Scenes from half term

I'd spent the weeks leading up to the holiday battling with work stress, some low-level illness and general exhaustion, so I am very glad to have had some time to relax and regroup. Whenever I know I'll be spending a lot of time at home, like this week, I hit the discount flowers buckets in Aldi or Tesco and fill the house with blooms. Irises, tulips, daffodils: this week, every room had a jar or vase stuffed with flowers, and it's worked a treat to combat the end-of-winter blues.

On Sunday we drove to Cromford, in Derbyshire, for a day out. A walk along the canal, a stroll around the town and finally a visit to the beautiful Scarthin Books to hear an author talk. It was a lovely way to spend a misty and cold day, with vegan cake in the cafe at the bookshop and a really interesting talk by author and anarchist academic Matthew Wilson. I don't often mention Thomas's work here, so for those who don't know, he's a PhD student researching how social media and online networks provide opportunities for radical protest groups to organise themselves in a non-hierarchical way. Anyway, Thomas knows Matt through work and even I, as someone who is quite disconnected from organised forms of activism now, found his talk and the discussion it provoked fascinating. 

This week was also a week of parcels: I sent two clothes swap parcels, a craft swap package, a couple of gifts for my Pay It Forward people and quite a few ASOS returns. But I also received exciting post in return, in the shape of these amazing hand-crocheted collars from Elise! How cute is the little vintage button on the pink one? I can't wait to wear them. Later in the week, I received my #DICraft Swap parcel from Gemma, which was weird because she was me gift-giver for Char's Christmas blogger swap, too. Luckily, she always chooses gifts wisely so I was happy to see she'd sent to me again.

Finally, we ended the week with a couple of days away at Walton Hall in Warwickshire, after I found a super-cheap online deal. The hotel was extremely swish, so much so that I was worried we were lowering the tone somewhat. A 3am fire alarm wasn't the ideal addition to our mini-break, but luckily we were able to go back to bed pretty quickly. I'd really recommend The Hotel Collection chain: they often have amazing deals and their hotels, while not all quite as fancy as Walton Hall, are reliably nice and friendly (and no, this isn't sponsored, I just like recognising good service when I see it).

Now I'm heading into the weekend with a stack of sewing to do, a Ryan Adams gig to look forward to tomorrow, a book to bury my head in, and a determination not to think about work until Sunday night.