• Waking up at Bowood Hotel after my cousin Sophie’s wedding on the Friday. We were in an incredibly luxurious suite and everything about our stay was perfect.
  • Gasping for a cup of tea.
  • Waiting for the children to stir.
  • Smiling when they finally piled into bed with us.
  • Reminiscing about the night before. Jesse was a total legend on the dance floor.
  • Saying goodbye to my mum who had to head off for her second wedding of the weekend.
  • Luxuriating in the enormous double shower.
  • Pulling on some comfy clothes and heading down to breakfast.
  • Tucking into the buffet.
  • Catching up with the newlyweds.
  • Wandering back to our room to finish getting ready.
  • Packing our bags and checking out.
  • Mentally planning a return trip.
  • Jumping in my uncle’s car and driving down the road to visit Bowood House and Gardens.
  • Pulling over to take a quick picture of the bluebells.
  • Heading straight for the adventure playground.
  • Bumping into more family.
  • Sipping tea and chatting with Mr L.A. and my uncle while the children scaled the climbing frame.
  • Stopping off for a spot of lunch at my aunt and uncle’s house.
  • Catching up with my cousin Amy who is visiting from Australia.
  • Missing my dad.
  • Jumping on the train back to Bristol.
  • Vegging out on the sofa.
  • Sorting laundry.
  • Feeding the kids beans on toast and insisting they both had an early night.
  • Ordering Chinese food.
  • Watching Swiss Army Man. I wasn’t too sure about this quirky comedy, but it’s worth watching for Daniel Radcliffe’s performance alone.
  • Collapsing into bed.
  • Sleeping in.
  • Dragging myself downstairs.
  • Helping Jesse get ready for Taikwondo. He had an early morning grading to get to.
  • Relaxing at home with Izzy while Mr L.A. took him to the gym.
  • Meal planning and shopping for groceries online.
  • Making pasta with pesto for lunch.
  • Letting Izzy escape to a friend’s house for a sleepover.
  • Feeling a little blue while Mr L.A. rushed around the house, packing for a trip to Norway.
  • Seeing him off at the door.
  • Snuggling with Jesse on the sofa.
  • Roasting carrots with olive oil, crushed coriander seeds, chili flakes and the zest and juice of an orange.
  • Cooking some rice to accompany the veg and eating it all with a generous drizzle of soy sauce.
  • Reading Jesse a bedtime story and tucking him in for the night.
  • Eating leftover Easter chocolate on the sofa.
  • Chatting to Mr L.A. on the phone.
  • Watching Casting Jonbenet and Girlboss on Netflix.
  • Taking myself upstairs to bed.
  • Reading until I fell asleep.
  • Waking up when Jesse clambered in beside me.
  • Drinking tea and watching Moana.
  • Enjoying a very slow start to the day.
  • Eventually getting washed and dressed.
  • Spritzing myself with Jo Malone’s Mimosa and Cardamom Cologne, kindly sent to me by a reader, Christine, who spotted it on a recent wish list and had an unwanted bottle going spare. Its arrival put a huge smile on my face.
  • Squeezing in a bit of work while Jesse watched cartoons on Netflix.
  • Unloading groceries when my Ocado delivery arrived.
  • Cooking and eating Oven-Baked Asparagus and Eggs.
  • Strolling to the supermarket.
  • Buying Jesse a comic.
  • Narrowly avoiding getting caught in the rain.
  • Listening to the thunder from the comfort of the kitchen.
  • Feeling sleepy.
  • Missing Mr L.A.
  • Getting a head-start on dinner. I made cheese sauce from scratch to go with shop-bought stuffed cannelloni.
  • Welcoming Izzy home from her sleepover.
  • Uploading my wedding pics to Facebook.
  • Sitting down to dinner.
  • Throwing the kids in the shower and handing them clean PJs.
  • Letting them watch a little TV before bed.
  • Tapping away at my laptop.
  • Hoping I can survive until Mr L.A. arrives home on Thursday.

Love Audrey xxx

 

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Love Audrey
My {bank holiday} weekend has mainly been spent…
🤳
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?!
☀
🌅
🔆
🌻
✨
Franky weather ☀️🌅🔆🌻✨

That’s it, that’s the caption.
🤳
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?
💃🏼
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!☀️🤩
🤳
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?
⏳
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.