Our thoughts are with you

My family are fine, but Christchurch has just suffered from another devastating earthquake.

Brunching

This Sunday, we went into town to have a fabulous Antipodean brunch with Kate and Jamie. Lantana Cafe is one of Kate's finds, run by Aussies apparently. She's got a Kiwi-run cafe to try next on her list.



Everything was delicious.



The Lantana baked beans, brioche, poached egg, spinach and sausages filled me up from 11am to 5pm, giving us enough energy to go to the Museum of London for the street photography exhibition and also to Westfield shopping centre to find Dave a dress shirt. We just got invited to another wedding, this time in Wales so he'll be wearing the shirt for a few other occasions apart from our own wedding this year.



Some sweet and cheeky local lollipops from the gift shop. I couldn't resist borrowing them for this photo.

Something Girly

A lovely place to visit on a rainy day is Elizabeth's shop The Vintage Mistress on Etsy. She has a good eye for beautiful things, and lately she must have found a stash of 1950s treasure. Dave and I are watching Mad Men at the moment and I think these look like they've come out of Betty Draper's young prom wardrobe. Do look at each dress, they have unusual details....




Clockwise from top left: 1950s Ballerina Pink Party Prom Dress, 1950s Sweeping Lilac Party Dress, Chablis Party Dress, 1950s Cloud Blue Party Prom Dress.

I also found my 'something old' in this shop, although it's not my dress!

World's largest jigsaw?

Is this an attempt to create the world's largest jigsaw?



Actually, no. Just trying to level out the ground where our wedding marquee is due to go! And yes, I did manage to get all the pieces back into the right place:

Pond Life

Spring is starting to come to Britain, or so the frogs in our pond seem to think!



Many are getting suprisingly frisky for February!



Unfortunately, the pond has sprung a leak, and was well overdue some maintenance. So the latest project has been to drain out the water, catch all the frogs, and replace the lining.



Most weren't too impressed by their temporary accomodation!



Drained out pond...



Lined with sand...




Then relined, refilled, and refrogged!

Spring is in the air

We visited the beautiful Welford Park this weekend to see the magnificent displays of snowdrops. Vast carpets of the small white flowers really do look like it has snowed.

Hopefully it's a sign that winter is on its way out at last!

Patience

Sorry that this blog has been a bit neglected lately... we are waiting to move to our new flat in a few weeks time. The official date for getting the keys is the 23rd of February! We've been busy in the meantime. Our honeymoon accommodation has been booked, we are going to Krabi in Thailand to stay at Peace Laguna Resort. There's currently a fabulous deal to upgrade your room, and add on more nights to your stay. The idea of staying at a resort instead of our usual cheap and cheerful hotels is to recover and relax from wedding things and then go back to our usual turbo-speed exploration mode and travel around Vietnam for a while before catching up with my immediate and extended family in Malaysia.

I'm starting to pick up a few new skills, there are parts of the wedding that will be DIY. One that I'm hoping to pull off is the flowers and I've had a bit of opportunity to practice. There's a lot of videos out there, especially the hand-tied bouquet style I favour. Another one that's been fun (as well as a learning curve) is making sugar roses for the cake. These can be made well ahead of time if you store them in a dry, airtight container. They are edible, but definitely look better than they taste as gum paste isn't the most appetising thing to eat! The next project on my list is making some giant paper flowers for the arbour for the ceremony. I do miss my crafty Mum and sisters when I'm doing these projects, I'll be glad to see them again in June. Now to do battle with the hot glue gun...