'Wiggle The Dirt'

These were the lovely gifts I received from my friend Debbie. I love ephemera and this little packet for 'Wiggs Cleanser' she brought back from America is wonderful. I love the caption "wiggles the dirt". 'Profitable Poultry' a little book from the 1920s was also a great gift as this year I have taken on 3 little hens.

The four legged animals had a lovely Christmas even if Ella, my mum's dog did take over Josh's bed.

My lovely girl spoilt me with some beautiful gifts, she knows exactly what I like.

At Christmas my lovely girl and I always do some baking together as usually I am so busy we never seem to find the time. This year we made the Waitrose Delia Smith Christmas cake and I can honestly say it is one of the best I have tasted. I did feed it rather generously with brandy though. My lovely girl iced it and did an amazing job.

We also made chocolate orange cup cakes from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. These were delicious, my only tip would be to halve the amount of topping mixture as there is always too much.

We both love tiramisu so we had a go at making our own.We used the recipe from the BBC food website, it was the Katie and Giancarlo Caldessi recipe and it was delicious. It actually got better over the couple of days we stored it.

This is the lovely wreath my friend at work made for me. It s completely bio-degradable as it is made on a cardboard ring wrapped with twigs. This has lasted amazingly well considering I had it a week or so before Christmas.

I like all the lights at night at Christmas, we always put berry red lights on our bay tree.

Tea lights are so pretty in the evening as well as lovely scented candles.

A few days before Christmas my lovely girl and I had a night away in London. There is always new street art to be seen near our hotel in Hoxton. This was a wall I hadn't seen before.

Liberty looked wonderful as usual

There are always plenty of amazing lights and decorations to see.

This was the view outside Selfridges.

We found the beautiful Leadenhall market for the first time.

It had a wonderful vibrant atmosphere.

As a special treat we went to Kensington Palace Orangery for afternoon tea. A tranquil little oasis in the middle of the madness that is London at Christmas.

A nice cup of tea and delicious cake is definitely just what's needed after a hard day's shopping !

Rainy Tuesday

On Tuesday I went here with my lovely girl.

Yes you guessed, we had a day out in London and we visited that shop that we all know and love. We went to Northcote Rd in Clapham and visited the branch of Cath Kidston there as well as the Living Vintage shop Hen has often posted about in her blog HenHouse. We enjoyed a yummy lunch in one of the local cafes and had a browse around a couple of antique shops and the very enticing Cabbages and Roses shop. I treated myself to a couple of things in CK, no excuses really other than it doesn't seem right to go all that way and come back empty handed !

I have had my eye on this lovely green cardigan and the great tiddlywink necklace for a while. The bag is really handy to keep folded in your handbag as a spare shopping bag, I have another one in the Birthday design and use it all the time for my charity shop finds I unexpectedly come across.

Most of the day was like this, very, very wet and rainy... but we didn't let that stop us. After the weather we braved in New York just before Christmas this was nothing . Unfortunately it wasn't the weather for outdoor photos so I didn't manage to take any to share with you of Northcote Rd. The pictures on Hen's blog are great so you can always have a peek there.

We popped in to Anthropolgie for a little browse. There were lots of lovely things as always but the things I picked up were all very expensive so sadly had to be left behind. This was the display of bed linen, you can't really tell from the photo but they were in an old wooden rowing boat suspended from the ceiling.

We had to visit here to keep our energy levels up ! We tried the new Hummingbird Bakery on Wardour Street which was fine but not as pretty as the Portobello Rd shop.

Here's the remains of what we brought home, a pretty vanilla cup cake, the scrummy red velvet cake and of course some chocolate cake.

Hope you are all having a lovely week .