Had my parents to stay for the weekend for mum's birthday, and made a lovely 3 course meal on the saturday night - Goats Cheese and Caramelised Onion Tart with Rocket, Pulled Pork and Hasselback Potatoes, and Rum Soaked Pineapple with Coconut Ice Cream. Very yum, and mum felt very spoilt. Happy faces all round!

Had a lovely weekend staying with John's friends in Cheltenham; a lush South African Braai (and a new sausage I've never eaten before), a cool movie themed game, and a lush Sunday roast in a country pub. I always feel a bit awks staying in other people's houses, especially if I don't know them very well, but they are a very nice, relaxed, and welcoming pair so it was far less awks than I was anticipating. Hope to do it again, and looking forward to hosting them next!

After Worthy Earth festival, we stayed with mum and dad in a lovely converted barn; beautiful open countryside, HUGE bedroom, and a fabulous avo-poached egg breakfast before leaving.

In an attempt to appease Dad, who wasn't able to go to Green Man festival this year, we arranged a family trip to Worthy Earth festival. When my brother and S-i-L dropped out due to illness, we nearly decided not to go - but I'm glad we did. It was pretty small, and the accessibility was really bad, but the music and food were good, as were the lovely hippy stalls. We also had a fantastic vegan sharing feast, which was the highlight of the day, Best band by far was Les Caravanes.

John found this one, for a lovely impromptu date night - Reading Comedy club, in a hotel that I always thought was dodgy as all hell. We had a really good night - 5 different comedians, none of whom I can find anywhere online, which is really annoying because I wanted to follow a couple of them! Anyway, love a bit of live comedy, we might go back to this in the future!

I'm hyperfocusing on writing at the moment, so my lovely John has been in charge of the cooking, the best bit of which was fresh pastries and orange juice in bed this morning. I can and should get used to this!!

This is one of the things I love love love doing, and that John and I would like to make a yearly things - especially now we cracked out the credit card and bought all the kit. Met up with Jenna, Darren, and their assorted kids for a lovely couple of days near Winchester at Folly Farm Campsite. Was really impressed with the site; lovely loos and showers, a separate field for ball games (though not everyone adhered to that), and a really nice vibe. Our new tent is lush, plenty of space, and we had a lovely day out in Winchester. We think next time, we would like more than three days as set up and pack down take up a day either side. Five seems like a better minimum. Really enjoyable couple of days though. Will do it again!

Saw Electric Callboy at Slamdunk last year and they were bloody brilliant, an absolute vibe! So have been awaiting this album, Tanzneid, all year. Its great, a few songs already released as singles, so ones we knew. The rest, fabulous!

This is always an easy one, that just kinda gets "done" throughout the year, so not a huge amount of pride in it. Maybe I should up it to 100 next year? Or not put it in at all?

Added bonus list item... of the absolute worst kind! Mental Mother decided that today was THE BEST DAY to burn some old paperwork in the outside chimenea. The hottest day of year. With BBQ and bonfire warnings in abundance. Dad and I protested, and really doubled down as sparks started floating out the top onto the tinder dry grass; visions of us being the latest South Today house fire idiots, mocked and derided for our utter stupidity by the entire south coast. We made her douse in in a watering can full of water. Not before I took a pic though, obv.

Spent a lovely few days helping out my parents this week; which included a trip to Worthing to view their new house, then popping to my brother's in Brighton. This was, of course, the perfect opportunity to head off to the beach for a sit in the sun and a lovely, restorative sea-swim - which my S-i-L was only too happy to facilitate and join in with. I read up a little on the restorative properties of sea swimming; how being somewhere so vast makes you (and your problems) feel comparatively small, how the motion of the waves has a calming effect on your nervous system, the cold water stimulating the vagus nerve (inducing calm) plus the healing properties of the salt water... I really tried to bare all of this in mind and stay in the moment, and it was really very good for my stress and anxiety levels indeed. I also find my S-i-L a very calming influence, so getting to chat with her away from our family mentalness was refreshing too.

Not just a barbeque in this instance, but a celebration of my twin boys turning TWENTY-BLOODY-ONE! I refused to believe I am old enough for this to happen. This was our first biggish gathering at our house, and was really lovely, with John on BBQ duties, me playing hostess and guests - my boys, my parents, my brother and his partner and child - all eating, drinking and making merry. I loved actually using our garden as a garden, here's to many more barbies in the future!