In with the new

After what seems like months of sorting my life out and getting my butt into gear, I feel like things are finally happening! We're off to Cornwall again tomorrow to finalise all sorts of things, ready for our big move, which is really exciting. The winds of change are a-blowing. 

Image from Pinterest

New house
As we don't actually have anywhere to live yet, other than a tent, this is definitely a big focus. There are plenty of places to choose from in the area we are looking at and the rent is reasonable. On Tuesday we have a gazillion property viewings so fingers crossed there is one that we both like.

This will be home number seven for me! Since I left home I just can't seem to stay put. Ryan's address list is longer still, I'm sure he is in double figures. Finding a place to live can be so fun because I'm a massive geek and love choosing somewhere cute and then arranging furniture and organising for hours and hours. At the same time it is so inconvenient because of packing.

Urgh. Packing. Boxes. Packing. Blah. I dropped a wardrobe door on my foot today. Ouch. Packing

As I'm on the topic of houses, I had a quick look through my old blog posts and found a couple where I wrote about moving home; just incase you wanted to read about my house in Third year of Uni or my Harrogate Home. Feeling rather nostalgic, I also made a little room timeline for you all. I know, I know, I'm a home-stuff geek.

 Wolverhampton - First Year of Uni

Second Year of Uni - Third Year of Uni

Harrogate - York

 

New job
While we are in Cornwall I am also going for my first day at the Eden Project, which is WHERE I WORK!! Still so so so excited about it by the way. I've been invited to watch a school workshop before signing off all of the important paperwork and stuff. It will be great to see what I will actually have to be doing in a few weeks time! Teaching is something I do love to do so I'm eager to get stuck in and teach some fun workshops about the environment. I'm also dreaming about the fact there will be no marking at the end of the day - gone are the days of my ninety book 4 o'clock appointments... for now!

image source

New skills
There's no point hiding that fact I've had a lot of free time lately as September has been jobless. It kind of feels like those early Uni days where it hasn't quite hit you how many assignments you should be studying for and it's perfectly fine to still be asleep at midday. When I was teaching I had to fight for free time so it's nice to be able to things I want to.

I do like to try and learn new things and I want to dedicate more time to doing things I like. At school I really loved art lessons but when it came to GCSE choosing time I had to drop it in favour of other things. Now and again I like to engage my creative side and sometimes I can impress myself! My blog has been looking a little tired lately and I wanted to give it a new look, especially with the whole 'new' vibe I've got going on. I did a little research into blog headers, html and photoshop and managed to design myself a new blog header! I'd love to hear your thoughts about it and any tips for future designs.

Next weekend I'm back in York again for what should be the LAST time before moving South. I'm visiting the Thrift Fest in Darlington with Ryan where we've signed up for some of the workshops. Ryan decided on a cheese and yoghurt making session for us to do and I opted for the more girly tapestry making one. Maybe we will learn something useful or maybe we will just have fun trying! I went to Thrift Fest last year with Sam and had an awesome time. I blogged about it here if you'd like to find out more.

Feeling Thrifty and oh so Vintage

 Last weekend I was blabbering on about all my exciting plans to visit the York Vintage Fair and the Thrift Festival in Darlington. Well I have had a fabulous time at both of them so my weekends were very enjoyable!

I spent the day in York with Ryan last Sunday and we popped along to the Vintage fair to check out what they had to offer. There were all sorts of retro clothing but I spent most of my time eyeing up Levis shorts and some jumpers for Sam's birthday. I did get myself some lovely new shorts and chose a cute knitted jumper for Sam that she seemed to be happy with this morning. We spent the rest of the afternoon casually strolling through York and had lunch at Pitcher and Piano. I was very cheeky on Sunday and also went out for a carvery with Sofia, but shhhh it's the weekend!

This weekend I spent time in Yarm as it was Sam's birthday today. We went out for a lovely meal where I had a cauldron of Thai Green curry (which everyone at the table stared at) before heading to Yarm High Street for a few drinks. Yarm is always an experience, lets just put it that way!! Then this morning, after re-fuelling with tea and croissants, we drove to Darlington for the Thrift Festival. It was free entry and sooooo worth it! We spent ages walking around and looking at all the cute things the stalls had to offer.

There were loads of different crafty type stalls selling their goods; even a woman who made jewellery out of spoons! I learnt all about brownie box cameras from the guy on the camera stall, might have got caught by the Look North camera man, drooled over fresh bread and yummy cakes, got all geeky about Harry Potter quote necklaces and was very excited about all the hula-hooping and hippy vans.

 

For lunch there was a lot of choice. You could book a table to dine in a themed hippy van (bizarre but really cool) or grab something from the street food stalls or cafe. We opted for a Moroccan style falafel flatbread with chopped salad and hummus, YUM!

It's a shame that Ryan couldn't come with us as he would have enjoyed all of the upcycling goodness and would have definitely stuck around for the talks. I also spied a veg box scheme and some 'help yourself' veg plots that would have made him really happy :) I know he had a nice day at the York Food Festival though so I don't feel too guilty.

 I have really enjoyed spending my time shopping in these alternative places. It was so refreshing to experience something different to High Street shops. Please let me know if you hear of future events that are similar because I will definitely want to go! :)