Friday Round Up

jessie has some quality time with her favourite auntie

some light reading - a cloudy evening - liz earle botanical essence no.15, heaven scent!

spot the sleepy dogs - a sunny evening - a cold drink

My lovely BFF Liz popped over on Sunday for a brew or two, a long overdue catch up and excited squealing about our traditional October spa day coming up next week. She brought back a pile of my books and a pile for me to borrow so it looks like I'm going to be busy for a while! I haven't been reading much in the last few months, even though I've been buying books. Since I discovered the instant gratification of blogs I seem to struggle to hold my concentration long enough to get involved in a book. Last year I kept a record of the books I read - there were 45 in total. I know I've not got anywhere near that number this year and feel like I need to remedy that, pronto.

I'm also trying to make the most of what light evenings we have left before the clocks change by getting out for some long walks with the dogs, Since I stopped working them they have both become a bit porky and I hate to see fat Labradors! I've promised them some long walks and swimming this weekend. Maybe I'll throw in some training too. They are both so well behaved I haven't bothered doing anything with them for ages, I only remember when they start to get slack and then I have to put them into Rachael's Bootcamp for a week!

I placed another Liz Earle order this week (limited edition Cleanse & Polish, lovely but I prefer the scent of the original) and they kindly sent me a sample of their new fragrance, Botanical Essence No.15 which is absolutely divine. It's warm and spicy and reminds me of Spicebomb (which I share a bottle of with Matt, see here!) I'll definitely be buying a bottle next month, I just repurchased my Elie Saab perfume and it feels wrong to splash out on two bottles of perfume in one month!

I was dying to try one of the new seasonal Starbucks drinks but couldn't decide which, so I asked the baristas which was the best. Their answer? 'Oh God, they're all awful, don't bother!' So I went for the berry refresha which is lovely and probably won't be around for long. I'm determined to try the Pumpkin Spice Latte before it disappears though, just for the novelty. And I do love warm, spicy drinks so I'm sure I'll like it, even if the baristas don't!

Finally this week, I was overjoyed to see that Jem from Beautiful Clutter had won the Best Lifestyle Blog at the Cosmo Blog Awards last night! Congratulations Jem! I love Jem's blog, particularly for her beautiful photography. It's also great to see that there are lifestyle blog awards as well as beauty ones - it feels like lifestyle blogs are so often overlooked in favour of our beauty friends.

This weekend holds a mammoth house clean, lots of time with the dogs, a trip into town to do some shopping and dinner out tonight (so I'm told!) Sunday will be for painting at the new house. I haven't been there all week so I'm looking forward to seeing what progress has been made on the garage block, which should be almost ready for it's roof to go on. We're hoping to get ready for the plasterers to come and finish in a couple of weeks time, the bathrooms are being tiled at the end of the month and we've pencilled in a date to go to the Aga showroom and order my new best friend, I can't wait!

What have you been up to this week?