My husband hates stuff. So I know better than to buy him anything tangible for his birthday which was last week, instead the key to his heart is either a} a nice break away or b} food. So I combined both and booked to take him to The Pig Hotel, one of our favourites in the UK. They're known for being a restaurant with rooms and we love the kitchen garden to plate philosophy. We've stayed at this Pig, on the beach, before for our first wedding anniversary {blog post on that here} so I thought I'd surprise him by taking him back and treating him to a massage and dinner. After a tough couple of weeks with Ben having to visit hospital a number of times and have some operations to remove minor skin cancer/sun damage it was the perfect tonic and suddenly everything seemed ok again.

Happy Friday! I'm excited to share some photos of a shoot that Binky Nixon came to do a few weeks back if you'd like to see? I guess you all know just how much of a thing for photos I have. This blog is built upon it. I'm not skilled technically at taking photos myself but I just love how much a photograph can capture. So much more than my mind can ever remember, looking back at them always makes me smile and to have a set of professional images that captures everything that I love is really special.

I feel a bit silly writing this post with photos from way back {June!!}. I feel so behind with the blog at the moment but I'm always like this in summer, wanting to be outside more and not having enough time to log onto my laptop as much as I should. Where have the last couple of months gone to?! It feels like it's flown by but equally it feels like we've been living in summer forever and a day. I realised that I have some photos I haven't yet published and I know I'll want to look back at. I've got out of the habit of writing my weekly catch ups and I'm missing having a steady stream of my photo diary on here. This post is really just for me to look back on them before they disappear onto the cloud/some huge photo album on my laptop that I'll never get around to looking through. So apologies for the self indulgence, back to house renovating/garden blog posts again next! 

Last week we took another little staycation. This time to The Cotswolds. The Cotswolds are one of our very favourite areas of the UK. Chocolate box villages, rolling fields and the farm shop of all farm shops - Daylesford. I mean, I love the seaside but The Cotswolds is always the perfect short break from us as it's only just over an hour away so you don't feel like you're wasting half the day in the car to get there. We stayed in Little Cotswold Cottage - an insanely beautiful boutique cottage in Great Rolling {just ten minutes from both Soho Farmhouse and Daylesford}. The location was amazing and so was the weather - being England we experienced both a pouring with rain day {perfect for cosying up} and then a bright sunshine day. I'd love to share more photos below if you'd like to see.

This post has been a longgg time coming but I finally sat down to go back through all the photos from the last few months, since May, with the kitchen being fitted. The last time I left you with a kitchen update was on this post {with all the painting/floor going down etc}. Since then, we've pretty much finished everything off. So this post is an update of all the finishing bits, starting with the kitchen herself being fitted! 

Sorry, sorry I owe you about a million blog posts right now - the garden/new greenhouse and garage/the patio area with the gravel you always ask about/the snug room/the kitchen makeover post that I've owed you forever/the shoot with Binky from a couple of weeks back of which I love the photos of our allotment/growing flowers specifically hydrangeas and roses/fashion updates/interior styling. And I can't wait to be back on my laptop properly to get sharing. But this past week has been a little hectic so I bought you some flowers instead. There's been a lot of excitement recently, a big feature in the Sunday Times {I'm still pinching myself. The Sunday Times Home section, me?!}, and a shoot with Rock my Style today for an updated house tour. Tomorrow we're heading to The Cotswolds for a couple of days which ironically was to try and make the most of summer but it looks like a month's worth of rain forecast in one day! But right now my Macbook is about to go to sleep and I've got the new 'Trust Me' series to watch. But back soon, I promise. And as always you can find me on Instagram in the mean time. R <3 xx 

Part Two of our stay at Ivywood Cottage and exploring Norfolk/Suffolk. You can see Part One here...

At the start of the summer, back in May I think it was, Ben and I looked around at the beautiful countryside and realised that summer is of course the very best time of year for England yet we always tend to have our mini breaks in January {or we spend our holidays abroad somewhere}. WHY?! I think we always just write off the summer at home because we think it will either be pouring with rain or it's the school holidays and everywhere would be full of kids. But actually to see England at her very finest, June and July are the best time of the year. Especially at the seaside. So we decided to take a couple of days break just before the main schools broke up and headed to Norfolk and Suffolk. We hadn't been for ages but whenever we have visited previously, we've loved it. So I searched on Airbnb for a cute little abode where we could base ourselves and found Ivywood Cottage - {use this for £30 free credit towards it}. It looked perfect and practically right on the border of both Suffolk and Norfolk so we could explore both areas. We only had two nights away but sometimes that's all you need for a little refresh and we loved being back at some of our favourite beaches and seaside towns.