At Last!

I'm really excited to write this blog and finally, finally announce that my room is finished!

As you readers know it's been a hard time and I've really struggled at times but I'm so happy with how it's turned out.

I originally posted a far too excited blog back in September and managed to get going pretty quickly by making a nice mess of my room.  Things really got going when Dad stripped out my room whilst Helen and I were on holiday in Stratford and Gem and I spent an intense 48 hours painting the stripes on my wall.

Dad was fantastic and got all my lovely new furniture in for Halloween which meant for the first time I was able to have a properly Halloween-ised room!

Pretty lights!

The Tim Burton theme continues!

The best thing is that everything finally seems to have a place, what used to be clutter that blended into the mess now has prides of places. 

The vinyl and record player now live together. The photo album on top contains all my favourite
photos that once plastered the walls.

The blinds go with my black, white and red Night Circus theme

The CD storage only holds about 1/5 of my collection 🤣🤣

DVDs and Pop Vinyls

My favourite feature has to be my cube shelves! 

They give me the space to devote entire cubes to my favourite things.

Plane Geeking cube

My witchy cube

My 30 Seconds To Mars cube

Moominland

Alice In Wonderland love

I also have a shelf to remember Kay

All that's left now to do is to pop some nails in the wall so that the photo frame collages that I've made can go on show, including my beautiful panoramic photo of Niagara Falls that I've had propped up gathering dust for years. It's going to go above the TV to always remind me of my favourite holiday ever. 

Thank you so much to everyone who's helped me with the decorating, or has listened to me whine and stress about it. It means the world.

Love Jen

XxxX

Room Refurb Episode 5: Getting My Stripes On!

Last week was the week that the stripes went on!!!

Gem (Interior Design Extraordinaire) was here to put her expertise to the matter of turning my wall into Beetlejuice's Trousers!

Dude's a style icon what can I say?

First off was the task of painstakingly masking taping the lines for the stripes. Thank god that Gem and Dad were on that one, my severe lack of hand/eye co-ordination would have resulted in a wonky, zebra-like effect (great on safari or the 80s not so great in my room!). Also as proved the next day in my attempt to paint the skirting boards I cannot masking tape to save my life!

Gem's far more of a natural than me!

Whilst Gem taped up the wall I hit the cabinet with a scraper and white spirit to try and get the  stickers off. After about 5 attempts and my room left smelling like nail polish remover for a full 48 hours the damn things are off apart from a few small paper bits that can be painted over at some point. I must however commend the Thomas & Friends comic of the early 90s for the excellent longevity of their stickers! Thomas, James, Gordon & Co hung on until the bitter end!

And then for the paint!

The first brush!

The look of concentration/terror at getting it wrong!

Two down, only 9 to go.....

The result of a day's hard work!

So now the room has stripes and newly painted cherry red skirting boards!

How good does it look?

Today Dad and I went to get the carpet ready to be laid tomorrow or Friday and then I'll be ready to move my shiny new furniture in ❤💀

Obviously anyone who would like to lend a hand with furniture assembly do feel free to RSVP to the normal address ....... *tumbleweed** 

Love Jen

XxxX

A trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon

As promised here (at last) is my blog about Helen's & my trip to Stratford!

Helen's birthday and my pay rise were all the excuse we needed to finally make the trip 'ooop north' and I'm so glad we did. Helen has been quite a few times before so knew all the best places to go, whereas my only experience was of being sat through Macbeth at the theatre by the river during my college years.

We were absolutely blessed by the weather, it was hot and sunny for the three days that we were there, making the Autumn colours extra vivid. We stayed at the Premier Inn in the centre of town and everywhere was in walking distance (although to be fair the town is so tiny that it's basically a high street and a couple of side streets!).

After dumping our bags we went for a walk along the river and through the town.

Churchyard

I'm seriously considering buying a river boat!

Look at these lovely colours

The town has lots of quirky little shops, my favorite by far was the Magic Alley which just had the best atmosphere, selling lots of Halloween-themed gifts, spell books, crystals and more unicorn products than you can shake a stick at!

I also got my Harry Potter fix!

Unfortunately there was also a year round Christmas shop ,,,,,,,,

I love how the shops are in 100s of years old buildings

The beautiful sunset on the way out to dinner

Enjoying our Chinese

The next day we explored the 'Shakespeare attractions'. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust run a few different properties in and around Stratford - Shakespeare's Birthplace, Mary Arden's Farm, Anne Hathaway's Cottage and Shakespeare's New Place. You can buy tickets for the houses separately or, as in our case, you can buy a Full Story ticket which covers all the properties and is valid for a whole year. 

Off out for the day

Our first stop and our favourite location was Mary Arden's Farm. The property is a fully working Tudor farm with traditional crafts, falconry and most importantly cute animals!

Helen inside the house

Finally a door I'm too tall for!

The Autumn colours were absolutely stunning. 

Helen enjoying the view

Piggies!

Ellie the Shirehorse

A V Adventurous goat!

Helen and her new loves Bill and (big) Ben

Meeting your BFF's new love is very important

One of the highlights of the farm was the barn owl demonstration. Arwen was absolutely beautiful and the man giving the demonstration was absolutely fascinating.

Utterly gorgeous

Our next stop was Anne Hathaway's Cottage

We didn't venture inside as there was a large guided tour going around but instead enjoyed the gardens. 

How cool are these music note railings?

Wonder if I can convince Dad to put some in the garden?

Helen enjoying the view

And of course there was a scone stop!

Heaven

That evening we sought out the local Wetherspoons for dinner and I took the opportunity to sample some Unicorn Gin

This is apparently my gin-tasting face!

After dinner we indulged in one of my favourite activities, night time walking. We went down to the river path and watched the swans. 

Such a beautiful evening

I'm so glad I finally spent more than 4 hours in Stratford and even avoided Macbeth! It's a beautiful, quiet town. The perfect place to spend a couple of days away relaxing and to fall in love with donkeys!

Can't wait to go back in April!

Love Jen

XxxX