Food, glorious food

Hey m'dears!

Apologies for the silence- I've spent the last week or so in a pastry coma!

I started my new job on Thursday so my brain is filled to bursting with ideas, new information, questions, and 80's pop lyrics (well, some things never change!) so this post is probably going to be less loquacious* and more photo-heavy than normal. Let's start off with a shot of my new desk and admire my (totally unnecessary but oh so beautiful) stationery purchases, shall we?

Obviously, all of this learning has required plenty of brain fuel, so it was a happy coincidence for me that Brighton Food Festival was being held last weekend. We nibbled our way around the free samples, scooping up an armful of rather delicious fare along the way for an impromptu picnic and some mid-week snacking too. Our first purchase was a pair of scotch eggs so large that I'm pretty sure we were drawn to them by their own gravitational pull. 

Tom opted for the spiciest, meatest option on offer to scoff on site (and on sight), while I snapped up the Moroccan veggie version to eat for dinner with a side of roasted veg (in a bowl all the way from Morocco, to make it more authentic).

We also hefted home a chocolate twist pastry thing which was LITERALLY over 1 ft long. It didn't even fit in my bag! We *might* have shared the whole thing for breakfast the next day. And Tom wasn't that hungry, so the split might also have been 70:30.... Oops.

To give some scale-  that's a DINNER plate.

My belly has also recently been treated to:

A HUGE burger (involving four kinds of carbs and two kinds of cheese) from The Hartington, accompanied by a lovely trip down memory lane because it was our "local" during our final year in Brighton. 

A rather tasty pie, which contained 93% of my recommended daily limit of saturated fat. It tasted heavenly, which is rather ironic given that it's definitely knocked a few years off my life expectancy. 



Tea and biscuits, as a carpet picnic on a rainy afternoon. Note that I chose the room with green carpet, to make it more realistic:

A glass of wine, complete with flamingo. Proof that I'm hilarious after half a glass of wine...

And a bowl of mushroom soup topped with homemade parsnip crisps. Which totally balances out all the overindulgences. 

Between that and a walk along Brighton seafront to get to the food festival I've basically spent the last week at a healthy eating bootcamp!

On a side note, has anyone else noticed the weird my-jeans-feel-awfully-tight phenomenon going on recently? No?

Katie xxx

*A bit of trivia for you - I learned the word loquacious from Francis Boulle of MIC fame.

Chevron Mirror Makeover

Hello lovelies!

How was your weekend? Mine involved de-rusting and respraying our rather neglected BBQ, and popping it under a new rain cover to hopefully prolong its flavour-enhancing life for a few more summers, then digging over four huge flower beds in the garden and taking two whole carloads of weeds to the tip. As y'all know, I hate gardening (due to the creepy crawlies, mostly), but bribing myself with lots of mini Mars bar ice-creams helped a little.

As a break from chores, I went on a stroll round the local fleamarkets/ antique shops to find a mirror for our bedroom. I've spent about two years trying to find The Perfect Mirror for our Moroccan-themed bedroom, because I couldn't decide which style to buy and didn't want to make a costly mistake. I'm a big fan of a fancy gold frame, but our house is getting pretty full of them. I'd also been eyeing up several mirrors similar to this one from Graham and Green, but couldn't decide if I wanted something more middle eastern instead. 

I found plenty of mirrors I liked, but nothing that made my heart race, until I saw this gem in Rocket St George's new collection. 

Image from Rockett St George

I loved everything about it except 1. the price (£300), and 2. that the white chevrons are made from bone. YUCK. I know I'm a bit of a hypocrite, with my family-of-cows leather sofa, but bone is just a step too far for me. No idea why. So I decided to try and DIY something similar for myself, sans bones. 

As luck would have it, I found the perfect mirror in my favourite antique shop, and managed to haggle them down to £43. Still quite a lot compared to the boot sale bargains I see lovely northern bloggers scooping up by the armload, but round here people don't sell anything for under £30. Tom came and picked up me (and the mirror) in the car. Thankfully, it fit; I'd learnt my lesson from the chest of drawers incident and taken a tape measure with me. 

The mirror was painted a beigey brown, and had already been distressed with some sandpaper (or perhaps by being forced to watch a 10 hour loop of Jeremy Kyle). 

First, I slapped on a coat of white emulsion, then deliberated how best to paint the chevrons. I ended up using the same paint I used to paint my dresser and table lamp, and painting it on with the side of a (new!) washing up sponge so I could get roughly even size lines.

I've accepted the fact that I'll never be a neat and tidy painter, but my attempt at chevrons was so messy even I was surprised. I think I'd've had more luck letting a toddler cover it in potato printing. 

In the end, I decided to make the most of its unique scruffiness, and sand it all back so it looked properly distressed. Like it had been kicking about in the back of a souk for 40 years. After attacking it with a few pieces of sandpaper, it ended up like this: 

It's really brightened up our north-facing bedroom, and it means I can finally see myself head-to-toe when getting dressed in the morning! I certainly won't miss having to run round the house to look in the spare-room mirror, where I can see my top half, then the hallway mirror, where I can see my middle (if I stand on the bottom step), and then the oven door, where I can see my legs. Who knows, maybe I'll even do an outfit post one day(!)

What did you get up to at the weekend? 

Katie xxx

Marrakesh

Hello love bugs!

What've I missed?

Fancy hearing all about my Moroccan adventure and looking at some photos of interesting doors? Well, your prayers have been answered!

I'm not quite sure exactly what I'd expected Marrakech to be like, beyond colourful pyramids of spices and plenty of tagines, but it turned out to be generally so much more than I'd anticipated. More colourful, more exotic, more intense, and definitely louder. 

We learnt very quickly that the most important thing to carry round with you (besides loo roll and sanitising hand gel!) is a sense of humour; because most conversations seemed to be a lighthearted sales pitch for one thing or another. Once we'd found our feet, we wandered for hours on end through the maze of never-ending souks in the Medina, feasted in delicious restaurants staffed by French Hipsters in the Ville Nouvelle, and tried to take in everything we could see until our minds were saturated with colour.

We made the most of the French influences that create the weft of the tapestry that is Morocco by breakfasting on pain au chocolat and custard tarts, and embraced the wonders of African heritage which forms the warp, from dusty streets to bustling markets to lush gardens filled with the sound of tinkling fountains.

One of many mint teas

We basked in golden sunshine within the walls of ruined palaces, attempted (and failed) to avoid the snake-charming touts in the Jemaa el Fna, and scrambled up almost sheer cliff faces in the Atlas Mountains to see a waterfall. 

Some of us got sweatier from the climb than others. Haha. 

We got the hang of haggling, to the point where the sellers declared I must be "half-Berber" (which I was weirdly proud of, even though I'm sure they say that to everyone) and spent a dirham or two on artisan goods from the sense-awakening souks.

We've decided to declare our holiday a definite success :)

If you want to see any more of my photos, you can find them on flickr. 

Katie xxx

Rain Smell, Yoofs, and Skeleton Babies

Hello lovelies

How are you?

Today has been a day of odd things. I spent my day in meetings at a local farm which is currently running Halloween activity days for little ones. This meant that the cafe was filled with tiny children dressed as ghouls and skeletons. They were all so adorable I could practically feel my ovaries exploding (in a non-gross way, obviously). 

Babies in Halloween costumes: my hormones' Kryptonite.

Then, on my way home, a gang of hoodie-wearing yoofs BMX-d right at me whilst taking up the entire freakin' pavement. As I'm basically the world's youngest cantankerous old woman, my knee-jerk response was to glare at them all whilst thinking "Kids like you are the reason people think teenagers are such rude knobheads!". And you know what they did? They WOLF WHISTLED ME. I hasten to add, it was dark, so they most likely couldn't see my face, but seriously:

1. I'm basically old enough to be their mother. 

2. Wolf-whistling AND poor pavement manners? What are the youth of today coming to?

3. Did they not see me glaring?! 

I'm now paranoid that my scornful glare is easily confused for a look of lust. What if the people I see leaving their dogs' mess think I'm sending them come-hither signals? Because there are few things sexier than irresponsible dog owners...

On the plus side:

1. Apparently you can now tour the inside of buildings on Google Earth (just famous ones. Don't panic! The Google Earth van hasn't snuck into your house whilst you were at work!)

2. I've just discovered that "petrichor" is the proper word for after-it's-rained smell and there are proper nouns for a bunch of other stuff I thought was nameless.

Petrichor. Gorgeous photo by Román P. G.

3. Tom has just informed me using shift + F3 in MS Word allows you to change the case of entire sentences. SO IT DOESN'T MATTER IF I ACCIDENTALLY TYPE WHOLE SENTENCES IN CAPITAL LETTERS AFTER MY FAT THUMB TURNS ON THE CAPS LOCK KEY. Woohoo!

4. I've finally managed to find some consecutive days when I (hopefully) won't be nose-bleed-inducingly busy at work, so Tom and I are heading off to Marrakesh to celebrate! I'm SO excited- I've wanted to visit Morocco for years. No idea why, as I know nothing about the culture beyond couscous and tagines, and recent research which has informed me that Moroccans don't believe in vegetarianism, and I'll have to wear full length skirts and blouses like some sort of demure lady-person. At least I've got time for some pre-holiday maxi-skirt shopping! 

Rather in love with this asos skirt

Have you been to Marrakesh? I'd love some tips on cool places to visit/eat in! Or do you know any other awesome shortcut keys? 

I'm off to practice my glaring in the mirror.

Katie xxx

House Tour Part 1: Bathroom

Hello lovelies!

How are you? 

Welcome to the long-awaited Part 1 of my new House Tour series. I know starting with the bathroom doesn't sound like the most exciting introduction to the tour, but I've chosen it because: 
1. The bathroom was the only room I remembered to photograph "before".
2. It's by far the most dramatic transformation we've completed. 
3. I've just cleaned it*. 

Before: 

Our bathroom was originally split into two rooms, both of which had been wallpapered by the previous owners. Because clearly there's nothing more sensible than really thick wallpaper in a bathroom. There's no way that plan will backfire and the walls will end up going mouldy. Oh no.

Excuse me. Just using up my Sarcasm Quota for the week. 

The first thing we tackled decorating-wise after moving in was stripping the mouldy wallpaper in the bathroom (as opposed to the room with the toilet in it, which also had the most disgustingly germy doorknob in the whole wide world - because the sink was also in the bathroom. YUCK.). We decided to slap on a quick coat of anti-mould bathroom paint, and opted for a cheery cornflower blue.

The bathroom stayed that way for about a year, before we had saved up enough money to get the wall knocked through and put in a new suite. It was only after stripping the wallpaper in the toilet room that we discovered the stunning paint effect** underneath, which I can only describe as "crabstick pink". Lovely, innit?

The radiator was originally against the wall separating the two rooms, so we spent the six or so months between knocking the wall down and getting the plumber in having to walk round the radiator pipes in the floor (I've circled one in red). I ended up putting buckets over the top of both pipes to save any more middle-of-the-night toe-stubbing incidents. A very classy look. 

On the left is where the builder blocked in the old bathroom door

We were both very excited about getting rid of our bath. I was sick of having to clean an entire tub despite never actually bathing in it, and neither of us like baths. Although I would hasten to add that doesn't mean we smell, despite what my bestie has told the internet. 

Searching for a vanity unit that I liked took ages and ages. Because I am WELL fussy, and also really didn't want a shiny, glossy white one. I didn't record how long I spent scouring the internet for The Perfect Vanity Unit, but 50 hours is probably a reasonable guess. I could've built one in less time! 

Finally, after wasting half my life on ebay, Next home came up trumps. I was so excited I literally ran upstairs yelling "TOM! I'VE FOUND OUR VANITY UNIT!!!". Tom was as apathetic as any normal person should be about a cupboard that supports a sink. Not that it mattered, as I got excited enough for both of us. And I even put it together myself *bows*

The shower enclosure, counter-top sink and mixer tap were ebay bargains, although I have since learnt that cheap taps are a (leaky, wobbly) false economy, and would definitely recommend investing in a decent tap if you ever undertake a bathroom makeover. I'll probably buy a new one soon, before it starts leaking and ruins the vanity unit. 

I really wanted a rain-head shower, and we eventually decided to get a double-headed unit for days when we didn't want to wash our hair. I've actually ended up using the regular shower head every day, because the water pressure isn't as strong with the "deluge" head, and I like to feel like I'm being punched in the face with water when I'm having a shower. The rain-head feels more like being dribbled on by an overly enthusiastic dog. Lovely.

And then there's the tiles. Oh, the tiles. I never thought I'd get excited about tiles - the ones in our local tile warehouse are all just so... meh. And beige *shudders*. Then Tom and I visited a cafe in Winchelsea during a mini adventure which had the most EPIC tiled floor I'd ever seen. The minute I got home I started Googling as many varients of "multi-coloured Moroccan tiles" as I could think of. The nearest I could find any within our budget was in Ireland of all places. Don't know why I didn't look there first really- Ireland's famous for nothing if not it's excellent Moroccan tile exports(!) 

The tiles were so heavy the shipping cost a third as much as the entire order, but as the tiles were so incredibly cheap it still cost us less than buying the same number from Generic Tile Warehouse. To illustrate how monstrously heavy they are, the tiles were left on our driveway on a huge wooden pallet, and it took me a NINETY MINUTES to carry them from the driveway into the house, because I could only lift seven in one go!! 

It was totally worth it though, despite having to keep an eye on them whenever we had guests before the plumber arrived; because someone would always "pretend" they were stealing one because they're just so darn pretty!

Anyway, I'll shut up now because I'm sure you're dying to see the "after" shots! 

After:

THE VANITY UNIT OF DREAMS

The best thing about this new radiator?
It's not in the middle of the floor.

Guess where this rug's from? Starts with "T", ends in "iger"...

A nautical print I got free with Homemaker magazine. I do love their freebies.

Our shipshape toothbrush holder, my Odds and Ends jars,
a Moroccan-style jar I made from this tutorial,
the box of my awesome anchor mug from Alice,
and this teatowel in an Ikea frame.

Fancy new blinds to match the vanity unit (and to stop me
mentally scarring the neighbours)

THE TILES!!!

Our plumber even cut the tile holding our shower head into a
star shape :)

Handy shower storage

What do you think? 

Katie xxx

*I mean, uhhh... it's ALWAYS this clean. Definitely. Ahem. 
** Whaddaya know, I had a bit of sarcasm left after all!