Hola/Ciao/Hey/Aloha.  I meant to post this before we left for California last weekend but time ran away from me so I thought I'd check in quickly now. 

A long overdue update on our recent progress at the house.. You can see all posts with previous weeks in the series here. 

Do you remember this post with my love for planting galvanised tubs? While we don't have a pretty patio area in the new garden yet to create a big summer display, I wanted to plant a few bits up {hydrangeas and geraniums} in buckets and baths to sit outside the front of the house to add a bit more curb appeal. 

As promised, a huge huge post about transforming our garden so far. Are you ready for a lot of reading/photos?!! 

I think you've probably realised by now how much Ben and I adore gardening. It was always inevitable given that both of our parents and grandparents are all mad about horticulture. Growing up with trips to the garden centre with my Mum, days out with picnics around National Trust gardens in the summer and watching my Grandma save seeds and have a utility room filled with cuttings, there would have been something wrong with us if we hadn't caught the gardening bug.

I promise that that there's a house and garden update coming very soon. I've got the photos just about there but it just takes so long for me to put renovation posts together. So for now, a few photos from my camera roll of the last couple of weeks with some things I've been loving so far now that summer has well and truly arrived.

We'd always planned to finish our trip around Italy in Venice as nearly everybody who's been there that we'd spoken to said there is no place like it on earth. It was definitely the right decision as while the rest of the trip had been incredible so far, Venice really was something else and gave such a magical end to it all.

{my dress is available here}

{Dress available here}

Next on our trip around Italy was a stay in Florence and then out to the most incredible place we have ever stayed, Borgo Santo Pietro in Tuscany. {insert heart eye emojis here!!} We were exhausted from our first couple of days in Rome so we took this part of the trip a lot slower to let our feet recover from all the crazy walking. After our first couple of days in Rome {here}, we'd prebooked a train to Firenze {Florence} which only took an hour and a half. It was almost full so I'd definitely recommend pre-booking, we were in a first class with wifi, plug points and even a coffee and snack all for the grand total of about 35 euros for the both of us. The trains in Italy are so easy for getting around and we were sat in a carriage with some famous Italian footballers on their way to a conference. People kept walking past us to get autographs from them which gave us some entertainment.