Conversation Pieces

I discovered love made me do it…
while I was on my wedding-planning-athon
(which I’ll start blogging about soonish).

As welovepictures, Travis and Maike, who like in Cape Town,
take some gorgeous, happy, sunshiney, pretty wedding pics.

But what made me really fall in love with them
is their apartment… For the first time in ages,
I have total and utter flat envy!

Um… that blue lamp, that chair… that boat-shaped mirror!

Oh… yeah… that globe, those signs, that chest of drawers…

Love… that prints and books mini shelves combo!

Home… this sign is what made my heart flip over.

Home is wherever I am with you
by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros
was the song we signed our marriage certificate too.
(Like I said more on that later!)

I wonder if I can do a flat swap for a bit!

Check out the rest of their gorgeous place
and lovely blog here …

******

Have a lovely weekend everyone.
I’m off to two weddings.
So it’s a weekend of love!

The second week of our mini-moon…

Sun-soaked days. Me with my cameras. Him with freckles on his nose.

Going nowhere fast… just wandering, wondering, pondering.

Watching the waves rise and fall…

Rolled up jeans and bare feet, shoes dangling from our fingers…

Playing the 2p falls without a care in the world.

Seeing the sun set on the sparkling sea…

Strange how much brighter everything seems.

*****

After leaving the Isle of Wight, we went to Brighton…

And there I did some more snapping with my Diana.
I’m still getting to grips with my little plastic wonder
but I have to say I’m rather pleased with these shots…

The next one is my favourite I think and
my first attempt at double exposure…

Ok, maybe this is my favourite shot…
my now husband silhouetted against the sun.

I picked up these Diana shots on Friday
and if you could wish yourself back somewhere
we’d have been there in the blink of an eye.

Think the time has come to start
planning our actual honeymoon.

*****

Here’s a confession…

Over the years, we have killed a lot of plants.

Despite our best attempts to look after then they always die.

ALWAYS.

(Yes, we did our own wedding flowers
but they didn’t have to live for that long.)

So recently we decided that we were giving up.

And we went out and bought some fake plants instead.

I can’t under water them. I can’t over water them.
Heck, I can’t water them at all.

They won’t die of a horrible disease, like Planty Number 2 did.

(Does anyone else give their plants stupid names?)

But we thought they were a bit plain…

Should we decorate the pots?

Or make some fabric flowers to brighten them up?

Maybe. Eventually.

But then we hit upon a better plan…

Yes, we now have our own sentry… watching out for us.

It cannot be underestimated how
much this makes me laugh.

*****

This might be one of the reasons
my little cousins call me
a ‘pretend grown-up’.

A typical weekend conversation…

Me: How about we go car booting on Sunday morning?

Him: Ok. What time do you want to go?

Me: Super early… so we can get the best stuff.

Him (knowing my inability to get up in the mornings): Ok.

*

A typical Sunday morning conversation before 9am…

Him: It’s ten to nine. Do you want to get up?

Me: Zzzzzzzzz.

Him: Zoë? Hello?

Me: Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Him: Ok, I’ll give you another 30 mins.

*

A typical Sunday morning conversation around 10.30am…

Me: Why didn’t you wake me up?

Him: Um, I did try.

*****

Some days however we manage to drag ourselves (ok, me)
out of bed and head to a car boot sale. And on these days
we very rarely come away empty-handed.

Here’s a few of my favourite recent finds…

A 60s ‘Topic’ teapot by J & G Meakin.

A bit of a departure this one for me…
usually all my china is gold-edged
delicate little vintage numbers but I just
love the colours and that pattern.

This set came with a bit of a car boot sale reminder though…
always check what you’re buying.

As well as the cups, saucers, sugar bowl and milk jug,
there were also some cute side plates. The lady that was selling them
was super nice so I didn’t bother to check them all…

And yup some of the side plates were broken.
Still a bargain but disappointing all the same.

Got ourselves some more glass jelly moulds…
one of these days we do need to try
out our posh jelly recipe book.

Some pretty measuring tape…

Though post-wedding I don’t give a flying fig
about my waist measurements etc.
(As a consequence I think I lost weight
just because that’s how my world works!)

A big cosy yellow blanket…

This one was a charity shop find rather than booting
and from the label it appears to be rather old… but in perfect nick.

It seemed rude not to buy it.

A polaroid camera for 20p.

I love this camera. I love the stripe.

I love the shape. I love that cheerful big red button.

It just makes me feel happy and that’s definitely worth 20p!

It also looks rather good on my little roll-top desk display.

(We think we hate our flip clock though. No-one warns you
that these make a god awful noise when they flip round.
Loudest, most heart-attack-inducing noise ever!)

And of course after a hard (ok not that hard) morning
car-booting, it is essential that you treat yourself to ice-cream.

Irn-bru and tablet ice-cream of course.

Well, you need a reward for getting up early on a Sunday.

(Look at the concentration!
That’s how good tablet ice-cream is!)

*****

Anyone else found any lovely booting
or charity shop finds recently?

*****

P.S. For all those asking, the ice-cream came from
the ice-cream van opposite the John Hope Gateway
at Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens. Thoroughly recommend!

When I was little, very little, I thought I could control the weather.

Whenever there were tears running down my face,
the world seemed to weep with me.

Big fat raindrops to match my own wet chubby cheeks.

(I blame my literal interpretation of my Nana
singing ‘When You’re Smiling’ for this.)

Then you get older and realise that no, the weather just does as it pleases.

You plan a picnic and it pours.
You want a rainy day for movies and there’s a heat wave.
You want a white Christmas? Well, tough.*

And like most Scots, I learnt to just deal with it.

And then I learned to like it.

Blame living in LA straight after uni as it taught me to miss weather.
Every day there started with grey smog which would clear to blazing sunshine.

Brilliant yes? Well, kind of. After a while, I missed the unpredictability.
I missed the need for a cardigan. I missed the sound of rain.

****

We knew three weeks before our wedding that
it was going to tip it down. Proper, proper rain.

So we bought brollies, gazebos, wellies, the works.

Lots of people told us the day would be ruined if it rained…
And I never understood that. How? How ruined?
Would we not get married on account of the weather?

So when I spotted this little beauty below by Heidi Burton
I wanted to have it for our wedding day.

“I like people who smile when it’s raining.”

I do. I really do. And from the wedding pics I’ve seen so far,
my god, me and my now husband are two
of smiley-est people you’ll ever see.

Surrounded by lots of lovely other smiley people.

And maybe they sort of did control the weather
that day as it only really rained a little bit.

*******

* Likelihood of snow at Christmas is now pretty likely I know!

P.S. My lovely print was framed by the lovely people
at Curiouser & Curiouser. They did a fab, fab job!

I love the phrase ‘mini-moon’.

It’s fun to say… and even more fun to be on.

For our mini-moon, we wanted to do something chilled,
low effort and relaxed, without having to travel far.

Somewhere we could sleep, eat, drink and be happy.

So to start our mini-moon, we rented an airstream
from Vintage Vacations on the Isle of Wight.

I can’t tell you how much we loved our wee caravan.
It was just so perfect. A perfect start to married life.

So while we’re waiting on wedding pics,
here’s some snaps from our mini-moon part 1…

Our French chocolate and caramel wedding tea
from my Dad and his girlfriend…

Our lucky charms breakfast from my little sis…

Our caravan… the Sparton Manor.

Sunny deck chairs… for two.

Sunny Hendricks gin and tonics… for two.

Me and a fox mask from our wedding…
(we brought it on mini-moon as we forgot all about it on the day!)

One of the comfiest beds in the world…
and it has a yellow blanket too!Two very tired but very happy people…
getting married is exhausting!

I also took a few Diana shots…

One of the fires we lit… so we could sit
outside until the stars came out.Our favourite caravan on the site… the dinky Doris!

So much a favourite that we took
a Polaroid of us outside of it!

Oh to have my own little airstream!

How lovely that would be…

****

 So we got married. And it rocked.

It was honestly so much fun.
Far more than we’d ever
imagined it would be.

As a result, I grinned
like a loon all day.

It was a little haphazard
but it was heart-felt, happy
and at points hilarious.

I’ll share more of our day later
(& the crazy run-up) but for now
I am one very smiley married gal!

*****

Photo by family friend.

As some of you know/have already guessed, our wedding is now just days away.

And as you’ll guess, we’re a mite busy! But I thought I would do
one more ‘single’ gal post – with some quick snaps from life here
– and then see you all on the flipside!

P.S. Check out my awesome wedding present from my future hubbie…
my very own personalised suitcase (with my new initials on it and everything!).
I think he might be a keeper!