MACINTOSH MONTHLY

So this is the first Macintosh Monthly post! Hooray! October was a bit of a blur if I'm honest. We spent the first half of the month separated from Mac because we were in England and then the second half of the month was all a but topsy turvy as Andrew had to go back to England again. Poor old Mac didn't know what was going on with all the suitcases being packed and unpacked all the time. 

Still we survived October and more importantly we survived those crazy flash floods that happened. For those of you who weren't aware our area had a crazy amount of rain in the middle of October, all on one night which caused some crazy flash flooding. There's an article on the BBC about it here which just shows you a little bit of the aftermath and a youtube video shows you what it looked like as it was happening. Thankfully where we were it wasn't that deep but there was mud flowing freely down the streets. 

The next day everything was brown and there were still huge mud flows and puddles everywhere. This was one of the streets right next to where we live. 

Obviously Macintosh thought this was brilliant and used it as an excuse to go wading through all the mud and puddles. 

As an owner, who would have to bath him when we got back, I decided he could only go so far so he ended up having these cute little bootie looking mud patches. He's hilarious. 

So that was our major excitement for the month of October. I have to say the mud lasted for ages and we had many muddy walks. Until eventually the Californian sun dried tall out and then it cracked into something strangely beautiful. 

Let's see how November treats Mr Macintosh!

H

LATELY...

There's been lots of things buzzing round my head of late so I'm not going to attempt to theme them I'm simply going to put them out there. 

I've been dreaming about exposed brick interiors. The houses out here are generally not built of brick so I guess I've learnt to appreciate it a little more than I did before. Plus I guess the endless amount of Pinterest inspiration surrounding it doesn't hurt. The bricks just look really amazing. As long as it doesn't make the place cold...

Obviously there's a bear somewhere in my thinking. I love this artwork. Its so beautiful. The mountains, the trees and the bear. Love it. 

Saw this film on the flight home from England. It was amazing, quite sad in places though. But I loved the wardrobe and hair in this. I was slightly Blake Lively obsessed afterwards. Made me regret chopping off my long locks. But still would recommend the film highly. 

The urge to get another beagle is getting stronger and stronger. Images like this certainly don't help in the grand scheme of things. Look at them and how happy they are to be carrying that stick together. Oh I want two beagles!

I bought this novel recently and can't wait to get started. I re-read To Kill a Mockingbird in preparation. I have high expectations of Lee's new one as she writes so well and in such a captivating manner. 

Finally, there's so much in this image that I like. There's a lot of these bits that can be purchased at one of my favourite American stores; Target! Its the best and worst place. Best because you can get everything there and its usually reasonably priced. Plus its a great place to just browse, but that's also its downfall. You never go in and come out with just what you needed. It sucks you into buying more than you needed, always! But I love the cushion in this and the hexagonal tray is fun too. 

So there's a few thoughts. Until next month...

H

ELISHA JAMES

Now no updates about our trip home would be complete without a whole post devoted to my little nephew; Elisha James. He had turned one before we arrived home and it was amazing to see all the changes in him. He was only a month old when we last saw him, so it was fun to get to know him and learn about his personality. 

I was so eager to establish who Auntie Hannah and Uncle Andrew were before we went home. He speaks to us on FaceTime but it was great for him (and us) to put a real person to the voices. We did take rather a lot of photos of him but here's just a few of my favourites. 

And my favourite of the entire trip...

See you soon little man! 
H

DUNSTABLE PART II

We hung out with my family at Wrest Park whilst back in the UK. Wrest park is a National Trust property in near Luton. This provided another opportunity to top up on our historic buildings as we visited friends and family. 

Once through the opulent gate houses, and down the long stretch of drive we pulled up to the carpark. Through the gift shop we strolled through the walled gardens towards the house just as the sun broke through the clouds. It looked incredible. The french style architecture looked beautiful in the autumn sun, glowing with the leaves around just turning.

Entering the house via the exotic conservatory (containing many plants from the Americas!), we were given a brief history of the house and then left to ourselves to explore the newly restored rooms.

As is often the case with national trust properties, Hannah and I wandered around the house collecting inspiration to use on our imaginary house. They had a copy of the architect's original letters describing the house and the work he did which provided a fascinating insight into the design and embellishments. I was amazed by the lightness of the rooms, definitely some ideas for our future ‘Manor House’.

We then strolled round the gardens passing the many statues, pergolas and verandas, just enjoying the autumnal hues at a peaceful pace.

Obviously this all wasn't without food or drink, making sure everyone was well fed and watered we enjoyed time to take on tea, scone and other provisions.

Here is a lovely photo of the family (minus Matt who was working unfortunately) outside the old cricket pavilion. 

A

HOME TO LINCOLN

After the first week of our trip in Dunstable we hit the road and went to our old city of Lincoln. We left super early and managed to get there in time for church which was great. We got to see so many people there and it was lovely to spend the time back with our home church. The rest of our time in Lincoln was split between visiting old haunts, eating and drinking way too much, catching up with our friends, doing a spot of shopping and just being tourists in our amazing city. We spent almost four years in that city so we truly love it. 

Here's a selection of photos from the few days we spent there. 

First things first I had to have my belated birthday cookie from Tim. That's a small tradition that started out of nowhere but he's kept up every year, despite the distance!

Just a small sample of the amazing food we ate. This is from Cafe Portico, our favourite place to eat ever! It was really nice to be back there and have a chat with the owner again. We frequented it that much when we were living there that he knows who we are!! 

One of the coolest things we did when we were there was to visit Lincoln Castle. It had been under renovations for a while and opened since we moved away. We went to the Magna Carta exhibit which was really impressive, sadly you couldn't take photos. I really wanted too because that little scrap of paper was impressively older than the entire United States and I thought it'd impress some of our American friends. 

We also got to take a walk through their Victorian prison which they actually used in the TV drama, Downton Abbey. 

There were some costumes to dress up in, I assume aimed at children. Obviously we had a go! It made a few people laugh who wandered by and poked their head in. 

They had loads of kids activities around the place. We even had a go putting some pottery back together. Not sure I can quite remember the purpose of pottery in a prison but it was fun attempting it. We didn't get very far!

The visit to the castle was finished off with a walk round the walls. It was lovely to look out and see the amazing city of Lincoln. Just a shame I had to go with these two!

Thankfully the views more than made up for it. Our amazing cathedral. 

And that's about all the good photos we got. We unfortunately never thought to get photos taken with the people we caught up with, too busy eating or talking! But we did get one of our breakfast on the day we left. Can't beat a good English breakfast. 

Next stop back to Dunstable! 
H 

EXTENDED FAMILY GATHERING

My family like to get together whenever they can to hang out, but with such a big family it can be hard to co-ordinate that. If you factor in us living on the other side of the world then its even more tricky to get everyone together. I think it's been at least two years since we were all in the same place, perhaps even more! So it was nice that for one afternoon we managed to get everyone in the same place for a bit.

We did a walk through Ashridge, which is an amazing National Trust property near us. Then we descended on my Mum's new house for a tea and cake, followed by dinner and then the dismal rugby! We didn't manage to take too many photos as we were too busy catching up, but we did take a few of us on the walk.

I love the photo of Elisha and his stick! He kept hitting my poor brother-in-law on the head. Guess that's my first bad influence as an Auntie, yup thats right I gave him the stick! 
H