New Phone!

For my birthday my lovely parents got me a new phone. Amongst other issues my previous phone hadn't made ringing noises for at least 2 years after being dropped in a pint of water didn't agree with it much so I was in need of a new one.

I now have a Samsung Galaxy Ace and it's pretty good. I never thought I'd get on with a touchscreen but it's actually pretty amazing, I can now check my emails and twitter without firing up the computer and even more importantly for me it has a fairly decent camera.
I haven't taken many pictures with it yet because since getting it I've tended to have my d40 with me too but I felt like showing it off anyway.
I'm now considering the ol' instagram. I've always been a bit put off instagram because of how it gets used a lot of the time (I'm not really one for filters and much digital faff) but I love taking photos and sharing them and seeing what photos other people have taken too so I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to give it a go, if it suits me then great if not I can always uninstall it.

Sometimes I over think things.

So for now you can find me on instagram by searching for vongarratt (same as my twitter)

Wroxham

Mum and Dad came to visit the week after my birthday and we saw:
Corn fields.
Pretty roses.
Pub walls.
Pub gardens.
Tasty tasty pub lunches.
Some greedy swans.
Good signage.

We visited Wroxham Barns, I'd not been before and I fell in love. We bought some Norfolk cider which I'm quite excited about.

As always, due to my inability to just take a few photos and not wanting to bombard people with tonnes here, there are a few more on my flickr.

Birthday Reading Material

A mixture of books that have been, are being or are soon to be read during birthday week and a half. I'm about halfway through 4 of these at the moment. I collected some during my birthday wander round the library, some are birthday gifts, some I already had out from the library and some already belonged to me.
I don't read enough, it's been good this week to read a lot more than normal.

I found the Shakespeare book in a charity shop and Cymbeline has someones notes written in the margins, the best of which so far has to be, "Might as well be rape."

If anyone can correctly guess where in the play that note is then I'll send you a prize.

Virtually An Island

I made macaroni and cheese for the first time. I love baked cheese.
Raspberries are my new best friend. Also I was quite excited when I found that plate in a charity shop. I think Norfolk would like to be it's own island.

25 Things Before I'm 26

I saw this years ago on A Beautiful Mess (who says she saw it at Hula Seventy) and I never tried it even though I thought it was a good idea and I love making lists, so this year I thought I'd finally do one. Some of the things are more silly than others which I think makes for a good list. I'd hate to have a very serious difficult list and then spend my 26th birthday looking at a list of things I didn't do, feeling like a failure but likewise I don't want to have a list that I'll have completed by September.
I think this list is a pretty good in between.

P.S. The ink bottle lid isn't blocking anything out on purpose, behind it says 'do a house portrait'. If I remember correctly in the opening of Moonrise Kingdom there is a cross stitch of their house. I'd love to do one of ours.

My Birthday Continues

I decided due to a mix of reasons that I would celebrate a birthday week and a half rather than just one day. This is partly because I'm greedy but it's also an attempt to start spending my time better. I'm not just taking a week off to be extravagant, I'm just making sure I spend a bit of time each day doing something nice. Hopefully this means I'll spend less time sitting around being lazy or bored and if I make the effort to do something interesting every day for a week and a half I might manage to keep it up afterwards. Also my parents are coming down the weekend after my birthday and Will wasn't around for half of my actual birthday so I figure it's only fair to spread the birthday fun out over all the extra days. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. These are some birthday photos of my extra week and a half so far.
The 2 pics of me were taken by William, I just stuck them together.

Quarter of a Century Celebrations or, My Birthday

I had a birthday. My 25th, weird.
I ate tasty things.
Got close to the river.
Saw a panda.
Saw myself (31.52).
Noticed bright paint.
Watched Will cut open my birthday present (more on that later)
Visited the newly open Bliiz, frozen yogurt and bubble tea!!!!
And sat by the river before Will had to go to work.
Then I went home did some cooking out of my Rachel Khoo book, drank Bucks Fizz and watched 10 Things I Hate About You.

All in all it was a pretty good day, I got lots of lovely gifts, had a lovely day and because Will had to work in the evening we're off to Yo! Sushi tonight which I'm very much looking forward to.

There are a few more pics on my Flickr.