Christmas, Spring/Summer are my favourite times of year to read and as I was enjoying my book this afternoon it got me thinking about this time last year…
April 2020 was a both a confusing and enlightening time for me (It sounds strange I know, stick with me)
Lockdown was fully in swing at this point, Pandemic – WHATTTT, very confusing! But, amongst the madness of Lockdown, for the first time in probably 11 years I had time… time to do the things I enjoyed, unapologetically, emphatically and with a new found appreciation for them.
And with this feeling and freedom in place I got such a heightened enjoyment from the novels I was reading. It of course helped that they were bloody brilliant books… so, lets take a walk down memory lane…
🌸
April. This seems to be a good month for me in terms of discovering new books, especially ones that turn into firm favourites, that I always recommend when someones asks me; ‘Do you know of any good books?’
🌸
In the midst of the OG Lockdown…
I read ‘The Silent Patient’ in a day I was so enraptured by it, gripped to the last page…
We also had another Heidi Swain release, which always makes a month amazing (& this sunny seaside stay is one of my faves of hers) ‘The Seaside Escape’
…and I found another firm fave and cosy number in ‘The Flat share’ which has lead me to many brilliant books by Beth O’Leary as a result.
Fast forward to today…. & I’m thoroughly enjoying ‘The Lido’ by Libby Page. Its a cosy, feel good book that restores your faith in community, friendships (unconventional & not) and yourself along the way.
I’m so invested in this story, its endearing characters and community that I know I’ll be sad when it ends and we aren’t spending our time together anymore (if you know, you know!)
I want to see how it all plays out but I don’t want to say goodbye.
You know you’ve got a good’un when thats the case.
I’m super looking forward to the end of the month as I have a few Preorders coming my way and I’m SO EXCITED!!
They are: ~A Taste of Home by Heidi Swain ~The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary ~Until Next Weekend by Rachel Marks
(& a new Sarah Morgan book at the end of May 🙌🏻🙌🏻)
All we need is for this sunshine to stay, Covid to be kept at bay and a nice cold drink to sip as we enjoy these brilliant books!
I used to share snap shots of my life on her, things we had done to celebrate different occasions, fun days out, holidays, however, obviously this last year has been quite an unpresidented one.
I feel like I haven’t really shared much of what I have been doing because really we’ve all been doing the same haven’t we! Staying home, Locked down, on and off since Summer, working and just trying to stay safe.
But I thought to myself, why not share the celebrations we are still having, as wierd as they may seem in comparison to how it used to be, because it’s all we’ve got at the moment and we should still be grateful for what we can do during such a mad time.
Today is Mothers day and I have shared on here, for several years, our tradition of our Mothers Day, homemade afternoon tea.
This year was a very 2020/21 affair, via Skype, but it still involved Afternoon Tea so no complaints here.
We ordered the individual Afternoon Teas from a small local business (All Covid safe) and enjoyed them at our own homes via Skype.
They were delicious and it was nice to be able to continue the tradition, even if it was a little different to usual.
Most of our ‘Usuals’ seem a distant memory right now don’t they 😣 but, it’s also so important to embrace what we can do, communicate and spend time together however we can, whilst staying safe, because we can still stay in touch and stay connected, and we will all be back together properly one day.
It gets to everybody at some point, this wierd time we are a part of, but I’m so very conscious that there are people in such a worse situation than me, who have experienced some of the worst times during this pandemic.
If the worst part of this whole situation, for me is that I can only speak to people through a computer then I’ll be forever grateful. I know some people have it much worse.
It’s still ok to find it hard though and I hope you’ve had a little bit of light and joy come your way today!
I have done a few hauls over here on my blog before and I usually do one at this time of year because of the Jan sales… and this year was no exception, which is surprising as its such a strange time.
What Lush did this year was that they sent out a list of what products were on sale and their sale price (50% off 🙌🏻) and you rang through your order, paid online and collected in store, socially distanced.
It worked really well and it meant we could still get some bargin goodies.
Me and my twin sister sarah always grab some Lush bargains in the January sales so we were delighted that we still could (and even more so now that we are again in another lockdown! What else is there to do but have a bath when you are bored!?!)
Let’s see what I picked up in the sale…
Shoot for the stars Golden WonderSnow Fairy Bath Bomb & Snow Fairy BubblebarSnow fairy bath bomb ButtervearJurassic Spark gift box A robot and a dinosaur bath bomb!
I was super happy with my purchases! A few of these I have tried before, but I hadn’t tried anything from the Jurassic Spark Box so that’s exciting.
So, a couple of years ago I had a Harry Potter themed tree, but then disaster struck and my second tree broke (sad times)
This year, my twin sister who also loves Harry Potter, created a Harry Potter themed tree and it made me reallllly want one again..
Plus, we went to the HP tour and they had so many Christmas decorations that injust couldn’t resist. See yesterdays post for the ones I picked up.
I used a plain 6ft tree, and added some plain/glittery red baubles as a base (I’m going for a Gryffindor theme, Obv.)
I purchased some Gryffindor ribbon at the HP tour and I made this onto bows… I popped them on first.
Then I added my Harry Potter baubles that I already owned, and my new ones from the tour (see yesterdays post)
I had house baubles of the 4 house colours, 4 clear house baubles filled with gold glitter, purchased this year and a large glittery Hogwarts Crest bauble that my mum got me a few years ago.
These all came from Primark.
Finally, I added a few little extras that I have in my collection, some HP glasses, a couple of tickets for the Knight Bus and the Hogwarts Express, as well as a few little characters (Can you spot Ron & Dobby?!)
All in all, I’m really happy with how it came out.
One of the best parts of Christmas is putting up your tree, so here’s ours!
I love putting up the tree, christmas jumpers on, christmas tunes blaring out… perfect!
From Disneyland Paris ’19So pretty ❤🌟From Universal Studios, Florida ’18Our 2020 decoration from Mum Bought at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park ’19Our tree topper ☆
I love the traditional red, gold and green of our decorations.
I did a spot of baking this weekend after a busy week at work. I find it quite relaxing (as long as the recipe is simple!)
I made a Banoffee pie for a family BBQ (Link to my blog post recipe here ) & a banana bread cake. This one is for my mum. I had plenty of left over, very ripe bananas!
I love documenting what we get up to in the Summer holidays.
Though thanks to Covid we didnt actually have a Summer ‘holiday’, I also didn’t have to work this Summer, so I had all six weeks to enjoy, have fun and relax ready for Sept!
So, without further ado, let’s have a look at what we got up to…
Roseanne Byford 