It’s that time already. Summer is drawing to a close, it’s time to head back to school, but before we do that I though I’d share some of the loveliness that has filled my summer this year…

We had a fab visit from my oh so lovely sister in-law who had the honour of being the first guest to stay in our new house. We enjoyed the sunshine with walks and ice cream and BBQs. Lovely.

We had the nicest day and night out in Stratford celebrating our first wedding anniversary (eek! A whole year!) followed by…

…a wonderful week in and around Bath (read Baaaaarth!) with all my lovely in-laws. Lots of exploring local landmarks and touring the National Trust tea rooms!

Then there was the gathering of the clan at the traction engine rally. This was in honour of my amazing Gran, who unfortunately was too poorly to be there with us. So we mooched around on her behalf, drank cider, enjoyed the dodge’ems and the merry-go-round, and sat round a log fire late into the night. I absolutely adore my fabulous family. 🙂

We squeezed in a fab night out at Manchester’s Albert Hall to see Beirut. Boy can those guys play!!! Amazing music, amazing atmosphere and a great little venue.

I had a longer-than-usual visit from my beautiful bestie Rachel, which unfortunately I didn’t take many picture of because we we’re too busy acting like five year olds. However we did document our baking disaster (above). I’m sure you’ll agree that our honeycomb free-from brownies look delicious in their raw state…and not so much once they had been baked into something that, quite frankly, you could build bridges out of. It was that solid. Note to self; do NOT put honeycomb in brownies. It doesn’t work.

We did a bit of demolition on the outside of our house…

And a bit of building too…

And now it’s starting to look quite pretty! We just need a new path, a rebuild front step, and some foliage in pots and hey presto, we’ll be done. It’s very satisfying seeing these little areas come together.

This week, just to finish off, I taught my first ever English classes! Super scary but went fairly well I think, and all good practice for my brand shiny new job as an English HLTA and mentor. Which I start next week. And am VERY nervous about. And excited about. And not really sure what I’m doing about. However I know I am going to be working with an amazing and lovely team of people who I can run crying and screaming to when it all gets a bit much. (Fingers crossed for not much on the crying and screaming front though!).

I’m now just enjoying the last couple of lazy days before the mayhem of a new term begins. Although to be honest I’m quite looking forward it. I always was an autumn girl…