Girl In The Pretty Dress

I've refined my shopping habits in recent years and most of the things I buy these days tend to fall under the labels 'classic' and 'timeless'. And this fits the bill - in fact when I looked at this photograph I thought 'if it was in black and white, you might wonder if it had been taken in the sixties'. The dress is a favourite, it's heavy fabric - so perfect for winter - but it's not overly warm for office-wear. And I've been enthusing about Charnos tights for ages - as I have quite long legs and these are the only brand I can find that fit me perfectly and don't slip throughout the day. Dress: GAP | Bag: Accessorize Tights: Tightsplease.co.uk (exact ones here ) | Boots: Marta Jonsson at Debenhams

Before I sat down to do this post, I didn't actually know what Bouclé meant. I knew what a Bouclé jacket looked like of course - but not what specifically made it that. Turns out it's not the cut or the style, but the yarn (or, as Wikipedia called it the 'novelty yarn'). Anyway the point is, that yarn is a lot warmer than you might expect, I was pretty toasty when taking these photos. Jacket: Miss Selfridge (similar here ) Top: F&F (buy it here ) Longer-length Jeggings: Marks and Spencer  ( indigo ) Boots: Primark Statement Necklace: via Luan Matthews

I'll be honest, I've never liked New Year. In my book it's possibly worse than Valentine's Day (because at least sympathetic family members usually buy me chocolate for Valentine's.) But New Year? It's always been 'just another day' to me. Nice that we get it off work though. Then, as I was leaving work last night I found myself grinning for no real reason on the way home, and I realised how much happier I am now than I was this time last year. I only had one goal last year - to finish my house and get moved in. It seemed like it would never happen. I spent all my time inhaling plaster dust and covered in paint. To some extent I neglected a lot of the other aspects of my life to complete it - and I've been making up for lost time ever since (though it was totally worth it - I love my house). So this list, isn't so much 'resolutions' - it's more 'reminders' of all the things I looked forward to spending my time doing whe...

This has got to be one of my favourite places in the world, and only a few minutes drive from where I live. Though strangely, I don't visit it that much. It's such a spectacular view that I think if I went too often, I'd stop appreciating it as much.  But every now and again I'll just jump in the car and go. Luckily, this time around I had my sister with me who very kindly took these photos - it was so windy I think the tripod would have blown over if I'd tried to self-shoot!  Coat: George at Asda | Jeggings: Marks and Spencer | Boots: Debenhams Quilted Jumper:  ASOS Bag: Aldo

So as it's the season of office parties - I mean Christmas - I've been digging through the archives for things to wear, and I remembered taking pictures of this little gem of a dress, which I bought at the end of the summer. I love the unusual shape at the front of this dress, though I'll probably take it a step further and dress it up with a bit of festive sparkle or a long slinky gold necklace when I next wear it. Dress: Mango | Sunglasses: Accessorize

Technically , Stir-Up Sunday was last weekend - the 24th November - but as my laptop has gone to the great scrapyard in the sky *sob* this is the first chance I've had to borrow one and start posting again… For those of you who haven't heard of 'Stir Up Sunday' before, it's an old English tradition (and one we follow religiously in our family.) It basically refers to the Sunday that falls a month before Christmas. The idea is that you put aside this day to complete all your pre-christmas baking - thereby allowing a month for your cake and puddings to 'mature'. On this day everyone who's present can 'stir' the mixture and make a wish… This year will be the first time the responsibility of the cake has fallen to me, and sticking with tradition, I'm following our family recipe… Tools of the trade: Mixing Bowl (x2)  Cake Tin (20.5cm Square - though anything about that size will do) Baking Parchment Wooden spoon/spatula Ingredients: 400g ...

  There is a whole website dedicated to Pinterest projects gone wrong, but I hope someone creates one for Pinterest successes -because this pin would be first on my list!   I made this double-crunch chicken with a honey garlic sauce a couple of weeks ago. I'd invited one of my best friends round to see my house and rather than stick to my usual recipe books I thought I'd try something new. (And prove that my shiney new kitchen was worth all the work that went into it!) It was so tasty and the chicken was perfect and tender. I've never been a fan of rice so I served it with home-made chips and a crunchy salad.   The full recipe can be found  here but I adapted the quantities a little to serve just 2 people.   I also found this site really helpful for adapting the quantities to grams. (I've never been able to figure out how much to add when it says '2 cups'.)   Bon appetit!