Wednesday 30 December 2009

2009

A few weeks ago my husband said to me he thought this was probably our best year yet, and I think he was probably right.  We got married, had an amazing honeymoon, had an incredibly fun summer - yep, pretty good.  Got me looking back through some photos, and I decided to post the highlights of my year.

Last winter - a beautiful winter's day at the seafront.


Fun with our ever growing camera collection!


Happy me after shopping last April, in Nandos with a Brahma - heaven!


My Hen Party in May - was a bit more relaxed than the usual - dinner, drinks, dancing and a beautiful picnic on a very sunny Southsea Common with my closest friends


Obviously the main highlight - our wedding.  It really was one of the best days, I'm quite sad its all over!  Fantastic memories of an amazing day (that almost didn't happen thanks to a medical emergency the week before!)


Blur at Hyde Park in July



Our honeymoon in Thailand ..... Wow, stunning country!



A great summer in Southsea



Birthdays in August - on mine we went to see live music at the bandstand, ate thai food at a random thai festival and went to a vw show.


Welcomed a new arrival to the family - our first niece, Mya


Free Art Giveaways in Southsea - unfortunately the deckchairs weren't free.


Becoming good friends with one of the coolest girls in the world - but way too late, as she moved away in October.  Miss her such a lot, we had many good nights out.


One particular good one - Southsea Fest, a music festival on one day in one street


Bestival - a music festival on the Isle of Wight - 3 days of sunshine and good music.  And fancy dress.


LARD - or Love Albert Road Day - a free street festival held 2 streets away from ours - this year 80000 people came - was a bit cramped!


A lovely warm autumn with beautifully coloured leaves


Ending the year with a big, white Christmas!


I'm hoping next year will be even better!


Tuesday 29 December 2009

Boxing day and beyond.



Boxing day we got up early(ish), slid across the car park and drove down to Oxfordshire for a family party at Phil's sisters.  Managed to get Phil's dad the same present he got us - photos of our wedding, but also got 12 bottles of wine, wool, knitting needles and Gaudi cats.  Obviously I am now going to get cats and wool for presents at christmas and birthdays, instead of just cats!  Spent quite a lot of time playing with Mya, our 6 month niece who loves frilly tops and necklaces and hates christmas cracker hats.

Sunday we had a stroll into Southsea and a look around the sales, then came home and cooked a Christmas dinner for the 2 of us, except with chicken as there was no turkey left.  My husband does do a good roast, even if he says so himself, many many times!  We then watched Twilight, finally, and I have to say, I can see the attraction, it was a pretty good film!  I don't have work until Wednesday so plan on doing lots of nothing - today I got up late, only got out of my pyjamas at 2pm, painted my nails, ate cheese and biscuits for dinner and watched TV.  Feel a bit guilty for doing nothing but it was a well deserved rest day.  Tomorrow I need to do some cleaning and more sale shopping!

Pics of the last few days below.













Sunday 27 December 2009

Christmas Day

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas, I'm feeling very sorry for my poor friends who had to work - it sucks!  Because Christmas fell on a Friday most of them had to work the whole weekend too, which is pretty pants.  I was thinking of them all!

I went up North on Christmas Eve, with the roads getting snowier and snowier as we went.  Got to see Em for a few hours which was lovely and then headed to my Dads house.  We woke up on Christmas day to a lovely white Christmas (although it wasn't official as it didn't actually snow on the day).  My dad lives in a converted mill and in the morning a local band came to play some Christmas carols while the residents handed out mulled wine - pretty surreal and beautiful with all the snow!  We then opened our presents and started getting everything ready for lunch.  There were 9 of us all together so lots of food to cook!  Lunch was lovely although as always I ate too much.  We then chatted for hours and drank lots of wine and port and continued the eating!

I got some amazing presents from my husband, my favourite being a mustard yellow vintage train case and a beautiful cushion that I'd had my eye on for ages.  I got him lots of Kid Robot goodies and a half knitted scarf, oops!

It was a different Christmas day to normal but lovely, especially with all the snow!

Some pics below, more over at my Flickr, link on the left.



















Wednesday 23 December 2009

Christmas at the Bennetts

Today has gone so quickly!  But I have now wrapped all the presents and 4 of them are handmade, I am very proud of them!  I have to be in work in less than an hour, so I quickly took some pics of the house, as we are leaving pretty much as soon as I get in in the morning.  Afraid there are only 2 but in the bottom one you can see our new sofa - so comfy!!






Off to Sheffield tomorrow to meet up with my best friend from school, Emma then going to Derbyshire where my Dad lives, where there is still a ton of snow, yey!!  Then to Oxfordshire for more family gatherings and to spoil my niece, Mya.  Then home for lots of christmassy fun!

Merry Christmas!


Knackered Katie

I have just finished my 6th 12 hour shift in 8 days - I am a wee bit tired and a wee bit behind with Christmassy stuff!  Am going to have a good nights sleep and a lovely lie in then get back to making presents - wedding scrapbooks for my Dad and Phil's Dad.  So far I am really happy with how they turned out!  I am also going to post pics of my very christmassy, very cosy feeling house.

Til then, goodnight!

Monday 14 December 2009

London

So, I had a trip to London last week - I am completely forgetting the real reason I went and will instead focus on shopping. I had a lovely lovely day - firstly we went to Covent Garden and had a look around all the little shops there, we then had a long lunch with a bottle of wine at Carluccios and then headed to Regent Street to my new favourite shop - Anthropologie - this shop is amazing! Everything was so beautiful - the clothes, the bedding, the plates - I wanted to buy everything! It is very expensive in the UK though - so I was good and came away with the dress and birdy shown below. We then decided to do something Christmassy and so went to the ultimate Christmas shop - Liberty. It was, as always, beautiful - and then I found the haberdashery section and spent an hour cooing over the wools and fabrics. I finally decided to treat myself to some beautiful Liberty fabric - have to decide what to do with it now! I could have spent hours more wandering around London but decided to come home to spend some time with my hubby - for the last month or so I have either been ill or studying so we have managed to spend very little quality time together. When I got home we got chinese takeaway and fell asleep huggling up on the sofa. Lovely day! (after the horrible exam bit in the morning!)






Saturday 5 December 2009

Christmas is....

Sparkles


Cozyness


Presents


And food
And mulled wine
And shopping
And panto.

Am hoping very much to be feeling better soon so I can enjoy Christmas! Have spent most of the past week in bed but I have lots of Christmassy plans for after my exam! Need to be up and about to put the tree up and make lots of lovely cards and presents, and I can't wait to get back to my knitting!

Hello from my bed!

Thursday 3 December 2009

To cheer me up

As I have been feeling very rotten this past week AND have an exam next week, I bought this little one to cheer me up - she just got posted, yey!



She's from Ninon on Etsy and I already love her.