As you can see, I’ve been pretty busy so far this summer!

We’ve been incredibly lucky this year and had fantastic summer weather – lots of warm sunny days, bright blue skies and plenty of things to do out and about!

Here’s a few little snapshots of what else I’ve been up to here and there….

Betty had a spare day off over Easter, so I took the afternoon off work to go to the excellent Ashmolean art exhibition (Degas to Picasso, Creating Modernism in France) and drink some prosecco on the roof in the sunshine.

My colleagues and I started to develop a pretty serious collection of cheesy pop mugs in the office. It’s now evolved into a fairly serious collection, and we get really quite upset whenever McFly or Michael Bolton go missing from the cupboard… (not pictured: Jason and Kylie, The Bee Gees, and McFly)I took my love of gin to an entirely new level, and have discovered some firm favourites – like this Earl Grey gin…

Magic blue gin is pretty nice, but the elderflower one was far too sweet….

I also made my own gin infusion with watermelon, cucumber and mint – it was DELICIOUS but doesn’t last long, so I suggest drinking it QUICK!

Betty and I went to Kew Gardens to celebrate her birthday at the end of April

There was a really incredible full rainbow over my street – it went all the way down in both directions.

I planted some lovely flowers into my new chicken planter. I love it!

I went back to the zoo with my friend B and her daughter.

I braved Ikea all by myself, and only started to panic after about 2.5 hours, which is a new record. I also got trapped in the car park for a while, but made it home eventually. 

I got given a TON of awesome new books to read for my reading challenge! Mmmm, books….

Betty and I went to a mini-festival in Oxford to see Pete Tong and the Heritage Orchestra in May – I’ll post some videos too!

I grew a whole chilli from a seed – very pleased with myself!

My brother came to stay in June, and we had a lovely time catching up

Doing some DIY with bandanas and 80’s rock

Catching up with old friends

And he helped me to set up my new hammock chair!

Then I spent a few lovely evenings out in the garden reading in the sunshine in my new hammock chair!

Working from home, and eating lunch in my tiki hut in the garden

Intriguingly there are no balloons allowed onto the train tracks in Amsterdam… We found it hilariously weird that this required a sign.