Welcoming Summer | Slow Living, Baking & Books at Home

Good morning, welcome back to another vlog. It's the first day of summer. It's a summer solstice, the first day of summer, and I thought it'd be really nice to do the first summer vlog. A couple of things to do today, we're not going crazy. Having a nice slow ease into summer today. It's meant to be hot for overcast, but it's been hot all week. It's just been too hot in my opinion, but never mind, not learning. But we've come out early, I got up at ten to six this morning, so we've come out early. Me and Golden Girl are going to have a nice walk before it gets too warm, and then we've got a fun filled day ahead of us. So we're up and out, ready for the day. It's about 8am, we are taking our daughter for her swimming lesson, then we will do the food shop. The plan is to go to the library and I want to get a summer read, some summer books for little one. I do want to get some flowers for the house today as well, so let's go. Okay, we are back from swimming, food shopping, half the food shopping and library. Dan's going to go to do the rest of the food shop now, like the pantry stuff on the shop, and then he needs to pop into work to get something ready for Monday. So I thought, come home, get little one's lunch started, then she can go down for a nap. But I wanted to quickly show you what books we got. We were actually quite successful at the charity shop today. We got a That's Not My Dragon. That's not my books are her favourite round here. And then I do get some books that are more for when she's a toddler, when she's older, because I just feel like it's good to be prepared, and we like to read these kind of books to her at night time and have a lot of books during the day. So I've got How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World. I thought that was quite cute because I haven't really got any books talking about the world. So I thought that would be really nice for when she's a bit older. More for now, we've got Dot and Dash at the Beach. I've been trying to look for summer themed beaks, beaks? Summer themed books to make her bookcase more seasonal. So like I've put away her winter snowy kind of books away and I'll put her spring books away now. I didn't find that many summer books. I do have a lot in my Amazon basket. So I might buy one of them every month. And another one for when she's older, My Magnificent Jellybean Tree. That one just it just sounded like such a fun read. And I could just see her being like, can we read The Magnificent Jellybean Tree when we're older? So that was a cute little find. And then from the library, we've got The Little Turtle Book of the Blue. So I thought this like sea book was nice for summer. Pip and Posy in the Garden. Anything garden related is a must. A nice little pullers book. We've got a popular pullers book, but this is a nice touch and feel one. So I thought that would be good for her. Dan picked up Molly, Olive and Dexter. We read one of their other books. We really liked it. And this one's called The Guessing Game. So that's really cute. So that's more of like an evening read. Then I picked up for myself three books, which is overly ambitious. But I want to try and especially in the evenings once Emily's gone to bed is sit out in the garden, have a nice cold drink or like a nice chamomile tea or something and read rather than watching TV or scrolling on my phone. I just want to like strip it back a little bit and read. So I have picked this one up before, but I didn't actually read it. But now I feel like it's even more fitting because it's very summer themed and they are all very much summer themed. But I've got The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday. They are all romance novels as well. Sunrise Over Sapphire Bay and The Little Shop in Cornwall. And now I feel like I need to go to Cornwall this summer. So I need to plan a trip to Cornwall for a little seaside trip. Okay, so that's my little book haul and Emily's little book haul. Let's have started to rain. We're not forecasted for rain today, so that's fun. Hello summer, welcome. We had the slightest little bit of rain. It's very overcast in grey, so we might end up having a storm tonight. I'm secretly hoping for a storm. I'm also wanting to sit outside and enjoy the first summer evening. I've got mixed feelings about this right now, but it is so muggy. I'm trying to open the windows to get some cool breathing while the sun is not visible. Let's see if I can just cool down Emily's room a little bit, but it is just muggy. It is just humid. We need a storm to break that humidity. I really hope we have one. If not today, then definitely tomorrow. I've just taken out of the bookcase Emily's spring books and I'm just putting away any spring-esque items. Although you've taken your little Easter basket back. Do you want to play with that one? I've put out the other books, but like I said, I do want to find some more summer books, and so I'm on the hunt. We don't need these at the moment, do we? Should we put these away for next spring? It's more for my head. Still waiting for Dan to get home from food shopping slash work. I'm just because I want to make a rhubarb crumble. Our neighbour around the corner owns an allotment around the road and he gave us some of the rhubarb and I really, really want to make a rhubarb crumble. I've never made one before. Dan's made one before I think, but I've never made it. I've also asked them to make sure she picks up some ice cream so we can have some ice cream, like vanilla ice cream on top. Super excited about that. We are well into late afternoon now. It's stopped raining. It's not overcast anymore. Well, it's a little bit overcast, but the sun is peeping through the clouds, so it feels a little bit more like a summer's day, but I was fully prepared for the first summer evening being a thunderstorm. That would have been really cosy, really nice, but never mind. It means we probably can sit outside in the garden this evening, maybe have a fire. I have asked Dan to get some big marshmallows and chocolate biscuits as well. Maybe we can have some s'mores, but I really want to sit down this evening after Emily's gone back and make a bit of a summer bucket list. I don't want to get to the end of summer and feel like let's not get anything out of this cupboard, baby. Mummy's just put everything away. Mummy might need to put a child lock on that cupboard. I don't want to get to the end of summer and I just feel like it's passed us by. Yeah, I want to do some fun stuff this summer, but by fun stuff, I mean a pizza movie night at home because that to me is fun. I love movie nights, but it could also mean going to the zoo with little one or, I don't know, trying a new summer recipe because I love seasonal cooking, switching out meals throughout the season. I've been looking at some summer themed meals and sweet treats and stuff like that, so that's fun. Yeah, I want to make a bit of a bucket list, but like I said, nothing too crazy. I'm thinking of also making a summer watch list, mainly movies because it takes me ages to finish a series. However, I do want to re-watch The Summer I Turned Pretty just because I feel like that is such a lovely summer. It's just got a really nice summer vibes to it. I might restart watching that, but I will save Dan from that. So I might watch the first episode while I make the rhubarb crumble and then tonight try and persuade Dan to watch a summer movie if we're not in the garden with a glass of wine and some s'mores. I'm just playing it by ear with a brother today. It's been playing in the kitchen for the last two hours because Emily decided she only wanted an hour and a half nap today rather than two hours, so we've had a little bit of extra time to play. We've just had some music on in the background, a bit of a summer playlist. Yeah, we've just been playing the soft play and her little stacking flowers, which has been lovely. But it does mean that my white dress is not so white now, so I might change. I think I'll change anyway before cooking. It's quite thick. It's got, like I said, linen on the top and then it's got an underlayer to it, so it just means that I feel like I've got two layers on, even though it's a shorter dress. It's quite warm, so I think I might put on jeans. Definitely not jeans. Some shorts on the top. I just feel like getting into the evening. It's just going to be cosy, but it's definitely too early for pyjamas, but I would be in my pyjamas if that was allowed. Who am I kidding? It's my house. You guys know what I mean, right? Do you ever just get home and the first thing you do is put your pyjamas on if you know you don't have to go back out, and then when someone knocks on the door, you're like, how dare they? How dare they interrupt me time? Right, let's start rambling. The rhubarb and apple crumble smells amazing. It's so good. I'm just staring at a sea of mess, because we've been in the kitchen pretty much all afternoon, but it's my bedtime, so it means it's Dan's time to do the washing up and clearing up. That's how we do it. We take it in turns each night, and our dishwasher is currently broken, but we do have ... It's been broken for a couple of weeks, and that's really annoying, and I hate washing up. I try and put something on to watch or listen to while I'm doing it. I just don't enjoy washing up. I don't enjoy loading and unloading the dishwasher either, but I'm much more than washing up, but someone's going to look at that, I want to say next Wednesday, and I'm hoping they'll be able to fix it the same day, but at the moment, we can't use it because it's tripping the fuse in the house, and we changed the fuse, and it's not working, so something's just not working there. Anyway, ramble over. I think I'm going to read Sunrise over Sapphire Bay tonight. It sounds really good. Born in love with the beautiful Jewel Island this summer, where the sapphire sea sparkles, the golden sun warms your skin, and the islanders melt your heart. Perfect. I'm going to cozy it with this, but it's my bedtime tonight, so Dan's just doing bath time, and then we will read Emily a bedtime story, just waiting for her milk to warm up, then I will settle her down for the night. Sometimes it can take five minutes, sometimes it can take 45 minutes. We'll just see how it goes, but I'm hoping it's the latter tonight, because she is tired, and that means that I can then set myself outside with a nice cold drink, maybe some pudding, and a book, because I'm actually excited to sit down and read, and I don't think I've been this excited to sit down and start a new book in a long time. I feel like I'm ready in this part of my life to just start reading again, whereas I tried a couple of months ago, and it was just a no-no. There was just too much going on. I just couldn't find the time to just sit down and just open a book and milk them, and not get distracted. I was just like reading it, but not reading it, whereas now I feel like I'm ready to actually sit down and read, so I'm really excited about that. Right, I will see you after I've done bedtime. So I had to put Emily down in the living room in the travel cart in the end, because her room is just too warm, and we bought a cooling unit, which is just a glorified fan, essentially. It's just not doing what we need it to, and it's too warm in there, and I said to Dan, we can't, we can't put her down, we can't put her down in there, it's just too warm for her. I wouldn't feel comfortable sleeping in there, let alone a toddler. So she's just gone down in the living room in her travel cart, and she's gone down quite quickly actually, but by the time we've got it all set up, it was half an hour past her bedtime anyway, so whether she'll wake up because she's a bit too tired, it's a different room, we'll see. But it is another good excuse to sit outside in the garden rather than sitting in the living room watching TV. I think I'm gonna reheat the crumble, pop a bit of ice cream on top, sit outside with my book and a cold drink, and enjoy the evening. And then I actually do need to edit this vlog. I started editing it during Emily's lunch nap time, just so I didn't have the whole thing to edit tonight, because it's going up in the morning. Yeah, so I'm hoping I can get it all edited and scheduled ready for tomorrow, or else I'm gonna have to wake up early in the morning to finish it off. But I do have work tomorrow, I don't want to be doing that really. But yeah, let's heat up the crumble, and then turn the hook in, if I didn't wake up.