It's a life update!

So I've been very slack recently in updating my blog....ahem....nothing since May I mean seriously that means I went the WHOLE summer without blogging - oops oh yes I live in Britain we're still waiting for summer to start and it's September 2nd!

I guess I lost my mojo but hopefully I'm a getting that back y'all (nope I can't pull of an accent even when writing!)

So what have I been up to while I've been away?

We got a kitten
Boots (she has 4 white paws so looks like she's wearing booties) joined us on the 15th May and has dominated our lives since!! She's totally gorgeous, entertaining, affectionate, curious - I have turned into the cat woman obsessed with her "baby" but what's more amusing has so has Mr P!!

As a tiny kitten

Getting a wee bit bigger - check out those awesome whiskers

And she still squeezes in the peg basket (just)

And her current kitty collar come space helmet look...

I went to V Festival
There was no Glastonbury this year so our festival calendar looked a tad empty - until we saw the line up for V...The Killers, High Flying Birds, Snow Patrol, The Feeling were just a few of the fab acts so we went to Chelmsford and drank copious amounts of cider and vodka, danced around a field and generally got super hot as that was the hottest weekend of the year! Bliss

Yep it's a giant foam thumb ;0)

We saw Michael McIntyre in Cardiff

I'd never been to Cardiff before although I had seen Mr McIntyre's stand up before (in Bournemouth so super cute diddy venue) so Mr P and I spent the bank holiday weekend exploring the city. And loved it. Can't reccommend it enough - fab castle (inside the city at the end of the high street - amazing) fab bars, restaurants, Dr Who experience...it was all awesome and luckily enough we got a day of sunshine there too!

Cardiff Castle house so pretty

I tried on some wedding dresses!

So our wedding may still be over a year away but last month I just had to start the hunt for £the dress". I was worried that I'd feel old/fat/frumpy/too flouncy so thought I'd better start looking just in case. Complete opposite was true. The stores I went to were amazing, so friendly and lovely and had so many dresses I loved...deciding which one to pick I think will be the problem huzzah!!

No pic here obviously!!!

My hometown hosted the Sailing for the Olympics

After all the roadworks and misery that we had endured here while we "got ready for the Olympics" and all the scaremongering (you won't be able to get anywhere, it will be gridlock traffic etc etc) when the Olympics started it was amazing. I mean the whole of the London 2012 was AWESOME I watched so so much of it and really wish I had gone to some events BUT I did get to see some British medal action on the seas in my hometown and that is freaking awesome!

Winning silver!

And most excitingly we had a new garden done!!!!

You may remember my post last year about garden transformation part 1 (see here) but this year the full transformation was completed...bye bye lawn and weeds hello gorgeous patio and slate....it is stunning! We also have some gorgeous teak furniture that we picked up from the Royal Cornwall Show in June and now when the sun (rarely) shines it's a fab place to sit with a coffee, read a book or just relax (oh and Boots loves it too!)

Super lovely patio

So that's me and what I've been up to...I've missed blogging and while I've been reading lots of blogs still I need to get back into commenting/writing and updating as I miss it all. Hopefully this is the start of many I just hope there are still some people out there reading it?

I'm now on Instagram as ninny279 which co-incidentally is my Twitter name @ninny279 so come say hi!

Lx

 Oh and I finally organised the shelves.....

Desk shelves

Swopping Paris for Patios....

It's been a very productive weekend here at Splucy's but not the sort of weekend I had in mind a few weeks ago, as this weekend just gone had been earmarked for a jaunt over to gay Paris. The idea of a weekend away was thought up in our "list of things to do when Mr P felt better" and back in March we'd flagged this weekend as a potential gap in the diary when we could make the trip (no school holidays, no gigs for his band, no weddings/birthday do's etc etc) And of course me being the planner that I am this was entered in my Filofax with glee.

The booking of said Paris trip however didn't run so smoothly. Where have the weeks gone since March? I honestly have no idea what happened to April and now here we are halfway through May! I'm scared to blink in case I suddenly realise it's Christmas and I'll have missed Wimbledon, The Apprentice Final and possibly even X Factor (although now Dannii has been replaced by the chick from N Dubz I don't think I'm the target demographic for it anymore). Anyway I digress (is there one of my blog posts where I don't say that? I doubt it! If you can find one there may be a prize!)

We struck some issues with the Paris trip when investigating the costs/logistics etc. With Mr P horrified at the prices - to be fair I'm sure our all inclusive 10 night stay in luxury in Egypt cost less that some of these "bargain breaks" on the Eurostar website - and me horrified at the prospect of travelling at the crack of dawn and staying outside the city just so I'd have enough Euros leftover to purchase coffee, croissant (and Chanel)

And then, as I mentioned earlier we wake up and it's only blooming May!!! No chance of an early bird booking now.

Now 2 weeks ago (I'll help you out here, Royal Wedding, 4 day weekend with the May Bank holiday, nice weather mostly) Mr P's most lovely family came up for the weekend on a mission to rid his garden of a fence so rickety it was more wobbly on it's feet than I am after a Chardonnay or 6 and a shed that was so old and useless it made Bruce Forsythe appear to be in the first flush of youth. A very productive weekend was spent pulling down said fence and shed and digging out concrete footers. Followed by concreting in new (straight and solid) fence posts. All ready for garden makeover part 2 when the new fence panels could be put up at a later date.

Goodbye rickety, spider filled shed & wobbly fence

Well after 2 weeks of frosty air between us and our neighbour across the now open plan garden (I believe she was unhappy at the collateral damage of one dead potato plant who was caught in the cross fire of concrete and fence post removal) this weekend was the weekend. The one where we were to get our privacy back with a shiny new fence going up.

Mr P's family returned, with Mr P's ickle brother Mr K Junior who along with his dad, Mr K Senior, are experts in the gardening/building/fencing area. Along with the two Mr K's in the van was Mr P's lovely Mum and our brand new fence plus a fabulous new gate!! My role I always feel in these proceedings is to make sure of the following:

1) The kettle is always primed and ready for tea making duty
2) That along with the tea there should always be an ample supply of biscuits, flapjacks and chocolate covered items
3) Meals should be large and hearty
4) That the kettle is put back on again for more tea

I am a big believer in the feed the work force well to get maximum returns theory ;0)

So it was rails up, gate added and all the planks in place. How does our garden look now? Only absolutely blooming amazing! It is larger, brighter, airier and as a huge bonus our nosy neighbour next door can't see over as it's 6 foot tall (well the fence itself is only 5 foot but with a bottom riser as we are panning a patio I haven't got a hope in hell of seeing over it so neither does she!)




Hello beautiful large garden!


And this is how I swapped Paris for (almost) patios. As while a weekend in Paris can happen anytime, wonderful relatives that will renovate your garden are far more fun to spend time with.

So stage 2 of the garden makeover is complete. Stage 3 involves Mr P redesigning the patio layout (again) so that when the Cornish contingent are able to visit once more we can make even more progress towards our dreamed of patio/BBQ/cocktail area.

I have to be honest, I would love to get to a point where Mr P's family are able to come and visit without him making them work so hard so who knows maybe once we are all patio'd up we can have a BBQ to celebrate where we can all kick back and watch Mr P do the hard work and cook. Although on second thoughts maybe we should treat them to the lush Sunday carvery at the pub nearby? After all I'd hate to see our new fence end up as cinders from an incendiary sausage......

Lx