Twenty Eight Trips Around the Sun

This is a photo of me aged five, finally being allowed to lick the spatula after making a Victoria Sponge! You know what the most remarkable things about this image is, aside from my decidedly sinister face-pulling? It was taken 23 years ago, and that red plastic sieve is still is in regular use at my parents house! 

Anyway, Saturday before last I celebrated my 28th birthday! Yep, 28 times round the sun. This time last year, I wrote about my 27th birthday, and when I read that post back, I realised how many of the things I was hoping for I've managed to achieve this year. I wrote about how I was ready to stop wasting time, and get off my bum and do things, I had just begun to realise that our little cottage was far too small and maybe it might be time for a change, and I also wanted to learn about house plants!

A year on, I have certainly got off my bum and done things! I quit my job and embarked on a freelance adventure. I started working part time for a bakery which is still very new but it feels so right! We had an absolute nightmare with the land registry and our old neighbours and surveyors, but we eventually managed to sell our tiny old cottage and move into a big modern house which we love and feel so much more at home in, and which, much to my husbands dismay, I have slowly but surely filled up with house plants! I've learned about air plants and succulents and am even doing some propagating!

While we're talking birthdays, I thought you might like to know what presents my lovely friends and family gave me! Of course, by your 28th year the pile becomes considerably smaller, but no less special or appreciated!

D bought me some new (and very luminous orange) trainers which I've been eyeing up for a while, and a little ceramic elephant brooch made by Stockwell Ceramics in Cornwall who are new to me but definitely now on my list of online shops to have a good look at! He also found me some lavender incense and a tiny little incense holder with sparkly blue crackled glass glaze (it reminds me of these celestial coasters from Anthropologie that I've long been a lover of!)

He is a good'un that boy!

My parents-in-law bought me this truly amazing 1970s blue and yellow leather school satchel. It's a backpack rather then the traditional across body style statute, and is the perfect size for my laptop! I love the reflectors on the fastening - so cars can see me if I'm walking home from school at night of course! I've never seen anything quite like it before and I might have squealed at it a little bit!

My bestie bought me some amazing things as usual - mint tea in an elephant, (tea is a pretty standard gift to be exchanged between the two of us now) some copper bulldog clips and camera stickers, (because you can never have enough fun stationary!) a lip balm in the shape of a macaron (perfection!) and this hilarious little cat planter. It hangs on the edge of a glass, and you plant seeds (mint in my case) in his little backpack then he drinks water through the straw to make his mint seeds grow - I'm so very easily pleased, and I'm keeping an eye out for a pretty jar he can perch on the side of.

We spent the day at the Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival, which as always was just the best day - you cant beat gathering together all the best local producers and chefs in one place, and of course walking around and trying a little of what each person is offering means you end up absolutely stuffed! We bought some smoked garlic, and some lovely organic rye flour I'm hoping to finally start that sourdough with and I spent some birthday money on this beautiful Rupert Blamire ceramic salt pig (or igloo as this one is called!) We've been looking for one for a while, but I wasn't sure how I felt about the salt sitting in the open air all the time. This one perfectly fits a small tub of Cornish Sea Salt (the best!) and I love the deep blue sea-like glaze!

My parents have paid for my subscription to The Simple Things magazine for me again - this is the third year in a row I've subscribed now and it always feels like such a treat when it arrives every month! We also had great fun playing with this strawberry bowl seal at the festival - it's basically an alternative to cling film and it's genius (or possibly magic!) It somehow creates an air tight seal on a bowl if you try and lift it off by the handle, but when you lift it by the edge it lifts straight off - this may be the most boring topic for a blog post ever - who on earth is reading about alternatives to cling film? Anyway, I decided I needed one (cling film isn't exactly very environmentally friendly after all) so I got an extra present - as I said, very easily pleased!

After the festival we all sat at my parents house, sprawled out on the sofa and bemoaning how full we all were. My sister and I each managed to devour a bar of snazzy dark chocolate (her's was peanut butter, mine sea salt) before I said 'Does anyone fancy a carvery...?' and off we all went to eat even more! 

It's been a crazy emotional year, and I'm so excited for the next one - there will be less big changes than there have been in this past year, but I cant wait to see how different things are for us in a years time. I'm going to make a really conscious effort to enjoy the journey, and document it all as I go.

Roll on my 29th trip around the sun! 

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