Sunday night delights #11

I know I shouldn’t, but I tend to get a sinking feeling halfway through Sunday afternoon, as I realise the end of the weekend is near. I thought I should take some time to think about all the lovely things that have happened over the weekend, and what I’m looking forward to.

This weekend…

Has been a bit dull to blog, as yesterday was spent Christmas shopping (hell, but I won’t have to go into town again before Christmas now as we got a lot done). Today has basically been a sofa fest of too many episodes of the US version of The Office. So this post is going to be a collection of lots of little random happy things instead!

I’m happy about…

Improving on where I’ve bought Christmas presents this year, it’s still not great in terms of ethics, but I replaced a lot of stuff I’d usually get on Amazon with buying from bookshops in Cambridge, and a few of our favourite independent shops as well. It’s a could do better for next year I think, but better than last year when there was a huge Amazon order, so I’m counting it as a win.

Being fed entirely by parents for a whole day was rather lovely, as we went to Will’s parents for lunch on Saturday and then my parents for dinner in the evening. My Mum’s lemon meringue pie is always the best.

Soft socks. I have a pair of the softest socks, which are so fluffy they won’t fit in shoes, so I can only wear them in the house. Today was such a lazy day that I broke them out – heaven!

Christmas stuff is down from the loft. I’m very against putting decorations up before December, but it’s almost time so getting them down was a lovely moment, as I always rediscover decorations that I forgot we have. We try and buy one nice ornament a year to gradually build up our joint collection. The tree won’t go up for a bit but might throw a few other things up over the course of next week.

The week to come…

We’re off to Edinburgh next weekend, as Will is away for the final time before Christmas, but in the north of Scotland. It’s his thirtieth birthday on Sunday so he didn’t want to have an epic train journey on his birthday weekend, so instead we thought we’d turn it into a bit of a break, so we’re meeting half way at Edinburgh station on Friday night ready for a weekend break (something very romantic about that isn’t there?)

I think most of this week will be counting down the days til that to be honest! We’ll still be in Edinburgh on Sunday night next week, so there will be a break in these posts. But there will be a more general Edinburgh post very soon I’m sure.

Sunday night delights

I know I shouldn’t, but I tend to get a sinking feeling halfway through Sunday afternoon, as I realise the end of the weekend is near. I thought I should take some time to think about all the lovely things that have happened over the weekend, and what I’m looking forward to. 

This weekend…

It has been a wonderful one. Will and I got married exactly four weeks on Saturday, and although we had a very happy wedding day, we are not missing all the planning and organisation that took up our weekends for months before. Instead, we are really enjoying doing things in our own time and catching up with lots of friends.

So this weekend we went into Cambridge early to do a few errands, including a happy browsing session in the Oxfam bookshop and a few purchases. This was followed up by brunch at Afternoon Tease, where I’ve been wanting to go for ages, with my friend E. The sausage and red onion bun I had was amazing, followed by yummy Chocolate Guinness Cake (does cake make it lunch rather than brunch?!).

There was also lots of plotting as E will be moving back to New Zealand in the next few months so we want to cram in lots of touristy English things before she goes. Any suggestions for unusual things to do around East Anglia and London greatly appreciated as we’ve done most of the obvious stuff!

We then picked up another friend from the station and headed out to Anglesey Abbey, making use of our recent honeymoon impulse joining of the National Trust.

We didn’t know it before we arrived but there was a dahlia festival on, which was simply done but really effective. There were hundreds out in the gardens, beautiful dahlia decorations hung from the trees in one glade, a dahlia trail through the grounds and even a dahlia decorated pine tree – exactly like an Autumn Christmas tree. It was warm and sunny so wandering about looking at the late summer gardens was just the best way of spending an afternoon.

Today was more leisurely, we finally managed a trip to the farm shop in the next village, which I think is going to be a regular haunt. The meat is reared and slaughtered on the farm, so you know exactly what kind of life it had when you buy, and the vegetables were local and very reasonably priced as well. A return trip with a big shopping list is in order. We followed this up with a lovely lunch at my parents and a catch up with one of my cousins.

All in all a heavenly weekend! I intend to finish it in a similarly lovely style with some farm shop elderflower cider (so yum), sewing and Downton Abbey.

The week to come…

Looking forward to designing our wedding thank you cards with one of our official photographs that came through last week. So many people helped or gave us lovely gifts so can’t wait to start writing them (won’t say that when I’m halfway through and am getting hand cramp).

Am also hoping I will get a chance to try out at least one new recipe, I’ve got lazy lately and need to find some other tasty things to cook regularly. We’ve got lots of nice fruit and veg to eat from the farm shop as well, and have finally tried the bread maker we got given about two months ago – I am waiting eagerly for my first loaf as we speak. At this rate I might turn into a foodie!