Some Kind of Wonderful, Vikings, Outlander and Writing Lessons – #LittleLoves

Welcome to another week of little loves and wellies! It’s been another lovely week here – despite my moans about all of us getting back into the old routines of school and work 😉 I may have spent a lot of the last week preparing invoices and paying tax bills, but that didn’t stop me enjoying another meeting of my writers group, a visit to our local knitting club and another family birthday celebration at the weekend. We’ve also been enjoying walking part of the way to and from school each day and getting out of the house a lot earlier than we’d been used to over the holidays. Oh, and we’ve had so many beautiful winter skies over the last week it’s been ridiculous! It’s all about being grateful for the everyday things in life, isn’t it? And speaking of which, here’s a little round up of the everyday lovelies I’ve been enjoying over the last 7 or so days….

Winter School Walks

Three Trees

Caithness Sunrise January

READ

This week I’ve been reading Some Kind of Wonderful by Giovanna Fletcher. After a month of classic reads in December I was ready for something a bit lighter, and this book my sister gave me for Christmas is the perfect antidote to the long dark January nights. Even better, I got a lovely surprise when I opened it to find that it was a signed copy! Giovanna always seems like such a lovely person on social media and I was delighted that she took a minute out of her day to write such a nice encouraging message for little old me!

Some Kind of Wonderful

Some Kind of Wonderful Signed Copy

WATCHED

This week we’ve been getting into the new series of Vikings on Amazon. Vikings has been one of my favourite shows over the last few years and it’s also been exciting to see one of my all-time favourite actors Jonathan Rhys Meyers join the cast in season 5. My only complaint is that the gore and violence level seems be going up a notch with every passing season. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t really enjoy watching my favourite shows from behind the safety of my hands!

A little less violent is Outlander which I’ve been getting up early to catch up on at the weekends. I’ve finally (oh, only after about a year or so), made it on to the latest season – one of the problems is that I have to find time to watch this series on my own. It’s such a fantastically romantic story though and I’m so glad the action has now returned to Scotland. I can’t wait to see what season 3 has in store for Jamie and his long-lost time-travelling companion Claire.

HEARD

Last week I listened to some feedback on one of my short stories at my regular writing group. It’s quite a scary experience reading your writing aloud and hearing what other people think of it, but I’m actually finding it very helpful and think that the constructive criticism from others is really helping me to improve. By the end of this series of workshops we are all expected to produce a short stage play, which will, to say the least, be a massive challenge! I know very little about plays or how to write them so that one is going to be a very steep learning curve for me indeed!

WORE

Last week I picked up this lovely Topshop jumper in my local charity shop for a fiver 🙂 I’ve said on here before what a big fan of charity shop bargains I am. The photo here doesn’t really do this top justice as it’s fine thread detail actually makes it look quite dressy. I’ve met a few people in the past who don’t like the idea of buying clothes from charity shops but I’ve never really understood that. As far as I’m concerned it’s an ethical and guilt-free way to update your wardrobe on a budget and also enjoy a mini shopping spree!

Charity Shop Topshop

MADE

Most of my making has been going on in the kitchen again this week, and I’ve been trying out more yummy recipes from the Easy. Tasty. Healthy gluten and dairy free cookbook I mentioned on here a few weeks ago. This week I made the mushroom risotto and the chicken tikka stir fry, which were both delicious – but alas, I didn’t get any photos! I find it too dark just now to take nice photos by dinner time, and besides, my family are always too hungry to hang around while I faff about trying to take a picture of their tea! Must do better next time readers 😉 Thankfully, this is my go-to cookbook at the moment so I’m sure there will be plenty more opportunities to show you some of it’s many culinary delights!

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AND LASTLY

I’ve quite enjoyed getting back into a routine over the last week really, and I’m trying to stick to my daily morning schedule of 20 minutes yoga and no phone time in the evenings or before the kids go out to school. My word for 2018 is balance and I’m trying to stick to it 🙂 I’d love to know how the first few weeks of January have been treating you!

Gx

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Little Loves Coffee Work Sleep Repeat