Ha ha ha ha ha. You've got to laugh when you fall off a sofa! Ruddy Sofa!

Yo yo. I hope you all are having a good week. I'm relieved to have reached Wednesday evening because this week feels like it's dragging its sorry ass, and I'm really ready for it to be the weekend and then the holidays. Things are good generally, but I can see the end in sight for this year's work and I just want it to hurry up and be the holidays already so I can go home and cuddle my new nephews and fuss over Paddy and be pampered by my parents. I know, I'm pretty spoiled!

I am spoiled, you know. Despite all of my shameless, embarrassing fangirling over By Hand London, not only have they not taken a restraining order out against me, but they sent me their new pattern! As soon as I saw the line drawings for the Georgia dress, I knew I needed it in my life. It also fit the bill pretty perfectly for what I have in mind for my (very non-traditional) wedding dress. The pattern arrived on Tuesday last week and I wanted to sew it right away, but I had a half-finished dress to complete. That dress turned out to be a wadder (you win some, you lose some, I guess) so in the afternoon I got down to tracing and then sewing Georgia. By tea-time I had a dress all done bar a bit of handsewing and the hem. Got to love that! I sewed it up using some tropical floral stretch sateen I'd bought on the Goldhawk Road:

Apologies for the horrible photo, I took it in low light with the flash. It looks really trashy here but the fabric is lovely in real life.

I had bought the fabric with the intention of making another Anna-Charlotte lovechild, but I didn't manage to get around to it before Georgia arrived. As it happened, what I have in mind for my wedding dress is a tiki-type fabric so this worked pretty well for a trial run. The stretch sateen is very forgiving and easy to work with, but it's worth bearing in mind that a more stable woven fabric will behave differently so of course I'll need to make another one, just to test that out!

I will need to do a bit of work to this pattern to get the fit just right. I knew I would because the bodice is cupped, and I'm reasonably generously proportioned in that area. I was happy to go with the pattern as drafted for this trial run, especially as the stretch fabric is pretty forgiving. I'm happy enough with the fit on this but it will definitely need an FBA for my wedding frock. Luckily, the By Hand ladies will be running a sewalong early next year and they have assured me an FBA will be covered in that.

Anyway - it's the arse-end of November and it's pretty chilly. So here are some photos of me in a strappy little dress, outdoors. BECAUSE BLOG.

Club Tropicana dress - By Hand London Georgia dress and Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon shoes

If I look cold here then it's because, by God, I was cold. The light in the flat on an overcast day just isn't good enough for blog photos though! Anyway, the dress! I like it a lot. I love the pattern and I know that when I get the fit right this will be another By Hand love affair. You can't quite see it because of the busy print, but the cups don't come right down under my bust in the way they should. I could pull them down, but it would be indecent on the top! I suspect that adjusting this will be a fairly simple operation, I just wasn't sure where to start.

Otherwise, I love the fit and the shape. The construction is very nice and simple and, as ever, I found the instructions clear and helpful. I put the straps in exactly as drafted, and they cover my bra straps perfectly. That's important to me because I hate strapless bras and I hate my bra straps showing! This was another reason why I was attracted to this pattern for a wedding dress. Being able to wear a proper bra on the day gets a big thumbs up from me. 

I did take some photos of the back of the dress but I had to delete them. I'm pale, and I like being pale. But the blinding whiteness of my back was just obscene. The dress looks cute from behind and you'll just have to take my word for the fact that my bum looks pretty damn good in it. But the combined effect of my Irish skin and the diffuse lighting of an overcast day was not at all attractive. I promise that, in the spring, when I make another one, I'll show you the back.

As I'm not going to give you a picture of the back, here's the inside of the back bodice. I slipstitched the bodice lining down, but you could easily stitch this in the ditch for a really clean finish. I just like hand-sewing.

So that's the craic with Georgia. I have to nail the fitting of it, and this is definitely more of a party frock than the other By Hand London dresses so I don't know if I'll immediately make a million of these! However, she is basically perfect for what I want for my wedding dress, and I think this little party frock will work brilliantly in a variety of very fun fabrics. As with all the other By Hand London patterns, it was utterly delightful to sew. It'll be more challenging for me to hack - but I'm already envisioning turning the upper skirt portion into a bodice, and adding a circle skirt - or even combining the Georgia skirt pieces with the Anna skirt pieces and making a slinky strappy maxi dress. For my wedding dress, I'm going to lengthen the skirt pieces to a midi length and possibly peg it a bit more.

So, bascially, this is another winner. These girls and their patterns, I love them. Better get that restraining order ready, ladies. STALKER ALERT!

Needless to say, after these photos were taken I belted back upstairs and put something warm on! I was working at home yesterday and had a full day of spreadsheet joy in our chilly little flat, but it's all good. I was still warmed and happy from a good Monday at work and an absolutely outstanding weekend. On Saturday morning I caught a train to London and spent the morning with Nic and our friends JP and Han. We met in Shoreditch and had lunch on Brick Lane before walking from there to Bloomsbury (via Islington, for some mulled wine in Camden Passage) so I could meet up with the Spoolettes for some bowling! I totally neglected to get any photos, but Sally wrote about it just perfectly here. Oh, and Clare has just posted about it here. I didn't make a bowling shirt, but I wore my Pauline Alice Cami dress. I pretty much sucked at bowling. I had one fluke strike, a few decent shots and a large number of gutter balls. Still, it was hard to care when I was laughing so much and sipping on gin. I wasn't much better at karaoke, but I enjoyed it just as much. It makes me happy that, as well as giving me lots of lovely dresses, learning to sew has helped me to meet so many fucking awesome women. BEST. HOBBY. EVER. And, just so you know, some bowling alleys sell champagne. Ask me how I know. 

Right, on the subject of raving, I need to be off. We've got to Cherubim and Seraphim in our Inspector Morse rewatch. It's the one where Morse goes to an illegal rave. Sadly, I can't find photos of it online but you'll just have to take my word for it. Morse at a rave is pretty fun.

Yeeees! It's the Bucket Mouse! Thanks for calling!

Hey all WHAT UP. It's Friday night! I've had a funny week as Nic has been away, and work has been busy, and I had a random day off in the middle of it all. Time passes differently when I'm on my own. After last week, when I had barely any time alone at all, some solitude has been nice, but I'm ever so glad that I'll be reunited with my lovely fiance tomorrow.

I've been sewing a lot and since Nic has been away I have finished one dress and all but finished two more. Oh, and I've watched basically the entire miniseries of The Kennedys. This has proved to be compelling in a really crap way and I must admit that I'm watching it 85% for Katie Holmes's hair (the star of the show), 10% for the genuinely hilarious title sequence, and 5% because of the weird crush I've developed on Barry Pepper's weird face. So, now you know. I have a weakness for bad TV (oh hello, Homes Under The Hammer, I love you) but Nic has a far lower pain threshold for it, so it's good really that he's been away. I think he'd have vetoed The Kennedys.

Katie Holmes. So pretty, so one-note. DAT HAIR, THO.

So that's the craic there anyway. As I said, I've done a fair bit of sewing although this evening I have elected to stay on the sofa with my blankets. My sewing machine is set up by the window and it's just too damn cold there. 

As ever, I have a bit of a backlog of projects to show. Next up is another By Hand London Elisalex variation. I know right, change the record, but I swear I do something a little bit different each time. Anyway, I made this one using some fabric I bought the last time I was on Goldhawk Road, last month. I can't remember which one of the shops I bought it from, but I basically had to buy it because the print is so weird...

It features snowy mountains, foxes, rainbows, strange little cottages, stars, birds, hearts and the word 'POP'. The print runs both ways, and the fabric was 60 inches wide. It also came in a red colourway, but in red it seemed like that odd and charming landscape was steeped in blood. Seriously. That shit went from pleasing in a Narnia way to horror movie chic.

I seriously bought the fabric because it says POP on it. What is that all about, FFS?! I think it's almost subtle enough not to be stupid, but it makes me laugh all the same.

Anyway, I wanted to make another Elisalex dress with a pleated skirt, much like my La Chouette and Dolly Holiday dresses. I've been wearing those a fair bit recently. I love the sleeves. I used the skirt pieces from Simplicity 2444 because, duh. I love that pattern and they fit so nicely together. Enough jibba jabba though, here's the dress:

Kingdom Valley dress and Topshop 'Jostle' shoes

My hair looks faintly ridic here, I know. Especially after Joey Potter Bouvier Kennedy's outstanding hurrs up above but I'd had my hair cut that morning so it's got a shitload of hairspray in it, and then I got rained on. Standard.

After doing the FBA on this bodice, I needed to do a little bit of work on the sleeves to get them to fit better. I lowered the armholes by about 5/8 of an inch and redrew the sleeves to compensate. It's still not perfect but it is marginally better than before, and I was happy enough to take the risk on this fabric. I figured I could always detach the sleeves if I needed to.

It was really starting to rain by this stage.

So, that's the Kingdom Valley dress. I've worn it a few times since I made it and, as has become commonplace with me, I like it more each time I wear it. And fuck it, 'POP' always makes me laugh. I'm a twat, I know.

I called the dress the Kingdom Valley dress because the other thing that made me buy the fabric was how much it reminded me of a computer game I played in primary school. I'm a child of the 80s, and my small primary school in rural Northern Ireland had three BBC Acorn computers and one dot matrix printer. Anyway, there were a couple of games and one of them was Twin Kingdom Valley. It was a role playing game with a puzzle-solving aspect. It had a similar appeal to the things I enjoyed as I got a bit older, like Knightmare and The Legend of Zelda. And I mean, you know, the GRAPHICS:

I was only a little bit older when I got into gaming properly. My brother had a Sega Master System, which had Alex Kidd in Miracle World built into the console. He got it for Christmas and as a family we were all totally hooked on watching him play it. I know, but you had to make your own craic in them days. I did say I grew up in rural Northern Ireland, right?

I loved this bit in the game. Firstly, check out the mouth on that octopus. Talk about bitchy resting face. Alex was a bad-ass too, though. To get past this dude, you had to hide out and punch his tentacles off. Ever since then, I've sort of wanted to use that as a threat. I'LL PUNCH YER TENTACLES OFF, MATE. I don't think my brother ever got to the end of Alex Kidd in Miracle World. You couldn't save it, and you only got three lives, and it was really long. Still, it was good entertainment. I think those graphics look pretty good even now. I would definitely wear a dress with this print on it.

My first proper gaming love was The Legend of Zelda series. My auntie Tish had The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for the Gameboy, and when she got stuck a little way into it, she gave me her copy. I still so vividly remember how instantly enthralled I was by it. I loved the world of Koholint Island and it was so exciting to explore it.

Here's Link listening to Marin singing.

I loved all of the other Legend of Zelda games I played after that, but this one was really special. It was really thrilling to get to the top of Mount Tamarach and very moving to wake the Wind Fish and save the island from the Nightmare. In fact, I get a little bit emotional thinking about it even now!

When I was at university, and when I was living in a shared house in my early 20s, we bought a PS2. In the summer between finishing my PGCE and starting my first teaching job, I got totally hooked on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It was a rainy summer and I was on my own a lot, so I lost a lot of my holiday to that game. My then-boyfriend would come home from work to find I'd been playing it for basically 8 hours straight that my achievement for that day had been torching a rival gang member's house, or something. At around the same time, my housemate and I became a bit obsessed with Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. This was a lot less violent, but I think a lot of our enjoyment came from screaming at the opponents the game programmed against us. This guy here was a particular enemy:

It took us ages to beat this guy. AGES. When we did, I paused the game so I could take a photo of our triumph. SERIOUSLY. Me and my housemate C, we were so cool.

Since I moved to Leamington, I haven't had a games console in the house. Gaming now means the occasional game of Scrabble. I miss it sometimes. It stimulated a mental and emotional part of me that isn't moved in quite the same way by anything else. Maybe I just need to bring my old Gameboy back with my after Christmas.

You've hung in there listening to me wittering on about video games. I'm not all about the dresses! I have a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge and my bed is calling to me now, though. I'm going to take a glass of wine to bed and investigate the possibility of downloading some game emulators to my phone.

One last photo. It's not that this is a good photo, but it gave me the giggles. I look so much like my mum in this one, I can't even. Also my hair looks a lot less crap than in the other ones.

So, from me, Bagpuss and my glass of wine - Happy Friday, pups! Goodnight!

Why are my arms so weak? It's like I did that push-up last year for nothing!

Evening, hombres! I've come to the end of an extremely busy week here and I am currently chilling out with some fruit tea and an episode of The X-Files. Right now, Mulder's world is being rocked by bees and aliens and his missing sister. Standard.

It's only been work that has kept me busy, nothing exciting, and the fact that our friend JP was staying with us for most of the week meant that my evenings were packed, too. I was out all day yesterday and teaching all day today. My sewing machine is starting to wonder what it's done to offend me! It's been a good week, in spite of the rather painful tumble I took on my walk home from the station on Wednesday night, but I am rather looking forward to my three-week break over Christmas. I feel like by then I'm going to need it!

Anyhow, things are good. I haven't had time to sew this week but as ever, I'm behind in blogging the things that I have made. This make dates from last week, and I wore it last Sunday. Spoiler: it's another By Hand London Anna dress. I know. However, since making the Beauty School Dropout dress in the summer, I've been wanting to make another maxi dress. I love that dress, but a white maxi dress with a thigh-high split is a bit special, even for me. It took until a trip to Goldhawk Road in October for me to find fabric I was happy with, when I found a pre-cut length of beautiful cotton lawn in Classic Textiles.  I love Classic Textiles, it never disappoints! Anyway, I've been wanting to make an autumnal maxi that could be layered up with tights in the cooler weather, and worn again in the spring. This fits the bill perfectly!

Winter Fire dress - By Hand London Anna dress, worn with Solea shoes

I wore this last Sunday, when we had a beautiful day, to go for a pub lunch with some dear friends. It held up well to a bit lunch and an equally big pudding, which was very pleasing! I was worried that I'd feel like a bit of a dick wearing a maxi dress in November, but it turned out that I didn't feel any more of a dick than I feel all the rest of the time. Let's say about 85% of a dick. So that was fine. I wore this with a slip, tights and a cardigan and was more than comfortable temperature-wise, too. Hurrah!

Just to prove that I wore a coat!

So, obviously I have said everything I have to say about this pattern, so I won't repeat myself! I french-seamed ALL of the seams, which makes this dress look really pretty on the inside, and that makes me happy. The fabric is light and floaty and it took well to being french-seamed. I had originally intended to make the skirt a bit longer so I can wear with with my boots, which have a very high heel, but in the end I balked at the idea of this pretty hem dragging on the ground so I kept it at a length to be worn with medium height heels.

Here I am, looking goofy in close-up. Isn't the fabric beautiful?!

I think this is my tenth Anna or Anna variation by now. I guess you guys might be done looking at me in this pattern but I'm not sure I'm done sewing it - I want to make another maxi, but maybe with long sleeves and a v-neck. Again, it'll be a question of waiting until I find the perfect fabric for such a project but I know it will be satisfying when I do! This make was very satisfying and sewing it over a few nights let me really enjoy the process as well. I like learning new things and sewing new patterns, I do, but as my sewing time is quite precious, there is something very satisfying about knowing a pattern well enough to just sew. 

One of the things that makes me happier as I get older is knowing that it's okay to like the stuff you like. It doesn't matter if other people don't get it. In my early 20s, I thought that I should outgrow some of the things I liked as a teenager; the bands I liked then weren't cool enough, I should read more intellectual books, I should dress in a certain way. It's good to be in a place where I know that none of that matters. Over the last couple of years I've been getting back into that music; when I was at home in the summer I dug out all my Crowded House CDs and they're excellent. I've re-read some of my old Stephen King favourites and, of course, I've been enjoying sewing the things I like to wear. As I finished this dress, Nic and I watched the TV miniseries of Stephen King's It. This was my introduction to Stephen King as I watched this when it was broadcast in 1990, when I was definitely too young for it! Even at that age I could appreciate how totally lame the ending is, but the rest of it terrified me! The book did too, in fairness, and it did again when I reread it recently. Ben's haiku for Bev seemed to fit with this dress:

Your hair is winter fire

January embers

My heart burns there too

That's all the craic I have for you this evening, now. It really is time for me to flop on the sofa with a mug of tea. Adios, amigos!

I can talk to animals! Well, not talk to them. I can take commands from them.

Evening everyone! I hope you've all been having a rocking week. Mine has been busy and stressful and satisfying and annoying all at once - I suppose that's life - but it's all been sweetened by the occasional photo of my lovely new nephew, who really is the sweetest baba. My sister has been able to bring him home, and his name is Joe. I've booked my flights home for Christmas and I'm now majorly counting down until I can get home to see them all!

After a stressful week, I've had a very pleasant Saturday. I had a haircut this morning, a stroll in town with Nic, coffee and cake in our new favourite cafe and a walk in the sunshine to do some very essential shopping:

This was just my shopping. Not pictured is Nic's shopping, which consisted of a different bottle of gin, a bottle of whisky and some Tunnock's Tea Cakes. Priorities. We has them.

I spent the afternoon sewing and watching Inspector Morse, which was a real treat. I finished off a dress I started on Thursday and sewed across these last few evenings as a stress-buster. Sewing really does make me feel better! It did on Monday afternoon, when I was coming round from the lurgy that had hit me when we were in Cardiff last week. After not being able to do much of anything on Saturday night and on Sunday, it was good to feel like I was being productive. I find it hard to sit still without having a project to work on, so being sick is very frustrating.

The dress I made on Monday was made with some of the fabric I bought in Cardiff. Again, this is a case of seeing a dress in a shop, liking it, not buying it and then making my own instead. The dress ins question was this one from Cath Kidston:

Cath Kidston Mushroom dress. It's sold out, so I'm not linking to it.

I had afternoon tea with Sarah and Charlotte during the summer. Both had just ordered this dress and were very excited about it, and I could see why. The print is charming, the fabric is pretty nice (it's listed on the website as a jacquard but it's not really. It's like a soft barkcloth) and, at £65, it wasn't unreasonably priced. Still, I've kind of got out of the habit now of buying dresses and then it turned out that I'd missed my chance. It sold out. I sort of half-heartedly searched for it on ebay but any that were listed were at ridiculous prices - upwards of £110. I mean, come the fuck on. It's a cotton dress. Jog on, ebay sellers!

Cath Kidston do sell fabric so I knew I'd stand a chance of being able to make my own. Somewhat annoyingly, they don't sell the exact fabric the dress is made from (probably to dissuade chancers like me, eh?) but they do have this print available in a heavier weight cotton, designed for home furnishings. But I laugh in the face of recommended uses. I knew I could turn this shiz into a dress and I DID.

Madarch dress - By Hand London Elisalex bodice and the pleated skirt is from none other than Simplicity 2444. I'm wearing it here with Poetic Licence 'Backlash' boots.

Yuss, that's another Elisalex bodice. Not only do I really like the fit of this lovely princess-seamed bodice, but I thought it would work here with the heavier weight fabric than a bodice with darts in it. The same reasoning led me to the pleated skirt from Simplicity 2444 - the softly gathered skirt of the original dress just wasn't happening here. That's fine by me, though. I like the way the weight of the fabric makes the skirt stick out!

with a cardigan. It's getting to that stage now where taking photos outside is somewhat uncomfortable!

The cool thing about the fact that this is home furnishing fabric is that it's super wide. I only bought 1 metre of this fabric and even with the print running one way, I had absolutely no bother getting the dress out of that amount. The fabric was £20 per metre, so I was very happy not to have to buy any more than that, although the girl in the store in Cardiff did cut the metre generously so I had a little bit extra. It's not really fair to compare prices with the RTW dress as the fabrics are different, but I know I will wear and love my £20 dress a lot more than I would have the £65 shop-bought one. Plus, sewing it made me feel happy.

Here's a close-up so you can see how cute the mushrooms are. Also, I'm so happy the landlord painted the front door blue again. It was blue when we moved in, then was painted black and I never liked the black. The blue is much more elegant.

I've lost weight since I did the FBA for my Rocksalt dress, and my bust is a little smaller now too. So you can see a little bit of wrinkling under the bust in this bodice. I'd like to say that's irritating, but it isn't. I left that bit of ease in deliberately in this dress because, although I prewashed the fabric, I think it could still shrink a bit in washing. Also, it's getting cold. I need to be able to layer this baby up!

I think the biggest shift in my sewing over the last year has been paying closer attention to fit, but at the same time I'm not neurotic about it. It's not that I don't care. It's just that I don't care that much.

I wore this dress yesterday when I was working from home. I had a very busy and pretty frustrating day, and Nic took these photos for me at lunchtime when we popped out to buy some bread. I'm smiling in relief that it's finally lunchtime! I wore it to the pub later that evening to have a quick drink with Sarah and Charlotte, which was lovely. It was brilliant to get to spend a little bit of time with them, and it felt a bit like it closed the circle a little bit on this dress. Also, you know, I had gin. That's always good.

Sorry about all the photos, but this blurred out-take made me smile. I can't remember what it was Nic said to make me laugh, but this is why I love it when he takes these photos for me. 

Anyway, I have to go. Nic bought us a copy of Runaway Jury on DVD for 50p from CEX today. It stars Gene Hackman, John Cusack and Dustin Hoffman and it was written by John Grisham. I mean, I prefer the works of his brother Kevin Grisham, but you can't have everything. And there's that small matter of consuming some of the shopping I did earlier. Toodles!

Oh no, it wouldn't be on any maps. We're not exactly New York.

Hola all! It's been a while but things have been busy round here - I was away at the end of last week and then was ill with a virus that left me fit for little else other than prolonged napping. I'm back on form and back to work now though, so it's all good really.

Thank you all for your kind words and wishes for poor old Paddy. After Daddy brought him home from the vet he was still pretty poorly, but within a few days had amazingly picked up to almost his former self. He's still not a hundred percent, and in fact he's had a few seizures, which has been upsetting. Still, given that the vet was basically sending him home to die in the comfort of his own home, the recovery he's made has been astonishing. The vets were brilliant and they meant well when they recommended putting Paddy to sleep, but they were wrong and I'm obviously so glad that Daddy stood his ground and insisted on bringing Paddy home. This recovery might be short-lived, we don't know, but it's hard to express how relieved we all are to have him back.

Things have been on the up this week because as well as the good news about Paddy, my little sister had her baby this morning! He was delivered safely just before 9 this morning, weighing 9lb, and judging by the photos he's just adorable. I've booked my flights home for Christmas and I'm already ridiculously excited about getting home and meeting both new nephews.

So anyway - that's the craic there. Kelly has already requested a handmade jacket for her new son, so I'd best get on with some crafting for babies, I suppose! It'll be a bit of change from the usual run of endless dresses, eh?! If you read the By Hand London blog, you'll have seen that I was mentioned in their Anna sewalong round-up, under 'Outstanding Achievement' for my services to the Anna pattern. And guess what, you guys, I have another one to share. As with all my other versions, this one is definitely not going to be the last.

I actually made this ages ago and, on seeing the photos, wasn't sure if I liked it. I lopped a couple of inches off the length - turns out I'm getting into the idea of showing my knees, like, don't be all shocked there, Victorians! If I'm totally honest, I'm still not one hundred percent convinced about this dress - but let's see what you guys think...

Neptune's Daughter dress and Irregular Choice IC O'Clock court shoes

So, this is another By Hand hybrid. I teamed the bodice of Anna with kind of the skirt of Elisalex, which I turned into an a-line skirt instead of a tulip one. You can't quite see the box pleats in the skirt because of the way the lighting has washed out the print. Oh, and yes - this is more of the gorgeous retro swimmers fabric that I made my Beauty School Dropout dress from, but this time in blue rather than white. I loved the fabric so much but a white maxi dress with a thigh-high split isn't the most practical garment, and I wanted to find a way to make these gorgeous swimmers wearable. But weirdly, although the blue isn't paler than the white, it's more difficult to wear. Overall, the colours are more muted and I think it washes me out a wee bit.

In fairness, I think this dress does look cute with my awesome polka-dot Irregular Choice heels, so there is that!

I am glad I took the skirt up, though. In general, I do prefer midi skirts but the long skirt on this one was just a bit too much. It's a bit more flirty now and it does look cute with a navy cardigan. I also love the shape of the skirt - the a-line shape works really well with the awesome box-pleats from Elisalex. It was an experiment, and not totally successful - but more successful than not.

Anyhow, those photos were from a few weeks ago and I have worn the dress a couple of times since - sadly it's a bit too cold now though! Ah November, you're really spoiling us with this constant rain and dark skies. Thanks.

Nic and I managed to dodge most of the bad weather when we were in Cardiff, thankfully. We caught the train on Thursday morning and were in Cardiff by lunchtime. I'd never been to Wales before, and I was somewhat astounded by the beauty of the journey - particularly as we travelled along the Severn Estuary. When we arrived, Nic and I found our hotel and set about exploring. Visiting a new place always becomes a bit of a food holiday, and Cardiff was no different. If you're ever in the area, The New York Deli in High Street Arcade made the best sandwiches I've ever had in my life. I don't even like sandwiches. Cafe Citta on Church Street has a pizza that has potatoes on top. POTATO PIZZA. I can't even, it was incredible. And, as you can see, Nic thoroughly enjoyed the ales on offer in Zero Degrees on Westgate Street.

You should have seen his face when I bought him a second beer...

On Thursday afternoon, we walked down to Cardiff Bay. Nic's colleague Charlotte had suggested we do this, warning us that it was quite a long walk but saying "But you and Roisin do a lot of walking so it won't seem too bad to you!" It is quite a long walk, but a very nice one. We walked out Bute Street, which has lots of interesting pavement art. I was quite tickled by this piece...

Cardiff Bay is amazing. We didn't go into the Millennium Centre but it's a truly awesome piece of architecture.

Nic outside the Millennium Centre

I had taken Nic to the Doctor Who Experience when it was in London a few years ago, but we were still curious about the purpose-built home for it in Cardiff. Not curious enough to pay into it again, mind you, but our visit to the gift shop was still pretty cool. I was ridiculously excited to meet Bessie...

Here I am with Bessie. The REAL Bessie, which was super exciting. The Third Doctor and Jo Grant sat here! And the Brigadier, and Liz Shaw!

You see the Dalek behind me, there? That one was made out of Lego, and was pretty damn cool. But not as cool as this real-life moving one that was just scooting around the cafeteria...

This was pretty funny. I went to the toilet and there were no Daleks around. When I came out of the ladies, I saw the Dalek and was like "Hey, oh there's a Dalek OH WAIT HOLY SHIT THAT THING IS MOVING FUUUUUUUUUCK!" I genuinely did have a moment of being frightened, before remembering that it's just a man in a fibreglass Dalek. It was so cool, though - and what was even better was seeing how all the children in the vicinity reacted. It was so sweet.

On Friday, I had the day to myself while Nic was at his conference. We were staying near to the city centre and I had a morning of pottering around by myself, elevenses and a rest in the hotel and then back out for the afternoon. The lovely Lara had very kindly got in touch when I mentioned I'd be in Cardiff and offered to show me around, so after lunch I met her and she took me to the fabric shops on City Road. This was after we'd made a pledge not to murder one another, of course! Once again, I was happily surprised by just how easy it is to get along with sewing folks - within moments it was like Lara and I were friends of old, which was brilliant. There are only a couple of fabric shops on City Road - and in fact, I'd already bought some fabric in Cardiff Market and at Cath Kidston - but there was more than enough to keep us occupied. Butterfly Fabrics on City Road was a particular highlight. Not only was their range of fabrics impressive, but the staff were so helpful and friendly and it was clear to see what a valued customer Lara was to them - Mr Butterfly Fabrics's face lit up when he came to serve her! It was like my much-loved Royal Fabrics in Leamington; just on a bigger scale. 

Lara's partner collected us on City Road and dropped me off the the building were Nic was giving his talk - his keynote address, no less - and after that was over we headed back to the hotel to rest. I hadn't been feeling great anyway and a long day out in the cold sent me to bed early. We spent a few hours in Cardiff on Saturday morning before catching the train back to Leamington. Cardiff was wonderful - we'll definitely be back. There was so much I still wanted to see - especially Cardiff Castle, which seemed delightfully weird. The outer wall has lots of animals carved onto it, and the overall architecture is wonderfully eccentric. I need to visit. And I need more potato pizza. 

This bear was my favourite of the stone animals but there was also an anteater, a vulture and a totally awesome lynx. They didn't all have glass eyes, but I couldn't stop laughing at how shocked the eyes made this poor old bear look!

I'm going to leave you with one more photo of beautiful Cardiff, and then I'm off to drink something fizzy and alcoholic to celebrate the arrival of my beautiful new nephew. Catch you all later!

Cardiff Bay on a rainy Thursday evening. What could be more Welsh, eh?!