Tweety tweet tweet

After at least 18 months of twitter, I think I've finally got the hang of it! I still don't have time to keep up during the working day, but it's starting to be enjoyable and useful. Even better, I'm actually communicating with other people...

 

A day in pictures

A spot of greenery

I wasn't going to grow any plants this year - having moved from a house with a garden that I was pretty rubbish at maintaining, I thought I'd have some time off.  Most of my pot plants have gone on long-term holiday to friends' houses. Until this afternoon, the only outdoor plant I had was my purple-leaved Japanese maple tree:

But this beautiful weather is obviously getting to me as I've started to daydream about other plants. It's too late to really grow anything from seed, so I wasn't going to indulge myself... until I went to the DIY/garden centre this afternoon on an errand. I couldn't resist:

My hoard: three different chilli plants and three different tomato plants.

Unfortunately, I was in a bit of a rush and discovered when I got home that one of the tomato plants was a BIG variety. This may not go well because (a) they're going in a window box so tumbling plants would be better, and (b) because I don't really like big tomatoes! I guess I'll have to use them in my cooking instead of salads.

Ten minutes after arriving home, the plants were re-potted and in their new home...

I blame Nome at NomeGrown and Lucy at Attic24 for too many inspirational plant posts :)

Wonderful food

Do you take pictures of your food?

I don't know if it's the improvement in technology (my mobile phone is automatically a pretty decent camera), or a change in my way of thinking now that I'm blogging and attached to other social networks, but I seem to be doing it all the time...

post-cycling beef wellington this weekend

Viewing the world on two wheels

Not quite my normal eight wheels of choice...

The London bike scheme, more commonly known as "Boris Bikes" after the mayor of London who (I'm presuming) was integral in setting it up.

Now, I'm not really a cyclist, however, I've been saying for a while that I wanted to have a go on one of the Boris Bikes, and now I can say I did it. I might even do it again, within the "safe" environment of a park at least...

How to live well?

After allowing myself to get stressed over several things recently, a friend pointed me in the direction of Zen Habits.

The guy running it seems to have a clear, sensible philosophy:

"Zen Habits is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives. It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, find happiness."

Taken from the Zen Habits blog

I'm feeling inspired!

I'm going to take one item from his "how to live well" list to focus on for a short while (maybe a week, maybe three) in an attempt to become a little more relaxed and generally happier!

First focus: You need very little to be happy. Finding the small joys in life - clean laundry, a pretty notebook, a text from a friend, etc. I will be looking for these things and appreciating them :)

How hard is it to dress?!

You'd have thought I was quite an easy shape to dress: almost six foot tall and kind-of skinny (not in a model-skinny way, but relatively slim). However, that couldn't be further from the truth!

In a month or so I've got a fun evening out with the girls planned; it's a bit of a posh event so we decided it'd be fun to buy a new dress. Not being one of those girls who loves shopping and feels comfortable spending hours in a shopping mall or department store, I was a bit apprehensive. As it turns out, it was quite a laugh, and included a well-timed cream tea break to recharge our batteries!