Arranging pictures...

My instinct in D's room was to cluster his pictures together so that i can add to them easily, but i was worried about making so many nail marks in the walls so i went with a more traditional symmetrical display. But once the pictures were up i just didn't like it at all, so today i moved them to how i had originally envisaged them.

I love buying postcards here and there and think its a really cheap way to get some art on the walls. 

On the wall above his headboard, to cover up the nail marks from the previous picture placement, i added two sheets of gift wrap which i bought from John Lewis sometime last year. I found it online in another shop here.

Whilst i was hammering in nails, D was making snakes and crowns out of blue tack!

 He's the funniest little guy!

A day by the water...

Sometimes i just need a day beside water to uplift and refresh me, and yesterday was one of those days. The nearest stretch of water to us is the Grand Union Canal which runs under the Kilby Bridge in Wigston. The Canal is 137 miles long (from London to Birmingham) and runs through Leicestershire and the heart of the city. When we visited Foxton Locks that was the Grand Union Canal, and also the riverside festival in the city centre. This part of the canal is less than a 5 minute drive from our house.

It was a really hot day yesterday, just like it was all of last week too, and it was the first time we had ventured out to stay in the hot outdoors in a while - i cant bare the heat normally but yesterday the surroundings were so humbly beautiful that the heat was worth it.

The hedgerows were at their countryside best, and it was really peaceful there. There were a few other walkers and barge owners with their dogs, and everyone said hello to us as we were passing by, which is always nice isn't it? The sheep were rather noisy but its all part of the outdoorsy countryside experience and it just made my heart skip a little faster.

Occasionally a train would roar by on the track beside the canal but (especially for D) it just made the day extra nice. We turned around and could see the train platform behind us, and talked about how great it would be to travel on one of them one day soon.

Just then we seemed to hit a bird hot spot - there was a family of geese, a pair of drakes, a moorhen and a slender heron all together on the other side of the canal.

Then we passed by our first lock which was being used to raise a barge up onto the next section of the canal. We asked the barge owner if we could pass by under the bridge - as it looked like the path stopped there - but she told us we could actually keep walking and walking until we hit the heart of the city!

We walked under the cool echoey bridge and continued along the path past the cow fields full of meadow buttercups.  Then under another bridge, and past another lock.

D loved all the reflections in the water and thought it was funny how everything was upside down.We climbed over (me) and through (D) a stile and sat for a while in one of the meadows. Do you have stiles in other countries? I loved finding them when i was a kid, i always thought they were like an opening into another world.

When the sun was too hot to sit any longer, we decided to head back along the canal towards the car. The goose family and two drakes were in the water now and the heron was standing right on the bank of the canal.

We drove to Wistow which is a village further along the road. There's a rural centre there with a cafe, posh shops, a garden centre, and a model railway.

It was a nice end to the day, we always enjoy going there. We came home and had a delicious summery dinner - jacket potatoes with salad, homemade coleslaw and tuna-sweetcorn-radish-mayo.

If you haven't made your own coleslaw before then i think you should try it! The usual ingredients are mayo, grated carrot, grated onion (red or white), and grated white cabbage. I like to do half mayo half Greek yogurt, a little bit of sugar, black pepper, and paprika too. Its pretty flexible, easy to make, delicious and healthy!

Fashionable lunch bags...

When ever me and D head off out anywhere i always pack a lunch or snack for us to share so that we don't have to buy anything whilst were out. It means we get to eat healthier stuff and have more pennies for the charity shops!

Ive got this new lunch bag, sent to me by Clippy and i squeezed some fruit, squeezy yoghurt's and drinks into it one afternoon. Its the first time Ive seen a lunch bag designed like this, from the outside it looks like a normal fashionable handbag from the high street, but the inside is waterproof and wipe clean.

I like the long strap so i can wear it across my body like my normal handbag, but there's smaller handles too if you like to do that 'hang the bag in the crook of the elbow' thing (i hate that). It has this cute little jammy dodger keyring on it too, i think that's my favourite part of the whole bag!

The bag comes in loads more fabrics and designs. You can find them all here. The bag is a little more snazzy in person than i thought it would be, but then I'm not much of a high street gal  - if you do like mainstream fashion then these bags really are unique and definitely a good buy. Clippy also make other bags which can be personalised, they make great gifts. Have a look on their website: www.clippykitlondon.co.uk . Il be reviewing one of their personalised make up bags soon!

*The bag was sent to me for the purpose of reviewing it but all opinions here are my own.

The Living Room :: Before and After...

Hello my dear blog readers (and hello to myself in the future who will surely come back to read this post again!) We are in the middle of a heat wave at the moment - its been hot hot hot since Tuesday. We have stayed at home as i am not one to enjoy the heat and to be honest although most people here in England are LOVING the warmth and sunniness, I'm rather hoping it will all be over and done with soon. For now though, it seems Summer is here, my least favourite season.

Staying home is good though now that we have a very uplifting living room. Before we started decorating the walls were covered in white anaglypta that had been painted with two yellow rectangles where mirrors had previously hung. The room felt homely but never very neat, rather temporary really.

We completely stripped the walls and had them plastered, ahhh, lovely smooth walls (although in truth I'm rather fond of bumpy old walls - just not anaglypta covered ones). 

We had to keep the room layout the same as really its the only way it works, but we changed some of the furniture and brightened up the walls a little. I put back 3 of the pictures (i do LOVE my pictures!) and left the rest out. We also brought my absolute favourite rug through from the dining room to the living room which makes it so much cosier.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, we worried that the yellow would darken the already dimly lit room but it doesn't, it makes it feel more uplifting but also cosy. The colours in the pictures all go perfectly with the walls and woodwork. It may be too much colour for most but its less overwhelming in real life - ive always bee a pretty awful interior photographer! The wall paper was a nightmare. We were up until 1.30am swearing and completely filling the atmosphere with frustration, it was worth it though :-)

I was very surprised with myself for choosing an Expedit unit as a TV stand as i actually cant bare to see them, they are so over used. But id only seen them in white and when we saw the birch coloured one i actually liked it. Doubly surprising as i cant stand wood veneer too. This is the only piece of it in our house and will be the last! The Ikea TV stands are all awful (Ikea are not too great with them and with desks, everything else - stylish and affordable).

I made a quick temporary cover for our foot stool with an old Sanderson curtain and some elastic as it had a hole in it which D enjoyed ripping further every day.

The old and worn out sofas and the dated carpet do let the room down a little but they are things that we will replace when we haven't got babies or toddlers running around every day insha'Allah. They are still the comfiest sofas and i doubt we will beat them on that front.

Theres still a few things to do in the living room though. The door needs another coat of paint this weekend and then i can remove that masking tape. I want to make about 10 cushions so that i can replace the big ones on the arms of the sofas and have a few left over for extra snugness, add a little something near the wall clock, perhaps some bunting or something similar. The ceiling light fitting needs changing and the hatch door needs to be painted green too. I want to line the curtains with some very cheery 50's style sheets i have on my fabric shelves.

For me rooms are never finished, they still need filling up with memories, mementos, homely brikabrak - switching furniture around or swapping bits here and there. Although we've decorated about 70% of this house i couldn't ever think that we'd done enough. Essentially all a house has to be is a secure, warm, dry building with enough space to do the necessities. But a home is a building full of love and a wife / mothers effort. Somewhere that we will enjoy coming home to and enjoy being in. My opinion is probably far too Dunya related (worldly) for some, but for me its just how i feel most comfortable. Making this house feel inviting and homely is part of my duty, i struggle to understand how mums / wives can switch off this duty and get by with a house that's had no care or attention spent on it. I actually just don't get it. All homes should be humble and avoid extravagance, but it doesn't mean aesthetics and comfort have to go out of the window. It has little to do with money, but more to do with nurturing. What are your thoughts on this?