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Top Five | Late Summer

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Top Five

The Olympics are over and we are trying to ignore the impending onset of autumn. We have a bank holiday weekend away to look forward to next week so all it not lost. In the meantime lets look at this week’s top five:

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Olive Magazine Podcast

Look, we know we’re late to the podcast party. We’re trying to make an amends now, This week we discovered the Olive Magazine Podcast. Hosted by the editor Laura Rowe, the podcast is a discussion about the best in food and travel. we’re loving the informal style, it is like a nice chat over a cup of tea or cocktails. Listen here.

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Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Last week we got a new Crosley Cruiser Record Player. This week we have mainly been searching out records to play. The aim is to get some of the classic albums to make the base of our collection. High on our list of classics was Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, and by chance it turns out Rich’s folks have two copies in their collection! They now only have one, and so do we!

Three

House of Commons Beer

Who knew the House of Commons had their own beer? Certainly neither of us! So when we went on a recent tour we had to buy a couple of bottles, for novelty sake if nothing else. The beer is brewed by the Windsor & Eton Brewery and is only sold in the House of Commons. We can report it is a very nice beer!

Four

Diffords Guides - Days of Cocktails

We love a cocktail, just take a look at our Cocktails of the Week. But we have a new book giving us a daily cocktail. That might be a bit too much even for us.  We love Diffords Guides, definitely the best resource for cocktail inspiration our there, just look at all the cocktails on their website.

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Reggie - A Brussels Griffon Dog

Meet Reggie, a one year old Brussels Griffon. Reggie (and his owner Holly) came round for tea on Sunday. It was the first time we met the little guy, he is very cute! We think he looks a bit like an Ewok, what do you think? Learn more about Brussels Griffons here.

22nd August 2016
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Top Five | Birthday Bonanza

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Top Five

It’s been Calum’s birthday this week! A perfect excuse for parties, presents and cake! What else has been in our top five this week you ask? Let’s have a look:

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Crosley Record PlayerFor Calum’s birthday present Rich got him this Crosley Crusier Turntable. Calum has hankering for a while so what better excuse than a birthday. We have a selection of Vinyl already and be looking to increase our collection now!

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Hettie the Pirate DogTo be honest Hettie would probably make the Top Five every week. She is such a gorgeous dog in temperament as well as looks but that wasn’t the reason for this entry! This week whilst Rich has been taking her out on walks he’s discovered the joy of Monocle Magazines podcasts. If you are not familiar with them go have a look!

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Chapel Down English WineOur Lovely friends Nikki & Mike recently went to Chapel Down winery in Kent, they were telling us all about it and it is definitely on our list of places to visit now! In the mean time they very generously brought back a couple of bottle of english wine for us to sample, we can’t wait

Four

Papier Birthday Card designed by Smudge InkBirthdays obviously need birthday cards, Rich was very excited when he discovered Papier.com here you can personalise your own cards and invites. Seeing as we both love golden retrievers Rich thought this Smudge Ink design was perfect. They also work with a couple of our favourite studios, 1canoe2 and Small Adventure, as well as many others. I am sure well be using them again in the future.

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Victoria Sponge Birthday CakeWe have a card, and a present. Only one thing left for a perfect birthday – Cake!! For a change Rich headed into the kitchen to create this pimped up Victoria sponge cake. With all that fruit it must be very healthy and good for you no?

15th August 2016
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Top Five | London Adventures

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Top Five

Next week is Calum’s birthday so at the weekend we headed into London for a day for adventures.  It was great fun but very tiring but seeing as the Olympics also kicked off so we can get some R&R whilst watching all the obscure sports possible. Three day eventing anyone?

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Top Five | Busy Bee

Continuing our love of all things apian we enjoying all the bees visiting the echinops in the garden. Great to watch the busy bees getting on with their lives and Rich managed to take this cool picture of a little guy collecting the nectar. Well done bee!

Two

 Swingers Crazy Golf London

One of Calum’s birthday treats was a trip to Swingers in London (Don’t worry it is nothing untoward simply crazy golf.) Located in The City, this basement venue has two nine hole crazy golf course, a couple of bars and several food options. You can book in advance or they hold hold their spaces back for walk-ups. Beer, pizza and crazy golf. We loved it!

Three

Shakespeare's Globe

As part of Calum’s birthday celebrations we headed to Shakespeare’s Globe to see The Taming of a Shrew. It was a great production but the play’s misogynistic storyline didn’t sit with our liberal outlook.  The Globe is a magical place to watch Shakespeare and the £5 standing tickets make it an absolute steal!

Four

Greenhouse Harvest

Much excitement from the Greenhouse. The tomatoes, peppers, chilli’s, cucumber and aubergines are all coming on very well. The Veg patch has been a constant battle with slugs and snails, but we are having more success in here! We’ll be harvesting soon.

Five

Olympic Breakfast

On Sunday morning we decided to have a proper breakfast and enjoy it whilst catching up with all the Olympic action we had missed. One of our favourite breakfasts is a continental spread, perfect for enjoying over a couple of hours on a lazy Sunday morning.

8th August 2016
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Top Five | Non Stop Action

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Top Five

Both Rich and Calum have been working non stop this week, 5am morning calls, and 11pm e-mails have been keeping us both on our toes. On top of this we hosted, not one but two parties this weekend. Although we’re busy, we are enjoying ourselves. Lets take a look at this weeks to five:

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Working from home can have it’s drawbacks, especially when working long days. So to stop Rich getting cabin fever we headed out for a Mexican dinner and then onto the cinema to watch the latest Star Trek movie. It is a enjoyable film, we were happy geeks!

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As we mentioned above we had a busy weekend with two parties. We love hosting, which was one of the reasons we we started this blog. We hosted an Italian inspired dinner party on Saturday night with friends and a BBQ on Sunday lunchtime with family. Stay tuned for more about these parties on the blog.

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For Christmas Calum gave Rich as subscription to 25 Beautiful Homes. We are now hooked and it is our ambition to have our home featured one day. We just need to find a house first. We viewed two more potential properties on Saturday, alas still no joy!

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Supermarket homewares can vary massively in quality. But we feel that Sainsburys have really got their combination of good design and value for money spot on. We regularly pick up various bits and pieces for around the house. We found this botanic inspired cushion on offer the other day and we couldn’t resit, £7 well spent!

Five

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Hettie, the one eyed pirate dog, has become very fond of us during our stay at Rich’s folks. She will sit at our feet when we are working from home, and has taken to sleeping at the foot of our bed. The feeling is mutual, we love the old girl very dearly.

1st August 2016
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Top Five | Sweltering

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Top Five

It has been rather warm this week, not very helpful for getting things done, but good for sitting outside and enjoying a slower pace of life. Let’s have a look at this week’s top five:

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With temperatures soaring this week it has been uncomfortable warm in the cottage, luckily we have a beautiful garden to relax in. Some ice water, a pile of magazines and our new deckchairs to recline in. The best way to beat the heat!

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The cut flower patch is having some successes, we had the first of the Dahlias, looking lovely in a little posy with some dill flowers. Dahlias had a old fashioned reputation for a long time but have come roaring back into fashion in the last few years. We love them!

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As previously mentioned Rich’s mum and dad keep doves in their garden. They can be a bit of a nuisance at times, but watching them going about their everyday lives can be very entertaining. And there is no denying they are beautiful animals!

Four

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Our summer of Picnicking continues! On Saturday we met us with some friends and enjoyed lunch al fresco. Calum cooked one of his legendary quiches and there was plenty more food and drink to keep us fed and watered. What better way to spend a summer’s afternoon?

Five

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After four years of living just down the road we finally visited Strawberry Hill house.  Built from 1749 by Horace Warpole Strawberry Hill House, it is one of the earliest examples of Gothic Revival architecture in the country.  It is a wonderful house to look around (and you get a discount if you are a National Trust Member) although I can’t help but think that Strawberry Hill House sounds like it should be the setting for a children’s TV show!

25th July 2016
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Top Five | The hunt continues

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Top Five

Our house hunt continues, and summer is in full swing so we’ve been out and about enjoying the great British countryside. Let’s see what else is in our Top Five


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Top five | Blue and White
We’re a little bit obsessed with blue and white pottery, so when we stumble across some vases in a local charity shop we snapped them up. If we carry on at this rate we will have filled our new home with pottery before we’ve even found it!

Two

Top Five | Overton
Whilst we were out and about on Saturday we decided to pop into the north Hampshire village of Overton to scope it out as a potential move location. Our visit coinsided with their sheep fair held every four years. Although only started in 2000 it is a tradition the harks back to the villages medieval history. It is now a well attended community event with music, stalls, morris dancers and of course the parade of sheep!

Three

Top Five | Anglepoise
After years of coveting a Anglepoise lamp Rich finally bit the bullet and bought a 1227 model in black (thanks to Amazon Prime day, and a massive discount). Anglepoise lamps are design classic, as stylish now as they were designed in 1932. We think it is a great investment!

Four

Top Five | Date Night
On Saturday night we had a date night at the end of the garden. Rich set up the table and Calum cooked dinner. It was lovely to unwind with good food, good wine and a peaceful setting.

Five

Top Five | Snowshill Manor

We love the Cotswolds. It surely has to be one of England’s most beautiful and charming areas. On Sunday we went for a little a Road trip. We stopped of at Snowshill Manor to eat our picnic and a wander round. It is a curious place stuffed to to the beams with eclectic treasures collected by Charles Wade. From Chinese cabinets to Penny Farthings cycles, it is all here.

18th July 2016
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Top Five | Hello Summer?

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Top Five

So far summer has been a washout, we’re hoping it improves but so far it is showing no signs. But still we are managing to enjoy ourself with a busy weekend catching up with friends.  Let’s take a look at the this week’s top five:


One

Top 100716 | Cherry Bakewell

It is no secret that Calum likes baking! This week he tried his hand at a home made Bakewell tart, following a recipe we found in Country Living magazine. It was really quite simple, and tasted miles better than a shop bought tart.

Two

Top five | Sweet Peas

We have had a couple of failures in the cut flower garden, the rudbeckia didn’t germinate, and Rich’s mum accidentally dug up the Bells of Ireland seedlings. However on the positive we have a good stream of sweat peas that we can have around the house, they look great with a couple of stems of lady’s mantle.

Three

Top Five | Country Living

For slightly convoluted reasons we are both a little bit obsessed with American interior design. We love it when we find HGTV shows on British TV, and whenever we are in the states we have to traipse around all the interior shops to get inspiration and pick up catalogues. Between visits statesside we have to make do with American magazines, our current favourite is Country Living.

Four

Top Five | TKMaxx

The home section of TK Maxx is one of our favourite shops, we get lots of cool things from there at really great prices. What is even better is when you go for a quick browse and find a couple of cool things that have been further reduced. We found the above urn and plant pot that work great in our bedroom and cost £10 in total (the picture frames were also for there too)!

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Last week was the annual RHS Hampton Court Flower Show.  It is held in the grounds of the palace and in our opinion it is the nicest of the RHS flowers shows. It has lovely show gardens, beautiful floral displays and a wide range of retail stalls Rich got lots of inspiration for our future garden, we just need to find a house now!

11th July 2016
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Top Five | Hello July

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Top Five

It’s July and it seems summer is already running away with us. Mind you the summer weather doesn’t seem to have arrived yet so we’ll hold out hope!


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Top Five | BBQ

The weather of late has been, what could politely be described as ‘Changeable’ it is a bit tricky to plan anything as you never know if you are going to get caught in a downpour.  However Saturday night turned out to be very pleasant so we grabbed the opportunity to have an impromptu BBQ. Calum cooked (as per usual) and we raided the supplies to set a nice table. If a job is worth doing well and all that!

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Top Five | Cookie Cake

As a bit of an indulgent treat we created a cookie cake for Saturday’s pudding.  It is a very simple but massively impressive desert. It is just a pile of cookies sandwiched with cream, mascarpone and some sugar. It was ridiculously unhealthy but ever so lovely!

Three

Top Five | Picnic

We have got into the habit of taking a picnic out with us when we go on our adventures. There is something wonderful about siting in the english countryside to eat our lunch, taking a moment to enjoy our surrounding and to recharge. I feel we could all benefit from more picnics in life!

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This weekend’s adventures took us to a couple of inspirational gardens, including Nymans in West Sussex. The house burnt down in the 1940s but the garden remains as grand as ever. In our ongoing quest to visit as many National Trust Properties as possible we have now passed the 5% barrier!

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We both love Bees, coincidently they we’re the emblems of both of our schools, and we plan of keeping bees when we have enough space to.  In the mean time Rich found this lovely print  by The Tasty Painter on Etsy, we love it!

4th July 2016
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Top Five | Midsummer

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Top Five

We have reached Midsummer and the year seems to be whizzing past too quickly! Lets have a look at this week’s top five:


One

Top five | International Giraffe Day

It was the International Giraffe Day on the 21st June. Interesting fact, the Swahili word for Giraffe is Twigga (pronounced Twee-ga), which Calum knows as he grew up calling them that! Giraffes are such graceful animals and to have a day that promotes and celebrates them is a great thing!

Two

Top Five | National Garden Scheme

Each year, Rich’s parents open their garden for the National Garden Scheme.  This charity donates all the proceeds from people opening their gardens for visitors to various charities. There are three houses in Horsell that open their gardens and the local allotments open to visitors as well.  Tea and Cake is also served for people to enjoy in the surrounds of the garden.  The week before is usually a hive of activity whilst Rich’s parents prepared the garden for the day.  Thankfully, we had a good day (no rain) and a good number of people came to visit.

Three

Top Five | Deck Chairs

As we are in-between our own property at the minute, we are trying not to buy anything that could change the type of property we buy.  However, we have been eyeing up some deck chairs in Sainsbury’s for a while and on Saturday bought a pair. We love the look of them and hope that the garden we get will do them justice.

Four

Top Five | Nordicana

As you might have noticed, we like a bit of Scandinavian style!  For Rich’s birthday, Calum bought a copy of the Nordicana Book.  It is a great book to start understanding the Nordic culture, history and traditions.

Five

Top Five | Midsommar

25th June was Midsommar in Sweden and we celebrated this as best we could (not being Swedish).  We will go more into this in a blog post later this week.  It is traditionally the start of the holiday period in Sweden and the Country effectively shuts to celebrate.  We invited our friends Ben and Lauren over to celebrate and enjoy some much needed fun and happiness.

27th June 2016
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Top Five | Return from our Holidays

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Top Five

We are back from France after having an amazing holiday in The Loire Valley. It is such a beautiful part of the world, we will share our adventures in some further posts but in the mean time lets look at this weeks top five!


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Top Five | Cocktails

The reason we started our Cocktail of the Week feature was because we found ourselves with far too many bottles of obscure spirits lurking in the back of the cupboard.  We have started to make a dent in these supplies so we thought we should start to replenishes them.  We have brought home, Cointreau (an Orange flavoured liqueur), Crème de Cassis (Blackberry liqueur) and Crème de Violette (Violet liqueur). We are excited to see what cocktails we can make with these new ingredients!

Two

Top Five | Souvenirs

Finding souvenirs when we are on our travels is always a tricky endeavour. One one hand we always like to have a reminder of the places we visit but on the other hand most souvenirs are just not very good. That is why we were excited to find these Gien plates of a couple of the chateaux we visited. We have recently started collecting blue patented plates for an interior design idea we are working on.

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Top Five | Elizabeth David

Staying in self catering accommodation in a tiny village meant we stayed in most nights and enjoyed cooking with local ingredients  to make lovely traditional french dishes. To help with the recipes we packed a second hand copy of Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking which despite being over 50 years old is still a fantastic resource. Needless to say we had some fantastic meals accompanied by some lovely wines.

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Top Five | Rosa 'Eden'

Whilst wandering around the grand gardens and the quite little towns of the Loire Valley we kept on noticing the same climbing rose again and again. These beautiful old-fashioned flowers are pink on the inside fading to a cream on the outside. Being suitably charmed by this flower we had to find it’s name, after a bit of searching (and a visit to a garden centre in Tours) we discovered it is Rosa ‘Pierre de Ronsard’ also known in the UK as the Rosa ‘Eden 88’.

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Top Five | Inspiration

Every time we come back from holiday we are full of ideas and inspiration. Whilst we were in France Rich was inspired but the gardens, Calum inspired by the food and drink and we were both inspired by the property and interiors. Seeing as Rich has a love of magazines he decided to bring back Campagne Décoration to keep the ideas flowing!

20th June 2016
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