicious impromptu (always the best kind) Chinese takeaway.

That’s the penultimate week done, its the last week next week 😱

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

Holiblog: Florida edition pt 3


Disney


The other main reason for visiting Orlando, Florida was to go to Disney World.

& if you havn’t been, but love Disney, I would highly recommend it! It’s just so damn magical ✨

My husband went as a child and always said this, but I really think you have to experience it to understand.

If I was to try and describe it to you I would just say that it feels really magical, and you wander around in this magical Disney bubble and it’s just fun and happy and full of colourful mickey ears and characters and people bursting into song as if that’s just normal, because at Disney it is, and it’s just awesome.

Disney has loads of different parks so I will share some pictures and memories from each one for you. I will also include a bit on the parades/shows that we saw as they do them SO well at Disney.

Enjoy!


Disney’s Magic Kingdom


The most magical place on earth!

& it really is.

As soon as you walk in you see Mickey shaped topiary, buildings that look like something straight out of an old school Disney film (think Mary Poppins) balloons, lights, vehicles carrying parades and then right at the end of this upbeat Disney street is a truly magical sight, the Disney castle!

Magic Kingdom is home to loads of great rides such as ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ ‘Its a small world’ ‘Haunted Mansion’ ‘Space Mountain’ ‘Thunder Mountain’ ‘Splash Mountain’ and many more!

They also do fantastic character parades that are well worth a watch. They really do unleash your inner child!

The ‘Happily Ever After’ Fireworks are also amazing and 100% worth a watch! So magical 🎆


Disney’s Animal Kingdom 🦁


Animal Kingdom was probably one of my favourite parks out of all of the Disney parks. They are all so well themed and this was no exception!

The park is split into different continents such as Africa and Asia and the animal attractions are themed accordingly.

It is all set around the tree of life which is at the centre of the park and is quite a beautiful sight to behold! (& a great photo point)

It hosts many AMAZING shows, and FYI the Finding Nemo Musical is not to be missed!! Seriously one of the best musicals I’ve ever seen and it doesn’t take up hours of your life!!

The Safari is also brilliant! Its such an awesome feature for the park and the array of animals that you get to see it fantastic.

Animal Kingdom is also home to the largest Rainforest Cafe in the world. We had our lunch in there and it’s really cool inside. If you’ve ever wanted to experience lunch in the rainforest then it’s definatly for you!


Disney’s Epcot 🔮


Also one of my faves (unexpectedly) was Disney’s Epcot park! Epcot is quite different from the other Disney parks but is so interesting in what it has to offer.

The great thing about Disney World is the variety that all the different parks offer, there really is something for everyone.

Epcot is so interesting because it’s very much about the future and how we can improve the world and build on the world we have using our minds, skills, resources and technology.

This is shown through experiences, games and rides.

One of my favourite rides, Soarin was a fantastic 4D simulator ride over different landscapes and it was phenomonal.

It also has a cool ‘Finding Nemo’ section within the Aquarium which was cool. The different sea life was great to see.

Plus, they did the best mac and cheese that I had the whole time I was in America haha.

Aside from these things it also boasts a MASSIVE lake that is surrounded by buildings and eateries all themed around different countries, so you can take mini tour around the world as you walk around the lake. It’s like nowhere I’ve ever been to before and it is really well done.

& not forgetting the Epcot fireworks which are hands down the best I’ve ever seen. It was an absolutely fantastic show and the fireworks, lights and music were so impressive! Again, not one to be missed.

Epcot was also epic because I got another character photo with Goofy (my fave) in my Goofy hat & he signed my hat! Awesome.


Disney’s Hollywood Studios 🎬


This is one of the newer parks and is home to lots of the Star Wars action.

Again, this was really well themed.

The streets looked like old style American New York sidewalks with skyscrapers, theatres, gas stations, diners and so on.

The main stage always played host to a show or performance which was cool to stop and watch as you walked around.

We turned up just in for the ‘March of the first order’ of Stormtroopers. Even as someone who isn’t a fan of Star Wars I thought this was really cool. It was so realistic and you just get so swept up in it all that you kind of forget it isn’t real.

Hollywood Studios also has great features and rides such as ‘Frozen’ the ‘Indiana Jones Stunt show’ ‘Tower of terror’ ‘Rockin Rollercoaster’ and loads more.

It’s also home to the brand new ‘Toy Story Land’ which is so cool. Everything in this part of the park is seemingly made out of toys, Knexs for the fences, giant Jenga pieces, building blocks, and so on.


Disney’s Blizzard Beach


Disney also plays host to two different water parks. Again these are really well themed and lots of fun.

The one we made it to was Blizzard Beach.

I was really glad we managed to see one of the water parks however, our day didn’t turn out as planned as a storm hit as we arrived and we were unable to go on any rides. Eventually we had to give up and find something else to do for the day which was a shame.

We did get to walk around the park and see all the themeing for a little bit before the storm struck but, we didn’t really get to experience it in its full glory.

However, this was where I had my first photo with Goofy so every cloud!

The other park is called ‘Typhoon Lagoon’.


I’ve always been a big fan of Disney films but I was never that fussed about visiting Disney, however now that I have been all I would say to you is GO!

Disney truly is SO much more amazing and magical than I could have ever imagined and so much fun, for all the family! It really does have to been seen to be believed and experienced to be appreciated. I’ve definatly got the Disney bug now so next stop Disneyland Paris haha 🎢🎡🏰

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

Holiblog: Florida edition pt 2


Universal Studios

🌎


One of (if not the main) reason why we chose Florida was to visit Universal Studios.

If you know me and my twin sister, or have read some of my previous posts you may know that we like Harry Potter… ALOT! So, making it to Universal and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was a dream for us, for quite a while.

I still can’t believe, as I’m writing this, that we’ve actually been.

And yes, it’s every bit as epic as you can imagine (& then some) because I really think it’s one of those places that you can’t quite imagine until you are there.

Universal has three parks, Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure are the theme parks 🎢 and separate is Volcano Bay which is a water park 🌊

Islands of adventure homes Hogwarts, Hogsmede village, Seuss Landing, Juarssic Park, Superhero city, King Kong and loads more!

Universal Studios homes Diagon Alley, The Simpson’s, Transformers, Men in black, Minions, Shrek etc etc.

The rides are brilliant and, not just that, the queues!!

You never really feel like you are queuing up for ages because everything is so well themed.

The Harry Potter queues were EPIC.

You got to go through Hogwarts as you wait for ‘Harry Potter & the forbidden journey’

And you go through Gringotts bank as you wait for ‘Harry Potter & the escape from Gringotts’

The attention to detail is incredible, it’s just all so well done.

Even if you aren’t a Harry Potter fan you would love it.

It was so cool to go through Hogsmeade, visit the shops, have food in the eateries (just like in the books!!) Travel on the Hogwarts express and Shop in Diagon Alley. It’s just amazing.

The Hogwarts express train takes you from one park to the over so although you can walk this is a lovely way to go.

I will go into a bit more detail about the Harry potter section in a later post as me and my sister had a day at the Harry Potter parts 😁

Some of my other favourite parts of Universal include ‘Seuss Landing’

This is all themed like the different books by Dr Seuss, such as The Grinch, Cat in the Hat, Sneeches, Green eggs & ham etc.

It was absolutely brilliant. So colourful and fun you couldn’t help but enjoy yourself in there. We had a lovely lunch in The Circus Mcgurkis too which was fun as one of the rides goes through the restaurant.

This was a big hit with my nephews, very child friendly and as I said, lots of fun!

I also loved The Simpson’s area; ‘Springfield’ this again was so well done. The roads and decorations were all done in a cartoon style so you really felt like you were walking through the Simpson’s.

There were loads of the iconic shops like Moes Tavern, The Kwik i Mart, Lard Lad doughnuts etc. It was great. The Simpson’s rides was also one of my favourites too.

Universal have loads of Simulator rides which are fantastic, you really feel like you are in the experience whether it be the Simpson’s, Harry Potter, Spiderman. If you are a fan of 3D/4DX simulators then you’ll love these. They were great for me as I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to rollercoasters haha.

One of our favourite things about Universal was the refillable cups that they had on offer. You paid to buy it and then you could refill it as many times as you want! The machines had LOADS of different beverages with so many flavours. Each day you had to re activate it but it was cheaper to do so and when you are spending the whole day there it saves you alot of money.

It was a god send in the August heat!!

Universal was so easy to get to from our Hotel, we could walk in 30mins, although it wasn’t always advisable in the heat with small children, especially at certain times of the day (but we did go in August!!)

Our hotel also had a free shuttle to Universal and there were free shuttles to Volcano bay too which was super handy.

Volcano Bay

We spent an afternoon at Volcano bay water park and it was really good fun.

It’s quite a new park.

It was super easy to get to as I said and once you were there, there was lots to do.

You get these cool Tapu Tapu wristbands that allow you to book a space on a slide so you never have to queue, you just get notified of when there is a space!

We loved the lazy river 🌊

The Volcano at the centre of the park was really impressive and although I was too much of a wimp to try out the hideously high slides coming from it, it did look really cool.

We could even see it smoking from our hotel a few miles away haha.

It looked really cool lit up at night.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

Summer diaries: Week one!

I thought I would do a little series of blogs, throughout the Summer hols, all about what I get up to.

I asked over on my Twitter & Facebook page (@Roseannesblog) and it was a resounding yes, so here is Summer diaries instalment one.

The school I work at broke up on Friday so I’ll be starting it from then onwards.

Next week we are off on our holidays for 2 weeks so I will probably bring back my ‘Holiblog’ series from 2016, with the Florida edition, so that you can see what we get up to in Orlando.

Hopefully you guys will find this interesting & who knows it might even inspire you during the long summer break.

So let’s take a look at Week one!

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Saturday 21st July 2018

Today I met up with my uni friends. We always try and have a couple of meet ups every now and then and we always meet in London.

We decided to do something a bit different this time and take the tube to the cinema at the 02.

But first, we met up in Westfield for a Nandos and a catch up!

We headed to the 02 to watch the 2pm showing of ‘Hotel Artemis’, I really enjoyed the film and the snacks!

I did a bit of shopping back at Westfield before I got my coach home.

Another fun day out together!

Sunday 22nd July 2018

Today my twin sister Sarah and my two nephew’s Noah & Casey came round for lunch!

We ended up spending the afternoon together, playing games, puzzles and we even went out to have a look at the boats and for a drink at a local cafe, in the sunshine ☀️

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It’s the evening now and I’m staying over at my older sister Charlotte’s house with my niece Evie-Mae. We are off out together tomorrow so it made sense to stay over as she lives the other side of town to me.

Monday 23rd July 2018

Today we are off to a baby group (Me, my sister’s Sarah & Charlotte and my Niece Evie and Nephews Noah & Casey).

We had a lovely play in the sunshine, on the bikes, in the water & paint. The kiddies enjoyed a snack and we sung some songs together too, which was lovely.

I loved being able to go as I’m always at work when they usually go.

Off into town after the baby group and I bought a few holiday bits.

We just met our friend Demi for a coffee and a catch up in town and now I am heading to work.

Wednesday 25th July 2018

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20180725_113640.jpgThis morning I headed to the cinema with my two favourite little guys.

We went to watch Thomas & Friends: Big adventure! Armed with snacks and special cups we sat down and enjoyed the film.

The boys were so good and we all really enjoyed ourselves 😊

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This afternoon my mum, my friend Steph and her two little boys are round for a cuppa, cake & a catch up!

We always try and meet up a few times in the holidays which is great.

Friday 27th July 2018

I’m off out this evening for drinks with my friend Charlotte. We are both off on holiday soon so we thought it would be nice to get together beforehand.

Coast to Coast & Cosy Club were our destinations for drinks.

I love Cosy Clubs ‘Cherry Bakewell’ cocktail 🍒

That’s Week One, done! I hope you’ve all been able to enjoy the sunshine wherever you are.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂