Given my current health issues, it should come as no surprise to hear that rest, and more specifically, sleep, is often at the forefront of my mind.

Recognising my sporadic sleep patterns left a lot to be desired, I’ve spent the last couple of months tweaking my bedtime routine until it’s perfect. Alongside drinking more water and {almost} giving up alcohol completely, these are the lifestyle changes that have made the biggest difference to my overall health and wellbeing.

Our master bedroom makeover is far from complete, but its transformation so far has definitely encouraged me to spend more time in bed. These days, I rarely stay up past 10pm and I’m much more focused on winding down before lights out.

Read on to discover my 5 top tips to help you get a good night’s sleep…

5 Ways to Get a Good Night's Sleep

  • Buy the Best Mattress You Can Afford

The first stage of our bedroom makeover took place last year. We tore up carpet, sanded the floor, painted walls and finally invested in a few key pieces of furniture. Having spent almost a decade sleeping on a seriously uncomfortable mattress, a beautiful new bed was top of our wish list.

After purchasing an upholstered bed from Next, we hit up Ikea for the very best mattress we could afford. 12 months later, we’re still thrilled with our purchase and can’t quite believe how much it’s improved the quality of our sleep.

As a general rule, if you wake up with aches and pains that disappear over the course of the day, you’re not sleeping as well as you did a year ago or your mattress shows signs of wear, it’s probably time to treat yourself to something new.

  • Overhaul Your Bedding

Partnering with Christy over the last 18 months has been a revelation. Where I once thought high-quality bedding was simply ‘nice to have’, I now consider it essential. A high thread count and 100% Egyptian cotton really does make all the difference.

Last winter, we invested in a new duvet and this year, Christy kindly sent us a selection of pillows. They’re the perfect finishing touch and have made a huge difference to our overall comfort.

If your pillow’s polyester filling or foam is lumpy and bumpy or the feather down needs to be shaken vigorously to regain its shape, it may be time to overhaul your bedding too. You’ll find a good pillow will bounce back to its original shape and position if folded in half.

  • Banish the Tech

I’ve known for a long time that scrolling through social media on my phone before bed isn’t particularly conducive to a good night’s sleep, but having finally banished technology from the bedroom, I’ve been genuinely surprised by the positive impact it’s had.

Without my phone, I find it easier to tune out stress and drift off to sleep. By replacing Facebook with fiction, I’m also back to books at bedtime which means my new routine is benefiting more than just my sleep pattern.

  • Scent the Space

The Perfect Sleep Starter Kit from Neom’s Scent to Sleep range has been a life-saver and I rarely head to bed without burning the English lavender, sweet basil and jasmine candle. As well as helping me relax, it fills our bedroom with the most incredible fragrance.

  • Invest in a Lumie Bodyclock

At the risk of sounding evangelical, introducing a Lumie Bodyclock into our bedroom is one of the greatest things I’ve ever done. If you struggle with the dark winter mornings or suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder at this time of year, I can’t recommend this gadget enough.

For the uninitiated, it’s an alarm clock that wakes you with a gradually brightening 30-minute sunrise, so when you open your eyes you feel awake and refreshed. Waking up like this helps regulate your sleep/wake cycle and has even been shown to boost mood, energy and productivity levels for the rest of the day.

As well as the wake up sunrise, it also has a 30 minute sunset that works in the opposite way, helping you wind down ready for bed. I find this feature incredibly helpful, and along with the other things listed above, it’s helped eliminate the arduous hours I used to spend desperately trying to fall asleep.

  • Does sleep come easily to you or do you need all the help you can get?

Love Audrey xxx

P.S. The Christy bed linen pictured above is from a past season, but you’ll find a range of stunning colours and patterns to tempt you in the current collection.

This is a collaborative post. Read my full disclosure here.

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Love Audrey
How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep
5 Ways to Get a Good Night's Sleep
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May in photos 🤳

1. Finally, some Franky weather. One of the best things about this month has been dusting off my summer dresses and being able to wear sandals ☀️

2+3. Coronation weekend. So many thoughts 💭 But the food was good! I made a vegan version of my mum’s famous coronation chicken and it was delicious.

4. Jesse staying upbeat during yet another trip to hospital. That steroid buzz though. IYKYK.

5. Some of the food served at the first meeting of Bristol Cook Book Club since 2020. It felt so good to get this going again. I can’t wait for our next feast!

6. Me among the cow parsley, snapped by Jesse.

7. I’ve been thinking about creativity a lot this month while working through the ‘The Artist’s Way’. 

8. Breakfast outside.

9. {Still} scrapbooking December. Fingers crossed I can finally wrap up this project in June 🤞🏻

10. Izzy’s final show at The Tobacco Factory. After tonight, she’ll be done with college {and compulsory education} forever 🤯

We packed a lot into this month. Enough to fill two carousels! This might explain why I’m so tired! I’m looking forward to June though. Everything’s better when the sun shines ✨
@_charlieswift has been raving about ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron for years. I finally caved, ordered the book and agreed to work through the course with her and some other artists. 

The book focuses on ‘guiding you through the process of recovering your creative self’ to ‘help you unleash your inner artist’. It’s early days {I’ve only read as far as week two and I haven’t even started my morning pages yet - IYKYK}, but I’m enjoying the process so far. 

Today I took myself on my first Artist Date - ‘a block of time… especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist’. I decided to treat myself to a solo cinema trip to see ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.’ The film was brilliant and taking time out midweek to do something just for me felt… kind of naughty? And fun! It definitely filled my creative well {again, IYKYK}.

Have you read ‘The Artist’s Way?’ Where would you go on a date with your inner artist?!
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Franky weather ☀️🌅🔆🌻✨

That’s it, that’s the caption.
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April in photos 🤳

1. Our trip to London over Easter was a definite highlight this month. Here’s the obligatory ‘flowers outside Liberty’ shot.

2. Finally! Some sunshine! More of the same please, Mr. Weatherman ☀️

3. Dressed for a day of sightseeing in my new favourite pink jacket. It’s Boden and I bought it in the sale 💖

4 + 5. Scenes from a trip to the big Waterstones in Piccadilly. This poem by @charlycox1 floored me. Crying in a bookshop. Not awkward at all.

6. I was proud of these steps, so I’m posting them here for posterity 🚶🏼‍♀️🥄

7. The Easter holidays also featured lots of lazy days 🎮😴

8. We bought a nutribullet and I’m officially in my smoothie era.

9 + 10. Dinner and drinks at @thecoconuttreeuk with our IzzyBee. Taking your daughter out for cocktails is a season of parenting I’m very much enjoying.

Not pictured: a family funeral and the chest infection I’m still getting over 🤒 How was April for you?
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Easter weekend in my hometown 💃🏼

No trip to London is long enough for me to see all the people and do all the things I want to do while I’m there, but we always manage to pack a lot in. It’s 17 years since I moved away, but somehow it still feels like coming home. Here’s some of what we got up to…

1. Being tourists.

2. Shopping at Westfield.

3 + 4. Hanging out and eating at Southbank.

5. Refuelling in Chinatown.

6. Enjoying the big Waterstones in Piccadilly.

7. Admiring the spring flowers outside Liberty.

8. Visiting the Imperial War Museum for the first time since I was a child.

9 + 10. Seeing Elton John at the O2 with my mama 👓🎹🎤🪩✨

I hope you’ve managed to enjoy the long weekend, whatever you’ve been up to! That sunshine though!☀️🤩
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March in Photos 🤳

1. How it’s going…

2. How it started.

3. My in-laws were involved in a terrible car crash earlier this month. They’re very, very lucky to be alive. It was a horrible time, so I’m grateful there was a happy ending.

4. My husband sent me this photo of a photo from our wedding day while he was visiting his parents. Turns out his mum carries it in her purse ❤️

5. While I was waiting for news from Derby, I took myself out on a walk and ended up in @thesmallcitybookshop. It was like my feet knew books would bring me comfort.

6 + 7. Just spring things.

8. Vegan lemon and almond loaf and a green smoothie from @theorchardcoffeeco 🍰🌱

9. I bought it 🌸

10. Other music? I don’t know her. 

How’s March been treating you? Personally, I’m ready for April and spring PROPER!
There is a past version of me who cannot believe I get to do this every day 💭📝💻

She’s around 12yrs old, working on her first novel in a little ring-bound notebook, dreaming up stories, devouring books and trying to imagine a life filled with words. Everything that makes my business possible now barely existed then, so even she’d struggle to conjure up  an image of what my life looks like now.

I’m grateful that I get to do this, for the clients who trust me to find the right words, and I’m grateful to that past version of me too. Without her, I wouldn’t be here now. Sure, she’d probably want me to hurry up and get back to that novel, but I think she’d be proud of the business I’ve built and the way I’ve managed to create a life filled with words.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
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Lockdown memories, three years on 🦠⏳

Very little of my life made it on to the grid in 2020, so this is the first time I’ve shared these images. They’re all from the first lockdown and most were taken between March and May. I think the arrival of spring will always remind me of this strange time.

When Boris made his announcement on the 23rd, our children had already been out of school for a week. Jesse, who was initially deemed clinically vulnerable, spent the next 6m shielding. He left primary school one day not realising he’d never go back. He did not see another child his age until the summer. Like many kids and adults in the same situation, the experience had a deep impact on his mental health. 

Izzy was in Year 10. As the pandemic raged on, she did most of her GCSEs online, celebrated her 16th birthday via Netflix Party, finished secondary school with minimal fanfare and missed out on prom completely. When she finally had a normal night out with friends in the winter of 2021, I cried quietly in the kitchen when she got home. Seeing her so happy and animated after a simple ‘cheeky Nando’s’ only highlighted everything she’d missed out on in the previous 18 months.

It’s easy to forget how little we knew about the virus in the beginning and how frightening that was for everyone involved. We had it easy in comparison to some, but I still marvel at the way we coped with it all. The way we isolated, home schooled and kept our businesses ticking over. My goodness it was hard! As my children often joke, I hope we’re done living through major historical events for a while.