July has been a different kind of month to usual. Everyone is home from school and uni, but I’ve still been working. Routine has gone out of the window and it’s felt a little chaotic – in a good way of course, I love having them home – but chaotic nevertheless. It’s left me feeling quite discombobulated.
For the middle two weeks of July we were away on holiday in Devon and Cornwall – a very much needed break from the regular environment of our house and town, which had been beginning to feel overwhelmingly claustrophobic. The trip was both challenging and wonderful, in equal measure. Let’s just pretend that I didn’t spend the first and last weeks of the month frantically trying to get everything done that I needed to do before we went away, and desperately working to catch up on everything that landed in my inbox whilst I was away once we got back… The joys of self-employed life.
Here’s a little bit of life, lately, throughout July…
A pretty view from a solo sunset walk in Brixham in Devon, where we spent the first week of our summer holiday this year
BOOKS
I somewhat ambitiously took four books away with me on holiday and ended up reading precisely… zero. Not a single page. I didn’t even get them out of my bag. It’s the first time I remember ever having gone for a whole month without reading something. I’m determined to make up for July’s lack of literature with an abundance of amazing books in August – I have several stacked up that I can’t wait to get into.
FILMS
We did, however, manage to continue our ‘Rom-Com Summer’ mission with ‘Ten Things I Hate About You’ (one of the girls’ favourites, which somehow I have never seen before) and ‘La La Land’. I enjoyed both for vastly different reasons. The 90’s nostalgia of Ten Things I Hate About You took me straight back to my teenage years, and I’d forgotten just how good an actor Heath Ledger was, even at that early stage in his career. I really loved the use of colour in La La Land, and how it was used so exquisitely to tell the story. I thought it was a really beautiful movie (that maybe didn’t need quite so much of the ‘musical theatre’ aspect of it?) with a delicately handled ending that left me feeling somehow both bereft and satisfied at the same time.
LIFE LATELY…
I managed to squeeze in dinner (in Oxford!) with one of my best friends just before we left for Devon. I arrived late due to a frustratingly delayed train, and she had to leave earlier than anticipated, so we only had a grand total of one and a half hours together in the end – we talked fast! Still, it was good to see each other and catch up (and the Pizza Express giant mozzarella sticks will always have my heart). We didn’t manage to take any photos (not even a quick selfie), but I’ll see her again in October, which will be the final one of our pact to meet up for a meal each season in 2026. I hope it’s a new tradition that we can continue with into the future.
As a family, we have never had a two week holiday before – even our two adventures in America (Florida in 2017 and Boston/Cape Cod in 2019) have each only been ten days long. This year is a bit of a milestone year though, with the completion of Lola’s GCSEs, Mimi’s A Levels and Ella’s first year at uni all converging at the same time. I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion, especially as we had a couple of weeks to play with before peak holiday season (and prices) began. Originally I’d hoped to go abroad, but our budget didn’t quite allow for that. I wanted to go somewhere different, whereas the girls were desperate to return to our favourite place, so we did both! We started off with a week in a new-to-us place: Brixham in Devon. Then spent the second half of our trip in Bude in North Cornwall.
Brixham was lovely – a harbour town with a couple of beaches, excellent sunset-watching spots, good ice cream, plus resident seals & dolphins. We explored a couple of nearby towns too and liked the area very much.
On arriving in Brixham, we immediately headed for the nearest beach and knew straight away that we were going to like it there. Also, I didn’t ask them to sit like this – they did it completely naturally!
Exploring nearby coves – tricky to get to and 100% worth the effort
Sunset view from the breakwater across Brixham Harbour
Bude felt like an exhale. We all commented that it felt like ‘home’ as soon as we arrived and smelt the sea air and gazed at the familiar yet no less breath-taking views. We took a day trip to Tintagel (spectacular!), I continued with my mission to go out and watch the sunset every single day of the holiday, and we managed to spend a little bit of time with my family (who live there) too.
Heading for a swim at the sea pool in Bude
Taking in the vastness of the views at Tintagel
Sunset at Crooklets Beach in Bude
It was all over far too soon and, after immediately launching myself into work as soon as we got back, it already feels like it was forever ago. I’m in the process of sorting through all of my images from the trip – there will be dedicated blog posts about both Brixham and Bude as well as a travel vlog on my YouTube channel once I’ve managed to work my way through everything. In the meantime you can get a glimpse of what we got up to by watching my story highlights on Instagram – find them here.
Chapter seven of 2026 is now finished and August stretching out ahead of us somehow feels like both a beginning and an ending. It’s going to be a slow-but-busy month, we have one final adventure booked in, and I’m hoping that there are still plenty of memories to be made before September arrives.
I hope that you found plenty of little things to love throughout July too, and that August is whatever you want and need it to be.
With love,
Chloe x
