I hope you are feeling marginally happier about Christmas than these guys. In fairness, I'd be pretty pissed off if someone forced a Santa hat on my head and took pictures of me, too. Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas, filled with love, laughter, Chocolate Oranges and weird-looking dogs. That's what I'm hoping for, anyway. See you on the other side (*coughMYBIRTHDAYcough*). Top 20 Dogs Dressed...
Hmm, how to explain the Nosy Bitches? The easiest way to describe them would be a random group of women who chat on twitter, but that would make it sound tragic, so let's call it a network of smart, interesting, funny ladies who originally found each other through the A Practical Wedding community (which is, by the way, scientifically proven to be awesome) and who...
Writing the words "Please" and "Thank you" in quotation marks kind of defeats the purpose. Just thought you might need to know that for future neighbourly notes. You're "welcome." Love, Your Neighbour Who Is Now Secretly Plotting To Train Her Dog To Crap Beside Your Car {Image via Passive Aggressive Notes} ...
One of my dearest friends has just announced that she and her husband are having a baby. Cue high-pitched squeals and the immediate perusing of etsy for all the little tiny baby things. Even though sometimes it feels like I am surrounded by babies, thanks to all you amazing internet ladies who make motherhood look fun and even - gasp! - kind of cool, in fact she is the first...
"The difference between Chinese medicine and Western medicine is the dissection versus the observation of the thing in motion. The difference between reading a story and studying a story is the difference between living the story and killing the story and looking at its guts. "School! We sat in English class and we dissected the stories that I'd escaped into, laid open their...
1. How to play my first ever tune on the piano. 2. Always to question the statistics you hear on TV. 3. That it is possible to function in a room where only 10% of the floor space is visible (but that maybe it would make for an easier life just to tidy up a little bit). 4. Which is the best seat...
1. That poetry can be funny. 2. How to make a mean macaroni cheese. 3. That singing along to a good song is one of life's great joys. 4. The importance of small acts of kindness. 5. How to rock a sheepskin coat. Happy Birthday, Mum xxx Top image of my mum first seen on her guest post. Bottom image from my fun picture-taking day with...
Last night, two friends who we hadn't seen since the wedding came over for dinner. Before long, we found ourselves talking about the wedding; what an amazing day it was, how much fun we all had, how there was a bizarre one-day plague of greenflies on the beach but how it didn't matter in the slightest. They looked through our photos, all 600+...
I WON A COMPETITION!! You have no idea how exciting this is for me. Especially when all I had to do was retweet a tweet, which I totally would have just done anyway, because the lady in question is awesome. My prize was a pack of ten prints by the very talented Becky of Bexphoto, who also blogs at Olive Dragonfly and has been...
FINALLY. I've been itching for the festive season to officially start for a long, long time, but somehow December has snuck up on me and I can't quite believe it's that time of year again. I haven't even got myself an advent calendar/advent candle/hand-crafted super-duper advent extravaganza yet, and as for Christmas presents... well. The less said about that, the better. I do have some sparkly...
Am I the only person who finds Movember extremely disconcerting? I'm 90% certain I was in a meeting with Freddie Mercury this morning. Hurry up and be December already. {Freddie with Jane Seymour wearing what can only be described as The Most Intense Flower Crown Ever, via Awesome People Hanging Out Together} ...
Would I have found this so funny before I became a dog owner? I reckon I still would. I also reckon Smidgen is never going to be allowed off her lead ANYWHERE, EVER. I mean, can you imagine??? I hope that those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving had a delicious time, and that your trousers still do up. Those of you lucky enough to be heading to...
A confession: I actually quite like pink, if it's a nice pink (hello, blog). I also carried on playing with Barbies for longer than anyone who hopes to have a normal social life reasonably should, only giving up when the potential embarrassment of being found out by my friends was finally greater than the joy I found in making up stories and creating...
Shit. Can you believe it's been two weeks since I last posted? Remember when I went on holiday that time, and I got all those people to write amazing guest posts for me while I was away, because I couldn't possibly leave the blog unmanned for a single day? Yeah, I don't know what happened either. I'm pretty sure this post is in breach of The...
This weekend, my mum and I are going on a jaunt. We are hopping on a train out of Edinburgh, waving farewell to its stairways and spires and air of refined elegance, and heading west. Back to the city where she was born. The city where I came of age, met my husband and learned the finer points of comparative constitutional law. And...
*DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT ACTUALLY SMIDGEN. OR ME* We've bought the books. We've bought the bed. We've bought the toys, the bowls, the waterproof coat with tartan lining (because apparently greyhounds feel the cold and apparently I am the kind of person who coordinates her outfit with her dog's). We've taken her for walks, smuggled her cubes of cheese and generally made a fuss of her...
There is nothing, repeat nothing, more cringingly awful than people quoting song lyrics as if they are deeply meaningful works of literature. It is painfully, toe-curlingly embarrassing. When a friend who shall remain nameless told me that, overcome with love one day, she texted her boyfriend the lyrics to Chasing Cars, a small part of me died inside. But if I were ever...
When I first saw this picture on Pinterest, it took me a few moments to figure it out. But when I did, it touched me so much. I love imagining some young man, scissors in hand, tongue out and brow furrowed in a perfect picture of concentration, carefully cutting out his sweetheart's face. Was it to fit in a heart-shaped frame, or was...
Ever since I read this post on Florence Finds (have you all seen Florence Finds, by the way? It's a new lifestyley blog from former Rock My Wedding blogger Rebecca Norris. It has the same kind of vibe as the wifey posts on RMW, with lots of fashion and interiors, and also some more cerebral offerings in the form of Florence's Book Club....
My local supermarket looks like Barbie's wardrobe has exploded all over it. Everything is inexplicably pink. For a moment I'm confused, until it clicks. Ah yes. It must be October. October, for those who are colour blind or live in a cave, is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I feel oddly ambivalent towards it. On the one hand, it's a cause close to my...
There is a distinct autumnal chill in the air. The brief warmth that flared up at the end of last month has fizzled out as quickly as it appeared, and Autumn is well and truly upon us, necessitating the purchase of cosy winter coats. So what better way to pass a wet October Saturday afternoon, for a girl temporarily without a husband and with absolutely...
