Last week, it was SO hot that we were desperate to escape to the beach. We'd planned to get up early on Sunday, but then realised it would probably be really busy and my parents were going out that way the next day to look at a greenhouse that they wanted our help deciding on. So we made it a cute little family day out on Monday instead. Unfortunately my brother had to work but it was a nice treat for the rest of us to spend time and go for a day out on a Monday {although I did manage to get some work done in the two hours it took us to reach the coast!}. It was scorching. 

I'm sure you know by now just how crazy I am about flowers. I love growing them, buying them, and having them in my home. But what I was really lacking were the skills for arranging them or knowing the best vases to display them around the house or having the confidence to create my own arrangements. So imagine my delight when last week I got an email from Philippa Craddock {one of my favourite London florists and of course the florist for this year's wedding of the year, Harry & Meghan! Remember that arch?!} inviting me along to one of her flower workshops taking place this summer in London. I jumped at the chance, a real treat of a day to spend in Shoreditch learning all things flowers. 

I feel like all I do this summer is talk about, what feels like, a never ending heatwave. But honestly, how amazing has it been? It's meant though that I've worn so many of my summer clothes to death, and often lots of pieces that I normally only wear on holiday! I was itching for the sales to get over and done with and for some new pieces to come in, ready for that transition into the end of summer {surely it will start raining/get cooler at some point?!} and I really love thinking ahead into early Autumn, getting excited for a new upcoming season and one day, wearing knitwear again. Joules, one of my longterm favourite brands, got in touch to ask if I'd like to share some of my favourite picks for the new season and there were so many gorgeous pieces to choose from! You can get an idea for the new season below;

Part two of our trip to one of our favourite places in the world, the Ile de Re in France. You can find all the details of our trip in part one here.

A couple of weeks ago we returned to the Ile de Re for a 5 day trip. We don't often go back to places, in the past we've always thought that the world is so huge and there are so many new places to explore. But actually, the Ile de Re was different for us. Since our first trip there two years back {see these two posts on that trip here and here}, we knew that we had to return! It's risky play, when you've had such an incredible holiday with perfect weather the time before, would it ever live up to those expectations? Luckily it was even better this time. And quite frankly, when you're on an island as pretty as Re, with hollyhocks on every street, miles of cycle paths on bikes to explore and insanely delicious food and patisseries around every corner, how could it ever not be a complete dream?!

It's that time of year again where our allotment is suddenly producing overtime. We're inundated with courgettes and kale which I have to keep coming up with recipes for. I love it, it forces me to come up with new things and use our produce straight out of the ground that we've spent time growing. I promise to get an allotment post up soon! One of my favourite summer recipes when we have a glut of beetroot is to turn them into chocolate brownies. At the weekend we were hosting a BBQ and these were perfect, and I almost prefer them to regular brownies? They're not exactly a health food with butter, a block of chocolate and sugar added but delicious, and you feel like you're getting some beetroot at least... 

I've mentioned time and time again how much we love The Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire for special dinners and forever ogle over their landscaped gardens. Just down the road from us, it's a place we've been visiting for years and there's always a lot of hype when the England football team or NFL stay there, one time Obama was in town and we watched him tee off! It's a really stunning luxury hotel which has become known as London's Country Escape and is constantly topping UK hotel lists. We adore the Glasshouse restaurant there but I was especially excited when I saw on their Instagram that they were opening up their walled garden {normally just for hotel residents or members} and creating a pop-up restaurant for the summer in their Potting Shed. I actually looked at this space when we were planning our wedding, it's a greenhouse surrounded by vegetable plots. I booked in a few weeks back for dinner with Ben this summer as it looked our kind of style {we adore The Pig Hotel's restaurants set in greenhouses and this seemed a similar, local food kind of kitchen garden vibe}. But then, a couple of weeks ago, I got an email from their PR team - not aware that I'd already booked - asking if I'd like to attend the launch of the restaurant and stay overnight. You can imagine my joy.  YES PLEASE I replied! I think they were slightly concerned by my over enthusiastic reply. But it's the greatest treat to stay at The Grove and it turned out to be the most beautiful hot summers day to enjoy their outdoor pool during our stay - something I've always dreamed of doing. The new restaurant was even better than I imagined, and ridiculously instagram friendly full of botanicals where all the food is cooked over flames outside or in a wood fired oven. I've shared some more photos below if you'd like to see...

A few photos from that ridiculously sunny day where we played hooky before our anniversary a couple of weeks back and spent the day reading by the lake and revisiting Daylesford {two of our favourite ever places}. You know me and sharing photos by now to know that I couldn't resist posting these that I couldn't fit into our anniversary post yesterday....

Happy Friday! I did one of those Insta polls the other day asking if you'd want me to share the recipe for the overnight oats I've been making for breakfast recently, and 98% of you said yes! So here it is... including my secret ingredient.

A few of you have got in touch to ask about our greenhouse! I haven't shared much with it since it was finished last September but her first growing season is fully underway. You can see how it was built in this post here but lots of you wanted to know how we use it. So I thought I'd share our first year with it so far... 

England is at her very very best right now. We're two weeks into a heatwave that shows no sign of shifting, full sun and 28c+ on the weather for the next ten days. No cloudy skies, no muddy fields, no grey. I LIVE for days like these. When you wake up and can smell the heat in the air already, you pull out clothes you normally only wear on holiday, you have so much energy and want to be up and out, savouring the outdoors. You cover over 20k steps daily without even trying, you pick summer produce from the allotment, you eat summery berries, frozen watermelon, you BBQ, this is no time for proper cooking that will make you hot. You enjoy the garden you've worked so hard to create, you eat dinner alfresco, hell you eat breakfast and lunch alfresco as much as you can, you go on picnics, you go to the markets, you sunbathe and soak up the Vitamin D, your skin goes brown and you wear sun hats and picking up your sunglasses on the way out the door becomes second nature. You only wear socks to run, instead picking out sandals each day, your legs haven't been covered in weeks. You sleep with the windows wide open, waking up to that bright sunlight as the sun rises at 4am every morning. You feel like you're on holiday in your own garden. You have less spare time and you sleep less {longgg light days}, battling to keep the garden watered and fit the allotment in but you wouldn't swap it for the world. You know it won't last forever. But that makes it all the more special. Please stick around summer! {and if you're reading this in Winter on one miserable February day where summer feels world's away, KNOW that this will come around again}. - note to readers, this is full of photos I've shared on my Instagram stories over the past few weeks for me to look back on, but I warn you it's full of countryside photos that might be boring to some! But I just can't get enough of those views. 

Part Two of our dreamy quick little trip to Cornwall a couple of weeks back. We were lucky with the weather, bright blue skies but imagine being down there this week with this heatwave! {you can find Part One with our stay in St Ives here}