weekend roundup

Happy Monday, friends! It feels a little bit like August has crept up on us, and has taken off incredibly quickly, with one very busy weekend. As is often the case when life gets busy, my camera hardly got a look in, as I was too engrossed in enjoying all of the little moments. Here's the recap:

{1} On Friday night we drove to London, which took way longer than normal, due to road closures and crashes on the motorway. After five hours of driving, an enormous amount of rain, and an incredible array of rainbows, we finally arrived in Brixton to celebrate the birthday of one of our friends.

{2 & 3} Less than 12 hours after we had arrived in London, we left again. I love looking at all of the buildings and architecture as we drive out of London, and I particularly love the look of this little cupcake boutique, Storm in a Cupcake.

{4} Our next destination was a little village called Goring 60 miles outside of London, where John's grandparents live. It's a pretty little village with a lot of character and charm.

{5} The bumble bees absolutely love all of the flora in John's grandparents' beautiful garden. I would love to keep honey bees, and so we asked John's Grandad for some wisdom from his bee keeping days. Sadly, we learned about the plight of the honey bees in England, and he strongly advised us against attempting to try keeping bees anytime soon.

{6} John's grandparents are about to move out of their home, which has the most wonderful view of the River Thames (photo number 6 is the view from their garden), and we made the most of the snippets of sunshine after lunch, taking the time to sit in the garden by the river.

{7} After lunch on Saturday, we drove a little way to visit John's grandmother, who is currently in hospital, then drove back to Bristol to spend the evening eating a roast dinner with friends.

{8}This week marked a bit of a milestone in turning our desert into a garden. We finally saw the back of about about 300 bags of rubble, and started the process of laying soil to create foundations for growing some grass. I know our 'garden' looks incredibly unexciting at this stage, but it will be wonderful to look back on how far we have come in bringing life and beauty to it, over the next few years.

{9} By Sunday, we were back in Bristol, and I took a trip with a few friends to a car boot sale, where I picked up a whole bundle of children's books for £1 (those pictured are my favourites from the selection). I absolutely love buying children's books, and have built up a good little collection over the last few years. I love buying them even more, now that we have the prospect of children to share them with!