My Big GREASE-Y Night In

When I read that Little Stuff and TwoLittleFleas were running a bloggers competition to say how you would spend a special night in, I knew that I had the perfect idea (I've been wanting to do this for AGES!) and had to enter!

My favourite film of all time is Grease with John Travolta and Olivia Newton John.  It brings back so many happy memories of growing up, and is still as popular today as it was when first released - just look at all the young things getting married today and they are bound to have a track or two played at their weddings!

So my perfect night in would be a "Summer Nights" Grease themed evening with all my closest friends.

We would dress in the parts (Sandy, Danny, Kenickie, Rizzo, Frenchy, Sonny, Marty, Eugene, Mrs Murdock.....) with wonderful period 1950s themed costumes and sing along vociferously to each and every song (we all know the words!) that play on the new Harman Kardon surround sound speakers as the DVD plays repeatedly.

Our milkshakes would be blended like "Greased Lightnin' " in this 1950s styled blender

and popcorn freshly cooked in this traditional cooker - "We're Hopelessly Devoted to You"!

We'll lose our voices, we'll have a ball, and there's absolutely no doubt that this evening is "The One That I Want" and there will be "Tears on my Pillow" when it's all over!

Capture the Colour with Travelsupermarket.com

Travelsupermarket.com are running their fantastic Capture the Colour photographic competition for a second year running, so I decided to spend a very pleasant afternoon looking through my travel photos to find my entries!

BLUE

Diving in the Blue

Scuba diving is one of my favourite activities and SO much easier in tropical waters than in chilly Britain! This photo was taken in Bora Bora, fortunately, these sharks are pretty harmless to humans!

YELLOW

Chiluly Glass in Seattle

On a trip to Seattle, I visited the fascinating Chiluly glass sculpture gardens where I spotted this awesome yellow structure.

RED

Oil pipe controls in Bahrain

When I visited Bahrain a couple of years ago before the problems there, I was struck by the contrasts between the bright red controls of the first oil pipeline in Bahrain against the deep blue skies.  Beautiful.


GREEN

This magnificent American car is to be found in Miami Beach in the Art Deco area.

Art Deco Green

WHITE

Peeking out in Panama City

This endearing little chap popped into the doorway was I was walking through the streets of Panama City.


This is my entry to the Travelsupermarket.com Capture the Colour blog competition.

These bloggers might also be interested in entering  Di Coke (Super Lucky), Lisa Hughes, Kylie Martin, Katy Bennett and Sarah Ridgeway.

Childhood holiday memories

I have very fond memories of wonderful holidays taken at Butlins holiday camps in Bognor and Minehead in the 60s and 70s with my parents.

One of my favourite holiday memories is taking part in the Donkey Derby at Butlins - I remember cantering around bareback and there were sometimes even little jumps to clear - I'm sure Health & Safety would have a fit if it was suggested today, but we had enormous fun, and even managed to win another holiday to Butlins to boot!

Winning the Donkey Derby!

And they're off!

It was heaven for my sister and me with planned activities all day long, plenty of food, funfairs and swimming in pools and the sea. When I was still a baby, I won the Bonny Baby competition with my Mum and we had fun making fancy dress costumes for the parade in the ballroom too.

My dad made THE best sandcastles on the beach, huge towers with tunnels and gulleys that golf balls would run through, all the other kids would look on enviously as we'd play for hours.

Having three girls didn't stop my Dad's love of cricket - he taught us all how to play on the beach and we still enjoy a game to this day!

I've loved looking through my old photos and reminiscing about these childhood memories of our wonderful holidays at Butlins!

Competition is sponsored by Butlins Holiday Parks helping your family make memories

Postcard from The Big Country

In June 2013 I had an amazing trip to the United States.  Now, those of you who know me well must be surprised to hear me say that as, whilst I LOVE travelling, the US has never been high on my list of destinations to visit, partly because I used to visit a lot for work, partly because I travelled there quite extensively in my 20s, and partly because there seemed to be so many more interesting places in the world to explore.  But the sheer beauty of Montana has renewed my interest in this vast and varied country and I'm sure I will be making more trips there in the near future to discover what else she has to offer.

So, what made this trip so awesome?  Let me give you a visual clue

Postcard from the Big Country

One of my passions since childhood has been riding and having just reached a milestone (ahem!) birthday, I decided it was time to realise some of my lifelong dreams.  One was to become a cowgirl (having been a big fan of Alias Smith and Jones when I was a kid!) and round up cattle in the Wild West, hence my trip to Montana.

I flew directly to Seattle and spent a couple of very enjoyable days there.  The immigration staff were actually welcoming, smiling and efficient which was such a pleasant change from the grumpy attitudes at most US airports that has put me off visiting or even transiting the country.

Seattle is easy to get around both on foot and using public transport, and being right on the ocean, there's great seafood to eat :) .  On my first morning I woke at 4am and took a walk down to Pike's Place Market to watch the stallholders preparing for the day.

Amazing fresh fish

Later in the day, the market became a colourful hive of activity with flower sellers, fish throwers and many craft stalls.  I loved the neon signs in the market directing you to excellent restaurants and bars overlooking the waterfront.

But it was time to move on to the highlight of my trip - staying on a 12,000 acre ranch about 30 miles from a remote town called Red Lodge in Montana.  I flew over Washington State (beautiful from the sky) and into Montana's business hub, Billings.  This was small town America as I remembered it (ie, not so interesting) but I was soon on my way again and thrilled by what I found.  Montana is America's fourth largest state, but has less than one million residents so there is plenty of gorgeous scenery to enjoy!

I was staying in a traditional log cabin that had been built in the 1950s overlooking the pastures and mountains, sheer bliss.  It felt like something out of The Waltons!  I would sit out on this chair at night just gazing at the myriad of stars above and truly understanding why they call this Big Sky country.  

The perfect place to relax day or night

I rode an amazing coloured quarter horse called MJ (as my best mate said, a "proper" cowboy horse!) who loved galloping through the flower-filled meadows as much as I did!  We were a small group of seven from around the world, gathered there because of our love of riding, wildlife and beautiful scenery.  The perfect mix.  One day, we even saw a bear mooching through the woods - she didn't seem to mind us thankfully and we didn't have need of the pistol that our wrangler was carrying! 

MJ and me

We visited the Cody (Buffalo Bill country) rodeo one evening during the week and enjoyed the crazy antics of the riders there! Pretty sure I won't be taking up bronco riding any time soon, but we did have fun practising barrel racing on our last day at the ranch.  

Hold on tight!

I got serious cowboy-boot-envy whilst I was there - I've never been a big fan of them having seen them come in and out of fashion over the years, but my goodness, there are alot to choose from in the shops here - nothing like a bit of retail therapy even when you are in a remote location! 

Retail Therapy, Montana-style

Days out riding and gathering cattle were interspersed with lazy lunches by glacier-fed rivers where the brave would take a dip to cool off (yes, that included me, I can't resist getting in water, whatever holiday I am on!)

Cattle driving

Relaxing at lunch

This picture is the enduring memory from my wonderful trip - just me, my trusty steed and miles of stunning open country without another soul in sight - heaven on earth and my dream come true.

Dream come true

I was very sad to leave the ranch, but as a fab finale (and complete contrast), the Seattle Pride Parade was taking place and it made my last day into a joyous one filled with colour and vibrancy! 

Seattle Pride

This is my entry for the Travel Supermarket Holiday Postcard competition

What's in my bedroom...

A recent post on blogging edge got me thinking about the room where I sleep.  Your bedroom should be your sanctuary, yes?  Peaceful, cosseting, somewhere you can go to relax, where you can get a great night's sleep and feel rejuvenated the next morning?

Urgent attention needed!

Hmmm - I'm not sure that my bedroom meets those criteria just at the moment.  It's desperately in need of some TLC before it can dispense any to me.  It suffers from damp - not of the rising sort, more the creeping-through-the-walls sort (250 year old house by the sea doesn't exactly help). Bubbling plaster like this does NOT a sanctuary make.  

The delightful built-in wardrobes that we inherited with the house, whilst very practical and capacious, don't exactly scream luxury do they!?

Great (but ugly) storage

  One definite keeper in the makeover will be my late Mum's lovely walnut dressing table - my parents bought it when they got married in the 1940s and it holds lots of happy memories for me.

Hurray! Spring is here!

Spring is finally in the air (hurray) and at last we can throw open the windows to let our bedroom air thoroughly before tackling that plasterwork.  It's time to bite the bullet and completely redecorate our bedroom and make it into that luxurious bolthole that I've always dreamed of.   Now this may be where my problem lies - procrastination and indecision......should I go for a chic "moody dark" hotel style, or perhaps a sexy boudoir?  How about cool contemporary minimalism (although I fear that looks lovely on paper, but falls apart in practice when your husband is known for leaving his clothes lying all over the place!)?  One thing is for sure, I have to inject some colour into the room, plain white walls (which is what we have right now) are just too clinical for a bedroom.  

I read this post by emoov.co.uk about home staging to get an idea on how to update my room even though I'm not in the processing of selling at the moment.  I now know that the clutter has to go and that everything needs freshening up.
Lighting is SO important in the bedroom.  I have a whole host of requirements;  low lighting for romantic ambience, task lighting for reading in bed (check out my current solution!),

Practical for reading...

a way of reducing the bright light of early summer mornings to help us sleep longer, and enough light to be able to see what I'm wearing in the dark winter mornings so I don't wear mismatching clothes (unfortunately, it has been known!).


I bought this gorgeous throw in the souk in Muscat, Oman and have decided to use it as the starting point for updating our bedroom.  I can pick out a couple of these warm co-ordinating colours as the basis for walls and accessories.

Great place to start for colour scheme

We can't afford to replace the carpet, and anyway, it's a neutral oatmeal colour so shouldn't impact the overall scheme.  Along with blackout blinds (see lighting above), I'd like some opulent curtains to draw in the winter to make the room feel super cosy.  I have a comfy wing chair that I like to curl up in and would love to get recovered using one of the key colours of the throw (I did manage that task once a few years ago at a night class in sewing/upholstery, but pretty sure I couldn't repeat it without the help of the teacher and we've moved 200 miles away since then!).  And those wardrobe cupboard doors have to go, ideally to be replaced by something swish and modern, but in keeping with the walnut dressing table.  A luxurious big headboard (none of those metal ones for me - I like to sit up to read in bed) and high-count bedlinen are must-haves.

Sometimes it's the small touches that can make a big difference - I would love to replace all our mismatched hangers with gorgeous wooden ones and invest in one enormous abstract print to hang on the wall taken from one of my own photographs so it's really personal and unique.

Better crack on now I've got all these ideas!

Like so many things in life - Size DOES matter!

When Tots100 posted about a competition to win a new bathroom, it got me thinking.

Why are bathrooms always the smallest room in the house?  

My dream bathroom would be HUGE, at least as big as my bedroom.  Well, ideally, I'd have two bathrooms, one family bathroom (still a good size) which would be full of the kids toys and paraphernalia, and one just for me.

I want my bath next to a huge picture window overlooking meadows, and there to be a Velux window in the roof so that I can stargaze when having a candlelit bath at night.  The bath must be big and comfortable and DEEP, which means that I'll need a BIG water tank to make sure there's always plenty of hot water, there is nothing worse than a half depth bath or running out for a top up!  There will be a small elegant table by my bath which will hold my book and a glass of something chilled.

Bathroom with a view

The shower must feel part of the room with just a glass partition to separate it, with the drain directly into the floor - I have an aversion to shower cubicles, especially small ones!  There will be two shower heads, one a rainshower and the other handheld and adjustable.  

Underfloor heating would be a must to keep my tootsies warm at all times.  I'd love a big, funky modern heated towel rail to keep my towels toasty and ready to envelop me after my bath or shower.  Adjustable lighting is key, sometimes I might need a bright light to pluck my eyebrows, sometimes I'll want a romantic ambience.  There will be discrete shelves for candles too.

I'd like coloured glass walls (easier to keep clean than tiles with all that grout!).  Elegant storage is important - I don't want to see lots of clutter or bottles of lotions and potions.  A small comfy chair will be required to to ensure I have somewhere to sit to apply said lotions and potions.

Ah, I can but dream, but if my dreams were to become a reality, I would base my dream bathroom design around this beautiful elegant suite from Bathshop321

They even have the same idea as me to have the bath right in front of a huge window! And look how inviting the bath looks when filled.

In my bathroom dreams, size really DOES matter!

Home Love

When Fashion for Home asked people to show their favourite place in their home in their Home Love competition, I knew straight away what I would write about.

It's what I call my "treasures display".  I have several items that mean a great deal to me and wanted to display them in a meaningful way so that each one is highlighted but that they are also all together.  None of them are valuable, but had been given to me as presents or I had bought as memories from amazing foreign travels.

I had scratched my head for a long time about how to achieve this display conundrum and my treasures languished sadly on three cabinet tops.  I finally came up with the solution when I went to visit my sister and she had all her CDs and DVDs neatly arranged on racks.  Bingo!  Each compartment would be the perfect size for one of my treasures, they would each get their own "identity" and yet they would be kept in a group together.  And best of all, this was an off-the-shelf solution so wasn't going to cost me a fortune in carpenter's fees.

Treasures Display

To make the display more visually appealing, I indented each successive unit and I love the final result - it truly is my favourite spot in my home.