How are we at the end of March already?!  The Easter holidays are on the horizon, the evenings are getting lighter and the sunshine is putting in an appearance a little more often now, teasing us with the promise of warmer weather.  That must mean it’s time for me to do a round up of all the little things I’ve been loving this month…

Read

Two of my favourite books are ‘The Five People You Meet In Heaven’ and ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’ by Mitch Albom.  I loaned the latter to a good friend of mine and she loved it so much that she couldn’t bear to part with it, so as a thank you for a photo-shoot I did for her she bought me a replacement copy along with some of his other books that I’d not heard of before.  ‘The Time Keeper’ was one of them.

It’s such a magical book in so many ways – it makes you think, makes you cry, makes you reassess the way you’re living your life, and transports you and your imagination to another time and place.  ‘Life-changing’ probably seems like a bit of an exaggerated description for a fiction book, but honestly, this one really is.  If you’ve not read anything by Mitch Albom yet, please go and give him a try – I promise you’ll be grateful you did.

I’ve also switched off the laptop in the evening a couple of times and curled up on the sofa next to my husband – he’s usually watching some kind of Marvel show on Netflix and I’ve used the time to indulge myself by catching up with the February and March editions of The Simple Things magazine.  Neil gave me a subscription for Christmas (best present ever!) and I absolutely love immersing myself in every single article.  My favourite sections are the Escape: Weekend Away/‘This Is Your Kingdom’ feature and the My City feature – I love anything and everything to do with travel, whether it’s at home in the UK or abroad.

Watched

My littlest girl is in Year 2 and every year the lower half of the school put on a Mother’s Day Assembly for all the Mums.  This year is the last year Lola will be involved and I feel sad about that – my babies are growing up!  Each class performs poems and songs and shows the artwork they’ve created about their Mums and there is rarely a dry eye in the house.  I love watching it because a/ it’s incredibly cute and b/ it’s wonderful to have half an hour of feeling truly appreciated.

This year, Lola and her best friend wrote a poem together and their class voted it the best one to read out.  So she and her bestie stood up in front of everyone and introduced it, before the whole class recited it in unison together.  For privacy reasons we’re not allowed to share photos or video of the school on social media, so I asked Lola to say her poem again for me at home so I could film it – I wanted a record of it so I can keep it forever.

(There are a couple of other videos on my Youtube Channel if you fancy a little look -I’m pretty new to vlogging so every new subscriber makes my heart very happy) 🙂

Heard

For the husband’s birthday back in December I bought him tickets to see Olly Murs at the Genting Arena.  He has a liiiittle bit of a man crush on Olly (to be fair, I wouldn’t say no either) and we so very rarely get a night out together that I knew we’d have a brilliant time.

It was more than a bit stressful getting there – we got stuck in horrendous traffic on the motorway for two hours and missed the entire warm-up DJ act, arriving just in time to get settled in our seats and soak up the atmosphere before Olly took stage.  It was well worth the stress though – he was entertaining, fun and got the whole crowd on their feet clapping and singing along (even the old man in the seat in front of me was up boogieing!).

Needless to say we really enjoyed ourselves and being ‘Chloe and Neil’ instead of ‘Mummy and Daddy’, even if just for an evening, was wonderful and long overdue.  Sending out a huge thank you to the girls’ Grandad for babysitting for us.

Obligatory date-night husband and wife selfie!

Made

I’ve always wanted a pretty garden – it’s on my ’40 Things Before 40′ list that I’m slowly working my way through.  My Mum is an avid gardener and she got her love of gardening from my wonderful late Grandad and I want to carry on the family tradition.  I’m ashamed to say that even though we’ve lived in our new-build house for eight years, we’ve never done anything with the garden.  I hated it every time I looked out of the kitchen window at it and so last November we finally decided to do something about it.  We had it re-landscaped and now instead of a patch of grass and a pathway we have a small patio, a raised lawn, a trellis to hide the bins and borders down each side.  There was just one thing missing – plants!

When my Mum came up to visit for Mother’s Day she bought a container full of primulas and some cuttings from her own garden with her to give to me.  And so I spent a happy (and sweaty) afternoon last week making a start on making our garden look pretty – digging compost into the concrete-like soil, getting rid of stones and I even bought a jasmine to grow up the trellis.  It doesn’t look like much yet, but it will given a little time, love and attention.  I’m planning to get some giant pots to fill with bulbs for Spring and Summer colour and I want another one outside the back door full of herbs.

Wore

Regular readers will know that our eldest daughter, Ella, is a budding author.  She is in absolute awe of my cousin Lucy – a published author – and wants to be just like her when she grows up.  Last time we saw Lucy she was wearing a pair of dungarees and Ella, bless her, has been dying for a pair of dungas of her own ever since.  I finally caved in and bought her a pair from Next and she was so thrilled with them that she barely took them off all weekend – I think she’d have slept in them if I’d have let her.  They do look pretty cool – I’m considering getting a pair myself now… 😉

And lastly…

Mother’s Day!  Last Sunday was so lovely – the girls made me homemade cards as well as giving me the one they picked out with their Dad, and they gave me Ed Sheeran’s new album and a gorgeous bouquet of flowers too.  My Mum and Stepdad came to visit for the day, I put on a bit of a spread for lunch and then we had a lovely walk down the canal before popping into Canalside Farm for coffee and cake.  Simple, but wonderful , a whole day with the people I love.  There will be a full post about our day coming in the near future.

My beautiful Mother’s Day cards 🙂

My utterly gorgeous Mother’s Day flowers

Walking by the canal

Coffee and cake at the Canalside Farm Cafe

This flapjack was AMAZING! I’m trying to get hold of their secret recipe so I can make it at home…

I’m already looking forward to finding out what little things I’ll be loving in April – we’ve got a busy month planned!

Linking up with Coffee Work Sleep Repeat’s ‘Little Loves’ link