We’ve talked about peanut butter, and transitional dressing, and golden hour sunlight here so far this week- but we’ve not had a proper catch up for such a long time now! So let’s catch up!

I’m going to start with a wedding planning update, since it’s sitting right at the forefront of my mind these days. Okay, so here’s the score. Bridesmaids dresses- 2/4 sorted! Venue/church/caterer- all still sorted! Stationery/flowers/colour scheme-umm…nope. Band- definitely not. Menu- hahaha. Photographer- YES! And he is incredible! It was actually Jason who found him even though choosing a photographer was supposed to be my task (given that photography is my bag, and all) so Jason’s feeling pretty smug right now ;) it’s a relief to know that such a crucially important part of the day is sorted!

Wedding anxiety dreams are happening every couple of weeks, and pretty much always centre around my hair going appalling wrong on the big day, and me having to walk down the aisle looking like Shirley Temple. But aside from hair-related paranoia, wedding stuff is going well! Now, let’s talk about juice. I’ve been making my way through that batch of Uzuma juices that arrived a couple of weeks ago, and am sad that I’ve almost finished the lot. They’re just SO tasty! If only it weren’t such a ginormous faff to make juice at home, I might consider investing in a juicer. I feel also like the peak season for buying wonderfully cheap and fresh produce for juicing is most definitely over, now that autumn is here. I went grocery shopping yesterday at the little local farmer’s market, and almost fell over looking at the price of courgettes. Not that you’d ever want to juice a courgette, of course (CAN you juice a courgette?) Thought for the day.)

Speaking of yesterday, Jason and I ate peanut butter and jam sandwich cookies (well, half a cookie each, because they are monster) whilst watching the GBBO, and it was a pretty heavenly combo. Spoiler alert if you’ve not watched it yet- but did anyone else totally call the ‘not sending anyone home’ thing in advance? I just had a feeling. Thank goodness, because Kate and Richard are my favourites and I was so sad thinking that one of them might have to leave. I also put this on Twitter already, but did anyone else have that scene from friends where Rachel makes the trifle with a layer of ‘beef sautéed with peas and onion’ when Mary was running through the layers of those green mound cakes in the technical challenge?

This weekend I’m going to London, for the first of so many trips to London this month! On the agenda is a wander down the King’s Road with my lovely friend Cath, with pitt-stops into Anthropologie and Hummingbird and Zara and countless other places too. I’m not shopping for anything in particular, maybe just a new mug or two from Anthro for drinking hot chocolate by the litre throughout autumn and winter. Though if the right scarf presented it to me whilst I’m out, I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk away from it you know?

To finish off, let’s do a round of quick fire news, because that’s just my all-time favourite way of sharing nonsense from our lives! :: A new coffee machine arrived at our house this week, and it’s amazing! Our dishwasher is still broken! I’ve become totally hooked on the flavour combination of butternut squash and feta, and the new rosemary plant I bought early on this week has already been massacred for use in meals! Teddy has eaten approximately 5 thousand of the 4 million beech nuts that’ve fallen into our garden over the past few weeks! Jason’s back is so badly seized up he’s wincing with every other step, but in typical man style will *not* make a call to the chiropractor! ;) We’ve been listening to Maroon 5′s new album on repeat (and both have a tiny crush on Adam Levine!).

Right, all caught up! What’s going on your end? Anything exciting? Or happily mundane?

p.s. Photos all taken from my Instagram over the past few weeks. Find me at ‘ciderwithrosieblog’ if you’d like to follow along :)

The past couple of weeks have been such busy ones, it feels as though I’ve not had chance to sit down and catch up here for a horribly long time! How *are* you all? Hasn’t this week been such a beautiful one, with all this glorious sunshine and the long, bright evenings? Warm evenings are my favourite thing about summer, by far. They make me feel almost as though I’m on holiday- when each day of sightseeing or sun-soaking is finished off with dinner and drinks in warm, slightly humid air. The best.

So, what’s new! Well, nothing exciting, in particular. What’s that? You want to hear all about the boring stuff we’ve been up to lately, in a rambly kind of fashion? Well, if you insist! Here goes…

Yesterday I had ice-cream for lunch. Well, actually it was gelato, AND it was coffee flavoured, which makes it far more sophisticated and legitimate than if it were a Mr Whippy. That’s my story anyway, and I’m sticking to it. See the thing is, I’ve been doing all my grocery shopping lately at the garden centre (their fruit and veg in summertime is better than any you can find in the supermarket, and about a third of the price to boot!) and right outside the entrance to the garden centre is an Italian food truck kinda thing, selling extortionately priced but so tasty you can’t say no gelato. Yesterday I’d already had to drive to and from the garden centre twice (I got there first time and realised I’d left my purse at home), and so when I finally arrived all ready to do my shopping, I decided it was probably best to reward myself with a little coffee gelato as a pick me up. Did the trick…

Weddings! Let’s talk weddings! Today is the 17th July, which means that we are now officially one year to the day away from getting married! THIS IS VERY EXCITING! Jason and I are in the happy respite period of wedding planning, where we’ve sorted the big stuff (venue, church, caterers- all the crucial things that make you want to cry with stress whilst you try and pin them down) and now have a month or two before we need to start thinking about photographers, suits, flowers, band…the list goes on. We are starting to have conversations about Save the Dates (they kinda need to be great, given that Jason runs a design agency and all…) and also the all important colour scheme. But we keep forgetting to talk about all things wedding in the evenings after work until we’re doing the washing up right before bed, and then we’re both tired and cranky and not in the best frame of minds for intense debates about things like How Green Is Too Green, and Do We Really Want Pop Up Wedding Stationery.

On the whole though, we’re feeling faaaiiirly laid back about the whole wedding planning thing. People keep telling us that we’re doing well to be so far along in the planning with still exactly a year to go, but they wouldn’t say that if they saw how disorganised we both can be, and how long it takes us to get out of the door on time each morning. We’ve learnt, in the past year or so, that the very best way for us to be on time for things (family events, dinners, meetings, whatever) is to force ourselves to aim to be ready exactly half an hour before we actually need to leave the house.  And we’re kind of applying that same principle to the wedding planning! We’re giving ourselves an extra few months of planning on top of the year most people say you need, because it gives us a little leeway and counters our inherent lateness. So! That’s where we are!

Last up- quick fire, entirely mundane, pretty boring news! Not done this in such a long time! Here goes…I went shopping! Jason went shopping! Teddy did no shopping, but did go swimming in the lake and also tried to eat a wasp! The hugest spider I’ve ever seen in my life ran across our living room floor when I was home alone, and I despatched it with a slate tile! The dishwasher is still broken, one month after it first started leaking! The ducklings on our pond are getting bigger, but (sadly) there’s only four left! We’re addicted to halloumi, & putting spices and BBQ sauce on all our food! I’ve got lip-freckles!

Phewph. Anything new and exciting (or mundane, you know I love a bit of happy mundane!) going on in your life? Let’s catch up!

p.s. All photos from my Instagram feed. I’m ‘ciderwithrosieblog’, if you want to follow along :)