Hair | Curly Routine

The question I get asked most often is 'is your hair natural?' The easy answer is 'yes, yes it is'. The long, complicated answer is 'yes the curls are natural but it takes hours of care and a lot of expense to make the curls look at least vaguely presentable.
I could probably write an entire book just on my hair but I'll try and keep this intro short for now and tell you how I manage my curly hair day-to-day.

Summer Style | Handbags

If there's one thing I'm terrible at buying, it's handbags. Don't get me wrong, I love bags. I have a flourishing handbag Pinterest board. I just never remember to actually buy them - or I fall in love with bags that would take me months to pay for. 

I use the same backpack every day for work, I have three shoulder bags - one in black, two brown - and three clutches - navy, brown and black. And some old, unloved others languishing in a drawer under my bed. My 'holiday bag' is a tattered, mint green backpack from ASOS that my mother bought me as a gift when I was still at University and I still use it every day on holiday, despite the fact that from day one the string-opening on it has been a nightmare to get in and out of and it now flakes bits of green all of the place. Really not what you want when you're hot, sweaty and trying to look chic.

2018 Reading list | Part 2

2018 is the year of 'reading books that have been on my shelf for ages that I really should read'.
Here's Part 2 of my reading list.
Read Part 1

2018 Reading list | Part 1

Anyone who spends more than an hour in my company will very quickly realise that books are my lifeblood. I try to spend around two hours a day reading but with a busy job and a house to renovate that doesn't always happen. I usually read about two books a month so this is only a few of the books I'll read this year, but they're the ones I'm most excited to get stuck in to.

Summer shoes | Minimalist flats

As soon as summer comes around, shoe-wise I'll be living in my Birkenstocks. I walk to work, and work across several buildings, so I usually walk several miles a day, rain or shine. Living in a city means I also tend to walk everywhere on the weekends. So I need shoes that are going to stand up to the task and, much to my own frustration, I have 0 tolerance for uncomfortable shoes, including heels of all kinds.

Living room renovation | before and after

The first room we've renovated in our house is the living room. We moved in December 2016 and in the first year here we spent a lot of time and money tidying the garden, which looked to have been neglected for a very long time, and paying lots of money to fix things like holes in the roof and dangerous wiring upstairs.

The living room is north-facing and doesn't get much natural light at all. I spent a lot of time researching colours for north facing rooms and came to the very quick conclusion that we should paint this room as dark as possible, floor-to-ceiling. Thankfully, Kate Watson-Smyth of Mad About the House posts lots of photos of her beautiful dark living room so after tactfully sending these to my dear other half over the course of a few months he agreed to come over to the Dark Side and paint the room in Farrow & Ball's delicious Down Pipe. The room doesn't feel any darker than it ever did before, just cosier. The walls go from teal, to blue, to grey, to black all in one day as the light moves around the room.

before