Our Visit to Portmeirion - part 1.

If one post from me today just isn't filling your Porcelain Agaric appetite then pop over to By The Lock where the lovely Chloe has posted my vegan Peanut Butter Sundae Hair Mask recipe. Her blog is an ecclectic mix of crafting, cooking and wonderfulness in which you will find plenty to make your eyes happy.

Back to our camping adventures, it turned out that our campsite was right opposite the estuary to Portmeirion. This amazingly, strange place was designed and built by Clough Williams-Ellis in 1925-1975. He bought the site in 1925 for around £5000 and based it on a typical Italian city. I loved visiting here so close to finishing Elijah's Mermaid because some of that was based in Italy so it really immersed me in the feeling of it all.

 

This place is just so strange to walk around, its all so contrary in a way, very beautiful and quirky though. If you are in North Wales it is definitely worth a look around, you can easily while away most of a day there immersed in all the candy colours and fresco-esque buildings. We even caught up with my aunty and uncle there and spent a lovely few hours wondering around and drinking tea. I took a lot of photos here so I will be sharing more of these when I need a camping fix in the week. 

Hope you have had a fantastic bank holiday Monday <3 

Much Love

xkx   

Doris' First Trip to Wales (with Us).

You may have noticed that I haven't been around a lot this week, well I have still been getting over my gluten episode and we had to get ready for our camping trip mid week. Ed and I decided to go to Wales and my folks came with us and brought their tent. This was the longest trip we have taken Doris on. We did the first part on Wednesday evening, Nottingham to Shropshire which was is about 90 miles, then on Thursday we did the rest which was close to 100 miles because we took the scenic route. The weather was beautiful and this was the view we had from Doris in the evening. 

This was probably the best camping trip we have had so far, it was so much fun and we even caught up with my aunt and uncle which I haven't seen for years. Doris was very well behaved and the slight issue we had with her cutting out when coming to a stop was fixed when Ed tightened up a loose part of the carburettor. We are already planning out next couple of trips! 

Hope you have had an awesome week and bank holiday weekend <3

Much Love.

xkx 

Frank & Jeff Growing Into Big Pigs.

Jeff and Frank are about 5 months old now! Ed and I can't believe how the time has flown by and how big they are getting. I took these pictures when Ed was cleaning them out the other day, we sometimes put them in my wicker basket to keep them out of trouble whilst we are sprucing up their home as they enjoy getting into mischief. 

They are lovely creatures and both have their own huge personalities. Frank is the dominant one of the two and is pretty outgoing, whilst Jeff is a little shy and will hide more in their house. They make us laugh a lot with their crazy antics. We are now used to loud, continuous squeaking whenever the fridge door is open, a plastic bag get scrunched or they hear one of us chopping in the kitchen. Oh they also squeak when we get home to try and persuade us to give them treats as well, which they usually manage to achieve, mainly because Ed is a sucker for their cuteness.

Hope your Monday was awesome <3

Much Love

xkx 

Books, Glorious Books...

I have been in a bookish mood lately and lots of different genres have been entertaining me. NOS4R2 I haven't quite finished yet, I am only a couple of hours from the finish line though and it has been the first story for a good while that has nagged at me to want to know how it ends. Joe Hill's writing is visceral and fearless, I picked up his first novel a good few years ago called Heart Shaped Box and I loved how much it scared me alongside the heavy rock music influence. His second novel, Horns, I didn't even finish I found it took too long to get to any point, so when I saw NOS4R2 I decided to give it a chance. I am so glad I did, this book has a villain that makes my blood run cold and one of the most kick ass heroines. This story is so awesome, the concepts in it are really clever and it has been keeping me on the edge of my seat. I would even be brave enough to say that Joe Hill is our generations Stephen King.  

I accidentally stumbled on Elijah's Mermaid whilst I was browsing through Amazon. I adored Essie Fox's first book The Somnambulist. So when I saw her second book had been released I trekked into town to buy it so I could take it on our last camping trip. Both Essie Fox's books are based in the Victorian era in London and Hereford (which isn't far from where I grew up). Elijah's Mermaid really highlights the emancipation of women and how awful some of the conditions women had to endure. This book is fantastic and the twists and turns were really satisfying. If you like a Victorian story full of intrigue and well crafted characters then you will love this book. 

I have a love affair with Scandinavian crime fiction, I just love it in all of its dark, exciting drama. I have read or listened to three of the Harry Hole thrillers. I have very mixed feelings on them and Harry Hole. I have found Harry a very difficult protagonist to get along with, but I am starting to realise that is part of what brings me back to keep reading these books. I really enjoyed this book, even though I was a little underwhelmed about the big reveal at the end. But I don't think it detracted from the book because the rest of the story was seeped in great detective work. I love this book because I also learnt quite a lot about what happened in Norway in WW2. I think Jo Nesbo's fifth book The Snowman had a lot more twists, turns and reveals which kept me excited and eager to finish the book, but The Redbreast enhanced Harry's character for me, as more time was spent on him. 

The next few books on the top of my reading list are Half the Sky that I am reading for The Feminist Book Club, Anno Dracula and The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, that I discovered through a video on Ted talks.

Hope you have had a great weekend <3

Much Love.

xkx 

50 shades of Teal - Well 5 to be More Exact.

Ed and I have been living in our apartment for over a year now and we are finally getting around to decorating. When we first moved in we decided that we wanted to live in the space for a while to get a good feel of how we wanted it to look. So now the weather is getting a little better we decided to start trying out some colours. We are going to start with the living room, we want to have one feature wall and the rest will just have a fresh lick of white paint. I wanted to have wallpaper on the feature wall, but I quickly realised that I have VERY expensive taste in wallpaper! The cheapest rolls that I had my eye on were £50, this could prove really expensive because we live in a Victorian house that has been converted into apartments, so we have gorgeous high ceilings. Which means a roll of wallpaper will not go very far in our place. That is when we decided that paint would be cheaper. Teal is probably my favourite colour, so Ed and I decided that would be a good colour to start with. 

What I have noticed is how far out the colours on the paint websites and on the paint pots are to the colour of the paint in the pot! I loved Teal Tension on the Dulux website and on the paint pot but when Ed slapped it on the wall it looked more like a dull navy, the Proud Peacock was disappointing as well, it was too greeny grey. We mixed the two colours together to see if it was any better and it was a little, but when it dried it just wasn't THE colour. We got two more testers today, 1997 Aqua is quite a nice colour but it is just a little bit too drab and then there was Palm Springs. I love this colour it is bright, vibrant and it does have a hint of teal. Palm Springs also looks great in all the different light conditions that we have in the front room. I can't wait to have a whole wall of this lovely, cheerful colour. We also chose a white paint called Blossom White. It has a slight touch of pink, I think it will make the front room look warmer and a bit brighter. I can't wait to start decorating! 

Hope you have had a wonderful week so far <3

Much Love.

xkx

Going to a Burly Show...

Me and a couple of friends went to a burlesque show on Sunday called the Gilded Merkin.  It was a wicked night, we had copious amounts of fun and a splash of gin. This was the outfit I chose for the show, it is the first time I have worn my candy striped dress that I found in TK Maxx for £13! The rest of my outfit has lived in my wardrobe for a quite a while. 

I love the necklace with a little mushroom in a vile, Ed bought me this for my birthday last year from Mab Graves. I am a huge fan of her work so I was super excited when this plopped through my letterbox. I really like this outfit, it is sugary sweet with a slight twist of nature. 

Hope you are having a great week <3

Much Love.

xkx

Coeliac Awareness Week - Yummy Gluten Free Garlic Bread.

It is Coeliac Awareness Week this week, so I thought I would share my super easy gluten free garlic bread recipe. Warm, soft and buttery on the inside with a slight crunch on the outside. I must admit I used to be very lazy and just buy garlic bread and put it in the oven to heat it up. When I found out I was gluten intolerant I couldn't do that anymore. So I had to take matters into my own hands and make my own! I don't make my own bread, I have tried a couple times and once the 'bread' is cooled I could defend my home against an intruder with it, it is that hard and dense. I have found that gluten free ciabatta or regular gluten free rolls work brilliantly though. So this is how I make my garlic butter. 

I don't ever really measure this recipe because it is so easy to make yummy. This is what you need:

1 knob of butter
6-7 cloves of garlic (I like my garlic butter strong, reduce this amount if you want)
3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
1/4 teaspoon of dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon of dried tarragon

Put the butter in a cup in a bowl of hot water (so the butter starts to melt). Peel the garlic cloves and grind them into a smooth paste in a pestle and mortar, you could just chop the cloves up small if you don't have a pestle and mortar. Put the garlic paste in with the butter and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Stir this until the butter has nearly melted and add the dried parsley and tarragon. Then add the rest of the olive oil. You want the garlic butter thick but pourable. All you need to do now is to slice into some rolls, you want to leave one edge uncut so the slices don't fall apart and spoon the garlic butter down every cut you have made. Put them on a baking tray in an oven heated to 200 degrees C for about 5 minutes, until the crust of the bread has just started to toast. 

Hope you enjoy <3

Much Love

xkx