Living the Good Life in Venice!

I have just come back from a wonderful holiday with my family. It was the first time since I left home 8 years ago that I have spent a whole week with my parents and brother - it was lovely!! Of course Mr Plum and my brother's girlfriend were also with us! It was a brilliant holiday!

We stayed in a beautiful apartment in the Dosoduro area of Venice (very close to the church in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ...) - there was a gelato shop opposite - perfect!

The weather was amazing ... we did lots of sightseeing, lazing on the beach, eating gelato, drinking prosecco, watching opera, eating more gelato, pizza and spaghetti ... and generally having a wonderful time!

Venice is such a beautiful city ... and I appreciated this visit so much more than the school trip I went on when I was 14 ...

Here's some pics of me living the good life in Venice (if anyone from Joules is reading ... I would be happy to be a model for Joules - ha ha ha!!) ...

M4 Playlist

After a particularly bad and busy day at work, me and Mr Plum headed off to Wales for the weekend on the National Express bus ... to visit some dear friends who have escaped London!

The fact that I had had a bad day (why do I have to go to work anyway?), was sitting by the heater on a packed bus with a really loud woman behind me on the phone and we seemed to be stuck in traffic for hours, inspired this playlist:

From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea - The Cure

Truth Rest Your Head - Gene

Time - Marion

To You I Bestow - Mundy

Always: Your Way - My Vitriol

Today - Smashing Pumpkins

How Soon Is Now? - The Smiths

My Dark Star - Suede

Tear In Your Hand - Tori Amos

Comes As No Surprise - Mansun

Dirty Davey - The Levellers

Lipgloss - Pulp

Every You and Every Me - Placebo

Play Dead - Bjork

The Only Living Boy in New Cross - Carter USM

Round Here - Counting Crows

Life On Mars? - David Bowie

Only Happy When It Rains - Garbage

A Girl Like You - Edwin Collins

Life Forever - Oasis

Single Girl - Lush

Great Things - Echobelly

These are lots of my favourite songs and mainly stuff that I listened too non-stop while at University in Wales ... it got me through a boring bus journey!

Plum's On Tour - Paris

We recently went to Paris with my wonderful family for the weekend, to celebrate Mummy Plum's birthday...it was lovely! The weekend was taken up with sight-seeing and eating - what more could you want?

One of the highlights was a trip to Mariage Freres a beautiful tea shop just off the Rue du Rivoli. Mariage Freres are the creators of the delicious Marco Polo jelly - served in Claridges with their afternoon tea.  We could have spent hours in the shop looking at the teas, jellies, chocolates .... it was lovely and old worldy!  We were very restrained and got some Marco Polo jelly and tea and some special Christmas tea and jelly ... which will be saved until Christmas of course!  

Have a look at the Mariage Freres website ... it has a very interesting "history of tea" and apparently the French drink on average, 100 cups a year ... I get through that amount a week!!

Don't think we can wait to taste the Marco Polo jelly, I'm off to bake some scones!!!