Year of the dragon

This year is the year of the dragon, I’m not sure what it means exactly, it seems a lot of Chinese are wanting to give birth this year to have a dragon baby. I do find the Chinese overly superstitious and sometimes it gets a bit too much, for instance when couples book an appointment for a master to name their baby. The number of brush strokes in the Chinese characters is regarded important, if the number is wrong it’s bad luck etc etc. I’m not very superstitious but did do 2 things before CNY, but one of them was an every day routine (washing) and the other one made sense (Vacuuming), as it’s nice to have a clean house for CNY.

Anyway on the day we went to my parents house after work and my Mum made a lovely hotpot. I ate too much and only managed a tiny bit of the salted caramel cake! Hotpot is fun and I never get to have it much so I thoroughly enjoyed myself! It always reminds me of my holidays to HK. Would hotpot be too messy for a wedding? Hehe.

Chinese New Year’s Eve

I spent the afternoon vacuuming around the house as it’s Chinese New Year tomorrow and you’re supposed to do a spring clean around the house to get rid of any bad luck that may have accumulated in the year. Also you shouldn’t clean for the first few days of the New Year, if you do any sweeping you’ll risk sweeping away your good luck! Good excuse for me!

Apart from a bit of vacuuming we spent the weekend watching two movies, we call this our couch date. On Saturday we watched Shaolin Soccer which was a typical Stephen Chow comedy, I think you have to get Chinese humour  to enjoy this one, or if you liked Kung Fu Hustle. The second film we watch was Rise of the Planet of the Apes which also was enjoyable, I really like James Franco though I didn’t recognise him to start with, he’s not as skinny as he used to be!

Weekend cooking: Sat- Bacon & maple syrup pancakes, tuna melt panini, chilli con carne with scotch bonnet (though it was not very fiery). Sun- Bacon & maple syrup pancakes, left over chili con carne, beef stew and roast potatoes.

Slow cooked beef stew.

Ziggy wanting to watch film too.

Bf made this for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday.

Most depressing day of the year

Today is not most depressing day of the year, apparently it’s always the 3rd Monday of January. I must say today for me wasn’t the greatest. I had to wake up to a cold morning, my car was covered in ice, I had crap hair and it was a Monday! I am extremely tired and grumpy on Mondays because I never can get a good night’s sleep on Sundays.

Although it wasn’t a great day I’m grateful that the cruise ship that sunk in Italy wasn’t the one my Mum is on! It’s the first time she’s been on one with her friend, I was quite surprised when she told me she’s booked the cruise. I wonder if they have TV on cruise ships and whether she’s seen the news? I kind of hope not!

Ziggy looking a bit worried, he’s probably not used to my DSLR point in his face as I hardly ever use it anymore! Since getting the iPhone 2.5 years ago I’ve been extremely lazy with photography, I must get back into taking photos.

Hope tomorrow is a better day.

Planning

I’m actually very organised when it comes to planning, take for instance Christmas dinner, I was in charge of cooking this year’s meal for 5. I made a list and prepared everything I could the day before to ease the possible chaos on the day. It went well though I did forget to heat up the cauliflower cheese I made for my mum (it’s her favourite with a roast).

The planning for my wedding was kind of planned in a day. We wrote out the order of the day and decided what we wanted in each time slot. The easiness of planning may be because it’s not as complicated as other weddings, the traditional and big ones, we are only having immediate family (we would have liked to elope but I think my parents would have been upset). But I was pleased we were finding it fairly easy. The only thing I couldn’t commit to was the date, It took me weeks to pluck up the courage and book the date! I am the sort of person who finds it hard to book anything in advance, especially a year in advance.

Sunday stroll

I like when we have a Sunday with no chores to do. We can only usually do this when we are proactive on Saturday, which at times can be hard after a stressful Friday. Anyway today we had a stroll through our village via the meadow though it was a little muddy. I did have wellies but I’m strange and don’t like to get them too dirty!

After the walk we came home and I made ramen for lunch which I’ve not made for such a long time!

The post that got lost

I did write a long post for the New Year but it got deleted when I pressed ‘photo’ on this new wordpress site, show’s how long I haven’t used it!

I was talking about resolutions and how I tend not to set myself any as I know I’ll try hard at first and then I’d slack! However I do want to try and get fit so I was considering joining a gym, though I’ve not convinced myself yet as I am terrible with exercise. I can only jog for 10 minutes before the pain kicks in, I can only stay in the gym and use the treadmill and cross-trainer for 30 minutes before I get tired and bored! The only exercise I can endure for a long period of time, 2 hours 30 minutes to be exact is Lindy Hop. I enjoy this but I don’t enjoy how late it ends because I have to wake up really early the next day. The main reason I was considering the gym was because I really love using the spa, I enjoy the steam room the most, especially the ones with menthol.

Me: I might join the gym.

Me: Actually I might join the gym’s spa.

BF: More like the gym restaurant!

Me: Too true!

Happy New Year 2012

I hope this year will be a great one for us all!

Christmas is my favourite time of year, here are some of my Christmas pictures.

Pics: 1) Ziggy being cute, 2) 2nd year old Xmas tree, 3) Gifts from BF, 4) Crochet flower’s I made for sisters, 5) Vintage decorations I bought, 6) Lemon drizzle cakes I made for colleagues, 7) Choc Yule log I made for our Xmas Day dessert, 8) House given to be by BF, 9) First time I cooked Xmas meal for 5!, 10) Napkins I bought from Sainsbury’s.

Monty’s, purveyor of fine goods

I’d like to introduce my new venture, Monty’s, purveyor of fine goods. I’m currently creating vintage inspired hand made bow ties, they the self-tie type and are adjustable. I have been working on this for 4 weeks now, I’ve been working hard sourcing fabric, packaging, stickers, metal trims and labels as well as actually making them. It has been tiring and stressful at times but I really want it to look good for when I sell them at a vintage boutique market towards the end of July.

What do you think of them?

Due to time constraints I was limited with packaging and label options, I was unable to do what I wanted.

The brown colour on the sticker is a bit too red for my liking. As you all probably know colour on screen is not  going to be  exactly the same when printed. I’m really hoping it works out for me as I have been stressing about the stickers today!

Become a friend of Monty’s

Week Off

The week I had off was lovely, though the weather at the beginning was grey and overcast, but at least on the most important day of that week the sun was shining. The day was my lovely friend’s wedding. We had driven up the day before as I had booked a lovely cottage to stay in, I wanted to take advantage of that. Google maps said it would take 3 hours but it was more like 4hrs+! Also Google maps took us to a road that was not even open yet! How annoying is that! Luckily I had my trusty iPhone, though it was a miracle it worked as we were in the countryside!

All in all we had a lovely day, the wedding was simply beautiful, nothing extravagant or showy (I hate that). The ceremony took place in her parent’s local village church, I imagine village churches to be small but this one looked rather big on the outside. The reception was in her parents back garden, which is something I wish I could do, I love garden parties. The sit down dinner was held in 3 adjoining tipis which looked really cool surrounded by big daisies (I think I heard her parents sowed then especially).

The married couple are now enjoying their honeymoon in Japan and another country that I’ve forgotten! I plan to honeymoon in Japan too!

Cat we met on the way to the tipi reception

In the deep countryside!

Walking up to the house

The couple exchanging rings

The bride’s entourage (flower girls and page boys are all the bride’s nieces and nephews!)

Old fashioned soft drinks with cute paper straws

Sandwiches and cake

Tipis and catering tent

Lovely interior

Charity shop finds

After doing the chores around the house, which included hanging out the washing twice! I risked hanging it outside while it was overcast and low and behold after 20mins or so it started to rain!

I had a few errands to run so I put on my wellies and  grabbed my umbrella and headed down the road. After the errands I popped into my four local charity shops for a browse. The first thing I picked up was a job lot of dress patterns and reels of cotton, I wasn’t sure whether to get them as they are vintage sizes but after checking out the measurements I think it’ll be the right size for me. I also bought a brand new box to put my reels of cotton in, I couldn’t resist the matryoshka doll print.