March favourites!

I can't believe March is almost over. Wasn't it just Christmas?

Think I'm going to try and get myself into some sort of routine with this blog so it's not just ramblings. Presenting… monthly favourites! I love these kind of posts and am strangely addicted to similar videos on YouTube to see what other people are into and to get some tips on what to try out. This is going to be a real mix of things, so let's see how it goes.

Skincare
I like to mix up what products I use quite frequently. Mainly because I'm a magpie and like shiny new things. However, over the years I've always stuck religiously with the same brands: No7 and Clinique. They're what my mum always use so I've got it from her and she's got great skin so something's working!

After using Clinique's Dramatically Different moisturiser for over a year, I started noticing my skin getting really dry again so though it was time for a change and back to No.7 I went. They have a lovely range for my skin type and I've really noticed a difference over the last few weeks. While I picked up the basic day cream moisturiser, I also grabbed their Hydration Mask and I must say I absolutely love it!

I use the day cream every morning (no surprises there!) and I use the Hydration Mask after exfoliating my face a couple of times a week. You smother it on, leave it for about 10 minutes, then wash off. Skin like a baby's bum.

Makeup
Similarly to my skin care, whatever takes my fancy in House of Fraser/Boots/Space NK/Sephora when I can get there is what I use until it runs out. I got an Estee Lauder makeup gift set for my birthday in January and am only getting round to using this mascara. I've been using Marc Jacobs for a while and it's up there with my favourites! Estee Lauder isn't a brand I usually go for, but I must say this mascara is fantastic. Really good volume and curl with very little effort - just one coat! I don't think I'll repurchase is but you can't be bad to a free mascara.

Reading
We spotted this great book in Amsterdam a few weeks ago but I didn't buy it as I didn't want to have to carry it round all day (the book too heavy and my willpower too weak!). So, as soon as we got home, it was ordered online. Thank you Amazon. It's a great little read and the perfect addition to our coffee table stack. I'm looking forward to planning our next short weekend using this book. Ideally we'd like to just flip open the pages and see where we end up.

Drinking

We're huge fans of coffee and can't go a day without it. Therefore not much will do for the Jacksons than good quality beans or ground coffee. That being said, over Christmas we found some amazing Tahitian Vanilla coffee in TK Maxx of all places and since then it's been a great spot for us to finding really good coffee for really good prices. It doesn't need a hipster label for it to taste good, you guys!

Meet our latest obsession, Coconut coffee - tastes delish and leaves the house smelling of suncream all day. What more could you want?

Smelling

For the days when we're not brewing Coconut dreams, I like to spritz this like crazy. I'm surprised I haven't killed the flowers in the living room yet. I'm slightly over-zealous with my room spray but when it smells like Grapefruit & Ginger, how could you not be?

You can get this for £5 at M&S and it lasts so long. I bought this last Summer but put it away in favour of M&S's Cinnamon & Orange scent over Christmas & Winter. However, now that Spring has sprung again it's time for it to grace our coffee table and our nostrils once more. I'm pretty sure they still sell this.

Dining Together.

Last night we had a little dinner party for our family and for a belated mothers' day celebration (just slightly late). We love having people over for food and socialising. We chose our home because it gave us the space to do that with a fully open plan downstairs and we have made it a priority to have a home that we happily share with people. 

We're lucky enough that one half of us loves to cook and one half of us loves to tidy up & "table-scape" (yes, it's a thing): see here for some inspiration… It makes a meal a bit more of an occasion. Last night's dinner was a tasty success after a full day of cooking and baking. Philip doesn't use recipes but we enjoyed some home baked breads (a salt&chilli loaf and a garlic-herby focaccia) with a spiced butternut squash dip, a paprika/chilli roasted chicken with chorizo cream sauce, garlic roasted potatoes, greens & butternut squash, finished by a chocolate tarte with candied orange zest. I'm seriously lucky! 

But it's more than just about the food, it's about the company you keep and the importance of spending time around a table together. Sounds so simple but so few people do it nowadays with our lives getting busier and family times moving away from the kitchen table to the sofa.  It's good to set time out of the day to talk to others' and actually enjoy your food. Too often, Philip & I eat on our sofa in front of the TV (one the downsides to having an open plan house!). We're making a real effort now to make dinner a time for us and for catching up on the day. 

(*pause writing while we enjoy leftovers for dinner*)

Jules Clancy, a food blogger, echoes this: "When life gets busy, it can be easy to slip into the rut of eating not the run & neglecting to take time to sit down together. yet this is something we should be striving to avoid. There are a whole host of benefits that comes with taking the time to eat dinner together, at the table". Some of the benefits she talks about include:

I. Helping you connect with one another

II. Helping you to relax after a long day

III. Improving nutrition & encouraging mindful eating

I think there's something to be said for setting aside time for meals and each other at least once a day (For me breakfast is eaten in the car and lunch is usually at my office desk). Here's to more dinner parties at the Jacksons!

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Weekends.

What a great weekend we just had - Ireland winning the 6 nations, the completely glorious weather and all the lovely things we managed to cram into quite a relaxing weekend!

I know you're not meant to live for the weekends but sometimes it's hard not to when the week is filled with early starts, traffic delays, and laundry! Weekends are for doing what you enjoy, with the people you love, and prioritising lie-ins & brunch.

This is not a 'weekend routine' post because while this weekend was surprisingly productive & relaxed, other weekends are a netflix marathon, and others are crammed full thanks to a to-do list. However, this weekend was all about: enjoying the weather and going out for runs, a cinema date to see Suite Francaise (great film! great book!), 6 nations rugby, a dinner date back to where we got married (Deane's @ Queens), Sunday lie-in & pancakes, gardening, dining al fresco, and having friends round for a 'non-competitive' game of risk.

Saturday lunch and flowers brought home by my husband - crusty loaf, humous, chorizo and Granny Roger's old chutney recipe

Ready for our dinner at Deane's @ Queens: can't recommend this place enough, especially their chocolate truffle tart & raspberry sorbet! 

My best friend: my lists book. Keep my mind from whirling round!

Mini pips mug filled with home-ground Coconut coffee. Fills the house with the best smell!

Date night outfit: Dress from Cos, Heels from Topshop, Leather jacket from Topshop

Deanes @ Queen's

Sunday brunch Jackson-style. See my favourite pancake recipe here (just double for 2 people and I like to add loads of cinnamon & nutmeg to my batter!). Be prepared to be stuffed, this makes about 5-6 pancakes each.

Bloomin' Spring in Jordanstown

Feeling like a sweaty betty after a sunny run along the shore but determined to get a picture in front of the beautiful blue sea.

The first grass-cut of the season. No doubt the novelty will wear off in 2 weeks time when the mower & strimmer are brought out again!

Here's to the next few Spring weekends and hopefully some more good weather! We loved getting to do so much over the weekend without feeling stressed or like we weren't getting any quality time together. Thinking about it lead me to this interesting piece from Forbes on14 things successful people do with their weekends (and who doesn't want to be successful?… even at the weekend!). We managed to tick a few of these off`:

1. Make time for family & friends
2. Exercise
3. Pursue a passion
4. Vacation
5. Tech disconnect (very hard to do!)
6. Volunteer
7. Avoid chores (again, very hard to do!)
8. Plan
9. Socialise
10. Gardening/crafts/hobbies etc
11. Networking (the last thing I'd want to do at the weekend)
12. Reflect
13. Meditate
14. Recharge

Until next weekend…

City Breaks.

This is one of our favourite things - travelling and exploring new places. City breaks are great for getting to see new places in a short amount of time and without having to use up all your precious annual leave!

Our favourite thing to do is mainly eat our way around somewhere new: cafes, wine bars, hipster lunch spots, patisseries, and well reviewed restaurants. Trip advisor is our best friend for finding food (...most of the time). Many of you will know I'm prone to fits of 'hanger' (hungry anger) so trip advisor is good to quickly look up what's decent near by and to keep me on the straight and narrow.

We also love just dandering around with not much of a plan for the day. Now, I'm a planner and there is nothing better than making out an itinerary but we (I) like to just plan out what highlights we want to see that day and then just see what happens for the rest of the day (Philip prefers just seeing what happens). That typically just means finding a good cappuccino and a pastry but we're open to spontaneity… it could be ice-cream).

We're the tourists who go in and out of every boutique, art gallery and free museum all while trying to pretend that we're local and very wealthy (this is done by wearing sunglasses no matter the weather and never looking at a map no matter how lost you are). One thing that is an absolute must is drinking prosecco/cava during the day and outside preferably - I love it because it's just not something you do everyday so you get that lovely holiday feeling!

I thought I'd just share some photos of our recent city breaks: London, Madrid, & Amsterdam. Since we got married we made it a priority to travel as much as we possibly can!

London: Despite spending about 12 months travelling to & from London on a weekly basis for work I never fully appreciated it (mainly because you only see the tube-office-hotel) so we love getting weekends in London to chill out. Our favourite things to do when in London are: 1) afternoon tea on park lane 2) shopping 3) walking around chelsea & kensington and looking at real estate prices 4) grabbing a takeaway from monmouth cafe (our absolute favourite coffee!) 5) visiting Neal's Yard 6) people watching in Nottinghill.

Madrid: My number one city! I'm lucky enough to have lived here for a while so when we went back last November it was lovely to just walk around all the familiar spots. The whole time we were here we were making plans to make this an annual visit just because we love it so much. Our favourite things to do in Madrid are: 1) stopping for tapas and tinto de verano anywhere & everywhere 2) visiting the palace and the royal gardens 3) people watching in sol & plaza mayor 4) strolling round Retiro 5) drinking coffee/cava in Malasana 6) pretending to be rich & fancy in Salamanca and 7) shopping in Zara & Mango & Sephora because they are just so much better in Spain.

Amsterdam: We visited Amsterdam just a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it. Whilst it wouldn't be one of our favourites, we would still recommend it just because it has to be experienced! We spent 4 days in this quirky city and in the fabulous Waldorf Astoria (thank you hilton points). Once you get used to the smell of weed around every corner, it's a really lovely place to be. It's so nice to walk around though I found it disorientating because I couldn't figure out all the different canals - every street looked the same to me (and no, I did not sample any of the "goods"). We avoided the Red Light District because we just didn't think it was something we wanted to see so we spent most of our days walking around the 9 Streets area and enjoying all their little hipster-esque cafes, bars, art shops, fashion boutiques and home stores.

Amsterdam highlights: 9 streets, treating myself to jewellery/vintage trinkets/Cos dress, wine tasting, brunch, free macaroons & free whiskey, and sampling cheese at every opportunity.

Looking forward to our next trips and plan on sharing more of our travels with you (with better quality pictures if I remember to pack my Canon!). We've planned an Italian road trip for the summer full of city breaks around Milan, Lake Como, Lake Garda, Verona, and Venice. Can't wait!

Give us some more tips of cool cities to visit…

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Documenting Life.

Back to writing. I've dipped in and out of blog writing over the last few years but have always avidly read them. I like to keep up on all things fashion, home decor, lifestyle, and wanderlust. I've always struggled to keep them going: life gets busy and it's hard to prioritise hobbies (it's even taken me 3 days to write this!). I love writing and I love creativity but don't always get the chance to do this in my everyday. I'm going to give it another go.

This blog will not be about creating something insta-perfect or pin-worthy; it's simply a way for me to record what's going on in life and what I'm interested in. I plan to write about all my favourite experiences with travel, fashion, music, home, and lifestyle. Hopefully you keep reading & I keep writing cause sure there's something to be said for everything!

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