Edinburgh

During December, I had some weekends booked off work which I'd put in months before. So Adam asked me if I'd like to go for a visit to Edinburgh. Of course I said yes! We'd been to Edinburgh once before but it was a bit of a flying visit. I loved it, and had an amazing time. We drove up, and booked a hotel which ended up being absolutely lovely and having the perfect location.

It was nice to get away and have some time just the two of us. We kept it very low key and in fact we were back in our hotel room after a lovely meal out at about 9pm and asleep for about 10pm. We didn't wake up until 9am the next morning, it was absolutely glorious, especially as I could probably count the nights of unbroken sleep since we got Roxy on one hand.

We went around on a sight seeing bus and saw all the sites, and walked down a massive long street from the castle with loads of shops on. There was a big market there, complete with ice skating rink. We bought a couple of decorations for the tree, and it was lovely.

Edinburgh I'll be seeing you again!

Cousins

Sunday Morning Walks

Sunday morning walks have started becoming a bit of a ritual for our little family. I have to say, I've been really enjoying them too. I always hate the idea of going for a walk but when I go for one I really enjoy it. We've been walking around Worsbrough Res mostly, but have been up to Langsett a couple of times. I took my phone with me and snapped a few photos when we were there last Sunday. It's really beautiful.













I'm looking forward to our walk next Sunday!

101 things to do before I die

Emma's version:

1. Get married
2. Have a baby
3. Adopt a child
4. Get to a healthy BMI
5. Be a size 12
6. Live abroad for an extended period
7. Work for myself full time
8. Get a degree
9. Visit NYC and; eat a Levain cookie, get hot chocolate with marshmallow at City Bakery, go to Shake Shack
10. Climb Kilimanjaro
11. Go on a food tour roadtrip of USA with Beth
12. Have Jonas Peterson or another amazing photographer take photos of Adam and I
13. Visit all 7 continents
14. Go on safari
15. Skydive
16. Cage dive with great white sharks
17. Start a YouTube channel and have 1000 followers
18. Snorkel at Lady Elliott Island again
19. Take Mum on a dream holiday
20. Live in a city again
21. Be an Auntie
22. Visit friends overseas
23. Wear a bikini
24. Own a Luis Vuitton weekend bag
25. Go abroad on a business trip
26. See killer whales/orcas in the wild
27. Try almond milk
28. Go skinny dipping
29. Get a masters degree
30. Win an award (I don’t necessarily mind what in!)
31. Write a book
32. Travel to China
33. Do artisan baking course
34. Have market stall selling artisan baking
35. Go to Washington, Conneticut to see the town that inspired Gilmore Girls
36. Learn graphic design
37. Set up and run an etsy shop
38. Be good at crochet
39. Be good at knitting
40. Visit Big Sur, stop in a very fancy hotel with private hot tub on own private terrace
41. Go back to Australia
42. Make cheese
43. Go on a massive clothes shopping spree once I reach a size 12
44. Go to Tokyo Disneyland
45. Take children on an amazing holiday
46. Have a tattoo
47. Touch a tiger
48. Take my children to a big festival
49. See the Lion King in a theatre
50. See Rocky Horror Picture Show in a theatre
51. Donate my eggs if possible
52. Visit Iceland
53. Travel in Japan
54. Drive a monster truck
55. Go to Glastonbury for Dad
56. Knit a cardigan
57. Jump off a waterfall
58. Visit 50 countries
59. Visit Washington DC
60. See inside a volcano
61. Have a photo I took printed
62. Have something I wrote printed
63. Own my home outright
64. Own a second home outright
65. Watch the salmon run in a peak year
66. Go storm chasing and see a tornado
67. Stay in a Four Seasons hotel
68. Go in a hot air balloon
69. See the Aurora Borealis
70. Go to Coachella
71. See the following animals in the wild; gorilla, lion, tiger, elephant, orangutan
72. Swim with dolphins
73. Walk coast to coast from England
74. Conquer my fear of spiders
75. Go zip lining
76. Go skinny dipping
77. Be able to do the following yoga poses: dancer, wheel, crow, scorpion
78. Swim in Devil's Pool at Victoria Falls.
79. Brew my own beer/wine - that tastes nice!
80. Go to Loch Ness
81. Visit the door to Hell
82. Climb the stairs to Heaven
83. Get acupuncture
84. Go to Plitvice Lakes National Park
85. Go to the Great Blue Hole
86. Stand in the centre of Stonehenge
87. Be in Mexico for Dia de los Muertos
88. Go on a sunset lava cruise in Hawaii
89. Go to Lake Hillier
90. Learn to spin a car into a parking space
91. Go to Maho Beach
92. Go to Mass Games in North Korea
93. Learn to speak Spanish
94. Visit 100 countries and join TCC
95. Have cooking lessons in: Mexico, Thailand, India, Japan
96. Visit a bioluminescent bay in Puerto Rico
97. Take trapeze lessons
98. Hand feed flamingos on flamingo beach, Renaissance Island, Aruba
99. See a wild polar bear
100. Lunch in December at Petersham Nurseries
101. Go on holiday on my own

Goals completed: 5/95

...to be continued...

Izzy

I love this furry little face so much.

Life Lately

Watching Breaking Dawn Part 1 // Playing Disney Trivial Pursuit
Roxy watching Marley & Me // Izzy
Cuddling her foot // Making herself comfy in our bed
Lucy and dogs // Her favourite toy

Three Things

I'm trying to stay as happy and positive as is even remotely possible in this kind of situation. I'm still sad beyond belief, and had a particularly bad night a couple of nights ago where I just couldn't stop sobbing and I woke up the next morning looking particularly horrendous. But I'm trying to find the joy in the little things, so I just wanted to write about three happy things from this week:

I joined Slimming World. I know, I know - I've been here before. But I really want to try hard and commit to it for the long haul now. I want a baby, and I know that I need to lose weight to make it happen. Both Adam and I can't wait to start a family, I'm ready for my little girl Ivy Louise or my little boy Austin Peter.

Sammy and I went out for the day to Ripley Castle. We did this today, and it was actually really lovely. Ripley is beautiful, it's just my cup of tea, old quaint town with cute little shops. I loved it. We even paid to go into the Castle itself, and did a guided tour of the house as the family that own it still live in it. There was an absolutely stunning staircase and Sammy wants to get married there. It's been around since the 1500's or something, and there are painted portraits of the Ingilby family's ancestors. There are things like recipe books, diaries, letters... I'd love to have such a record of my family's past. Makes me even more determined to start being better at documenting our life.

Adam and I booked a two night trip to London for New Years Eve! I'm so excited. I love London, and we're stopping in what looks to be a lovely hotel, I absolutely cannot wait. I checked with Mum if she minded if we went. I feel like Christmas is going to be really hard this year, but so is New Years Eve. We always went to my Mum and Dad's for New Years Eve. I don't know what we'll do now without my Dad. So I'm glad to have something to look forward to, and to take my mind off of things and hopefully cheer me up after a sad Christmas.

Happy Halloween 2012!

Engagement Ring

When Adam and I first got engaged (over a year ago now!), I went outside to take a couple of photos of my engagement ring. I couldn't decide which one I liked best, so I'm posting all three photos:







On an unrelated note: I'm absolutely loving having an online diary, so many mini photo sessions that I want to post!

Beth's Birthday Rocky Road

Okay so it seems kind of silly to share a recipe for Rocky Road, as it's probably the most simple thing in the world to make. You don't even have to bake anything! Just melt the chocolate and stir in whatever you fancy.

That being said, I made Beth some Rocky Road for her 18th birthday (don't worry, I bought her a proper present too!) and documented it, so I thought it would be fun just to share. For the record, she said this was the best Rocky Road she had ever had! I think she knows flattery will get her everywhere with me...



My sisters extra special birthday Rocky Road included:

Shortbread biscuits

Bourbon biscuits

Mini oreos

Marhsmallows

White chocolate buttons

Twix

Maltesers

Please note: Normally she wouldn't get anything quite as fancy, but it was her 18th so I decided to spoil her!



Chopped bourbon biscuits. I chopped the bigger biscuits (twix, bourbons, shortbread) and the marshmallows and I bashed the maltesers up a bit but I left the mini oreos whole.



Melting chocolate



Waiting to be stirred. My mouth is watering so much looking at this photo. I could just dive in!



Cooling



The finished product



All packaged up in a cute tin with birthday card and ready to go!



The birthday girl and her gifts!

My first homemade blanket

I'd been wanting to learn how to crochet for ages, and in particular I'd been wanting to make my own blanket for ages. I'm so pleased that I managed to learn how to do it! I'd been trying to teach myself for ages but never quite grasped it, then last year I worked with a girl called Sarah who crocheted and she kindly taught me.



It's not massive, just a lap blanket and it was done up until a few days ago, when I decided to add a couple more rounds to it to make it slightly bigger. But I love it and I'm excited to snugglee up under it this winter.



I've already crocheted a couple more things too - a tiny bobble hat for an egg and one baby shoe!

It's best by bus

My Dad's funeral took place on the 23rd October at 3pm. It was actually the most beautiful service I've ever been to, and so many people turned up. Not sure of the exact number, but we guessed it to be about 145 as all but five of the order of services were handed out. It actually helped to see so many people that cared about my Dad.

Uncle Gary told me that one man who came from Coca Cola said that he didn't even work with Dad, he came because he used to get changed next to him.

I know nothing will bring my Dad back, and I'm absolutely devastated and heartbroken at the fact that he's no longer here. But it really helped me to see that my Dad was so loved, and that so many people knew how wonderful he was.


We got a vintage bus to take us to the crematorium instead of going in funeral cars. It was perfect; I loved the sign on the side which read "it's best by bus" - Dad would have loved it.

Dad's friend Gary read a poem out about Dad, and I might post it here because it was really lovely. Dad wore his suit that he wore to my wedding in his coffin.

I can't believe that I no longer have my Dad. I don't know what we're supposed to do now. It was very rare that I would do something with just Mum, or Dad, or one of my sisters - it was always all of us.

Dad I love you and miss you so much but I know I'll see you again xx

Dad

On Friday 12th October 2012, between 12:30-12:35pm, my wonderful and much loved father died tragically. Our entire family is absolutely devastated and heartbroken and still very much in a state of complete shock. Dad, I already miss you and I love you so so much.

Bye Bye Bertie

On Saturday, we heartbreakingly had to put our beautiful Boston Terrier to sleep. He had a fit, which caused massive brain damage. We're devastated. He was only about 18 months old.

This is the last video I took of him, a few days before. We loved him and will miss him so much.

A Little Recap

 I've just had the best couple of days. We've been having pretty nice and mild weather lately, so I've been out in the garden for a lot of it with my two furry helpers. Yesterday I did mostly clearing but on Tuesday I was planting up a storm, I planted rhubarb, strawberries, lettuce, wheatgrass, potatoes, sunflowers, rosemary, blackberries, blueberries, and a couple of different types of flowers. I've been thinking about doing a "how to grow" series for those of you that are interested in growing your own fruits and vegetables but don't have any experience in it. I don't claim to be an expert at all, and I'm always learning new things but growing your own food is a lot of fun, and great for the environment. I read this article a couple of days ago and thought it was really interesting, although not particularly suprising! Anything that gets kids outdoors, learning and having fun is a good thing in my book.



When we bought our house, there were a few rotten sheds in the garden that we had to take down, but as we were doing so we found the most beautiful old terracotta pots. Some big ones and some small ones. What a treasure! I absolutely love them and have planted some things in them. (Oh and you can see how desperately my garden needs sorting out in the above photo - look at all the weeds!)

Do you grow anything edible in your garden? Check back on Monday for the first "how to grow" post... lettuce!

PS: You might have noticed, but I've changed my blog name! I felt like I'd outgrown the name "ecoprincess" (I started this blog when I was a lot younger! Haha) and I want to post a bit more varied stuff than just recipes so from now on I shall be... Bake, Sew, Grow!

A big project

Yesterday I was overcome with an urge. An urge to get started on my garden! Our garden needs a lot of work doing to it before it can be as lovely as I imagine it, and yesterday was the day I got to work. I hired a skip and began getting rid of all the old flags and bricks that were cluttering it up. It felt so good to get my teeth into a project, and I've already cleared quite a lot!

I dug up one of the beds which had become overrun by weeds, and imagine my delight when I dug up about a dozen of these little beauties:



Pasnips! Rather suprising too, as I haven't planted any parsnips since we first bought the house - three years ago!

I think my project to turn my garden into something beautiful is going to be hard, but it will be so worth it in the end. Mind you, it probably wouldn't be quite so hard if I didn't try to rescue every last ladybird that I saw!

Looking forward

The weather here for the past couple of days has been so light and mild; it's really making me look forward to Spring. So much so in fact that I dragged Adam to the garden centre today for a look around on the promise that I would buy him a hot chocolate and a cream scone! I'm so excited to get growing again, this year I'm actually most excited to grow flowers, which I've never really done before. I work on a community garden with children aged 8-18, and we grew some flowers on there (basically, we put some seeds in. And the flowers went wild!). It looked so pretty and made me excited to do the same in my garden this year, too.



We've acquired a load of wooden pallets from somewhere which I'm planning to take apart and build some raised beds with, so I'll be sure to post about that. I also want to grow blueberries, herbs, jalapenos, peas, potatoes, sunflowers, squash and salad. Do you enjoy spending time in the garden? Have you ever grown your own food?

Our Newest Family Member...

Meet the latest addition to our family:



Bert!

Bert is a one year old Boston Terrier who we adopted from someone my husband works with. We brought him home for a couple of days to see how he would get along with Izzy. Izzy is still a bit unsure about him - they get along, haven't fought but she is keeping her distance a little - but we absolutely love him. He's so sweet and affectionate and loves to cuddle up to me!

I've been quite busy with photography related stuff lately which is great! Last weekend I shot a civil ceremony, I had a baby shoot and I'm meeting a prospective client today too. It's exciting!