Melbourne: In my Beauty Bag

I have just returned from a wonderful holiday in Melbourne, and this is the first of many posts about my trip. I returned yesterday morning, so am still a little jetlagged, so lets start with the basics: what I took with me!

I've probably mentioned before my efforts to destash my bathroom cabinets, so I bought as little as possible for my trip, choosing to take with me a few half finished goodies so that I could throw them out once and for all. This resulted in an empty L'Occitane Precious Cream and one Eucerin Hyaluron Filler Day Cream, both lovely rich face creams. I particularly like the Eucerin product because it contains SPF15, but I am not particularly loyal to any one brand when it comes to moisturiser so will continue to hunt around for the best for me. I've still got my Ainhoa and Avon night oil to work through for now but am always looking for recommendations for a good all-rounder, so do let me know if you've got any tips.

Just before my trip, I popped to the Boots Get Out There (#Bootsgetoutthere) event for bloggers which gave a great overview of the products on hand from Boots this summer, that are there to help you look and feel your best this summer s that you 'get out there' and enjoy yourself in the summer sun! It was a great showcase of the products available to help you feel confident and safe this summer. I took away with me some Soltan Protect & Tan Ultra-Light Texture Suncare Spray to trial on my trip, and I have to say it's a great product, completely non-greasy, easy to apply, with real protection, and it's half price at the moment along with some other great products in the range! Its slimline bottle also meant it was easy to carry around for reapplication during the day.

Soltan goodies on display

 Another favourite of mine was the Boots No7 Stay Perfect nail colour in Stand Back, which I applied on day one of my trip. It actually did 'Stay Perfect' well into the second week of my trip, and the fun shade also went fabulously with my sandals (Primark 2011)! A steal at £6.

No7 Stand Back

When I wear sandals or flip flops for the first time after a few months of hiding my feet away, they are horribly prone to blisters again, no matter how comfy those same sandals had become the previous year. When we landed at Melbourne, my toes were horribly blistered already from the ancient flip-flops I'd been wearing. The weather wasn't so hot on that first Sunday so as soon as I got into my hotel I wrapped them up in my Converse and let them heal. When I wanted to wear sandals again, I sprayed my feet quickly with Boots Blister Prevent Spray for the first couple of wears, and remained blister-free for the remainder of the trip. I'd definitely recommend this spray to keep the blisters at bay, at £5.49, it's worth it to save that agony!

These are some products that will be sticking with me all summer, I am looking forward to hearing about more great products that have impressed you this summer too....

Tired of London...As if

Spring has sprung, the sun is out, I am as happy as can be! Yesterday I had an absolutely lovely, lovely day with one of my besties, Laurel. After a leisurely start to the day with the boy, and a trip to the post office to post my latest book swaps and get him some Euros for his trip to Belgium, I headed over to Liverpool Street to meet lovely Laurel and check out Judy's at Spitalfields to check out the wares. We didn't buy anything on this occasion but did grab an amazing peanut butter cupcake from Betty-Lou's Bakery which we devoured between us, simply stunning! The next Judy's at Spitalfields is 4th May.

Pillow fight in Trafalgar Square

We got the tube to Temple and had a coffee, before heading to the National Gallery via Trafalgar Square where there was a massive flash-mob pillow fight going on! Much fun to behold. We soaked up some culture in the National Gallery, we'd never been before, I didn't know how the stunning it is inside with its glorious ceilings, we got told off for trying to take photos, but here's a snippet from Flickr....check it out!

We wandered up to the Japan Centre, then checked out Paxton and Whitfield on Jermyn Street, one of the oldest cheese shops in London, which is incredible. We then spent a good hour in Waterstones on Picadilly ogling the fiction, art, travel and craft books.

The main reasons for getting together this fine weekend were to go to Judy's, and then to go to the Clueless Quote-Along at Prince Charles Cinema, so we grabbed our tickets before enjoying a Cafe Rouge dinner complete with vino. There's currently a deal on O2 Priority Moments to get one main meal and a second for £1, so we took advantage of this, I had their Poulet Breton and Laurel the Aubergine Gratin, delicious! On the subject of the O2, there's also a deal to get a free bag of Percy Pigs in Marks and Spencers, just buy showing them a code, get them before they're gone!

After more wine at LVPO (happy hour 5-9!) we headed to the cinema, full of excitement for the film. We met two other like-minded ladies who kindly took this photo of us (below), and Laurel and Jess took part in the competition they had at the start, where Laurel came away with Stranger Than Fiction on DVD. The film was amazing, if you're a Clueless fan (and who isn't?!) I would highly recommend going along to the next one on 31st May, so much fun! Next on the list is Anchorman.

Whatever...

Today I checked out Capital Car Boot in Pimlico, it was a lovely day for it. I didn't buy anything, but I would go back. It's £1 entry and there's a decent split between traders and people genuinely clearing out their homes, so while nothing to catch my eye this time, there were plenty of bargains to be had. It was such a nice day so I wandered around and ended up at the Southbank where I text my boss to tell her how aaazing Clueless was, and she invited me around for a cuppa as she only lives down the road. We ended up going straight back out for a spot of brunch at Ev's nearby which was incredible. We both had a eggs with feta, soooo tasty, it comes with a coffee and delicious bread so was a snip at £4.95, highly recommended.

Eggs at Ev's

It's so easy to get stuck in a bit of a rut in life and falling into the trap of going to work, spending the evenings at home and wasting weekends away. Now that it's summertime (sort of) I am determined to make the most of the extra hours sunlight, and being in London. We talked a lot yesterday about all the things we wanted to do this summer, like go to Burger and Lobster, check out the Museum of Childhood, go on a boat trip along the Thames, spend an afternoon in the bookshops of Charing Cross Road, head to Kew Gardens and Richmond... What's on your to-do list this summer?

A foodie Easter

Easter and the week leading up to it has been a lazy one. I still had the remainder of a bad cold last weekend when I locked myself out on Sunday afternoon when doing the food shop (Boy went out while I was out shopping, I hadn't taken my key), so two extra hours in the cold made my cold come back with a vengeance. I worked on Monday but was good for nothing, so spent Tuesday and Wednesday in bed, dosed up with Day Nurse, chicken soup and as much Vitamin C I could soak up.

I've been trying really hard to eat better in general and look after myself, so I am less susceptible to these things. I've recently been obsessed with The Londoner's recipes. Rosie's Skinny Shrimp Curry, Skinny Spaghetti and Epic Fish Tacos were all on the menu this week. All really easy to make, honestly, the prawn curry is the first curry I've ever made and not stuffed up. I served it up with bulgar wheat, a lower-calorie, higher-fibre alternative to rice.

The skinny spaghetti recipe is basically chilli con carne served with cabbage as spaghetti, which sounds lame but actually works really well and will be something I do a lot more often to save myself from the bloat . The cooking times for that recipe are long, I didn't read it right so had already started cooking when it said "leave for an hour before chucking in... and then leave for a further hour". I didn't. It was already 18:30 and I was already ill, hungry and just wanted to eat. I reduced those times to 20 mins each and it was still tasty as anything. Maybe I will try for the optimum marinations when I have more time. I also made this with turkey mince rather than beef, lower in fat and usually cheaper. The fish tacos...are well, epic. We are having them again tonight, for the 4th time in about 3 weeks, I love them. Cannot get enough, if I was to recommend any of these recipes over the others, it would be that one.

The Londoner's Skinny Shrimp Curry 

 Luckily I felt better on Thursday, well enough to go back to work, albeit with Day Nurse by my side. A lot is going on at work at the moment so it was hectic, but I made it through the day and came home to make some Easter cookies. My friend had bought me some Easter cookie cutters years ago which I still hadn't got round to using, so we whipped up some biscuits according to the Hummingbird Bakery recipe for Sugar Cookies, and iced them in green (because green was the only food colouring I had).

On Good Friday, we hopped on a train to Burton-On-Trent, to see our friends who recently moved there. Tasha and Martin met through us two years ago, and got married last October. I was a bridesmaid, and the Boy an usher at their wedding last year, but time and distance means we don't get to see each other nearly enough. This Easter, we rectified this with a lazy weekend of food, drink and laughs in the Midlands.

Nacho preparation, accompanying Fajita Friday

Martin's incredible burgers.

The best roast dinner I've ever eaten.

Besides eating, there was much drinking to be done, and napping, and watching Disney films (Fantasia and Beauty and The Beast were our choices). We caught up, snuggled, played Cranium and laughed til our faces hurt. Luckily Martin and Tash have this furry fella, Roger, otherwise we'd not have moved at all all weekend.

Roger

The River Trent at Washlands

A walk along the canal (finished off with a pint or two of course)

 We've just got back to London, and I feel relaxed and rejuvenated, but also indulged and a little bit chubbier. Back to walking to work tomorrow and a little bit of holding back to deflate my waistline! Easter brought with it the start of good old British Summer Time, and while there's still a definite chill in the air (and in some parts still snow on the ground) when I turned myself to the sun yesterday I definitely felt some warmth and it felt good. I had even come out in freckles by the time I go to a mirror! Time to stop hibernating and get outside and start living!

A Parisian Birthday

THE Tower

Back in January, we booked a super cheap Eurostar deal to Paris for my birthday. It was only £59 return each, which was the cheapest I've ever seen it, and too good an opportunity to miss (although Eurostar are currently doing £69 return which is almost as good!). I was looking forward to this trip so much and this Wednesday it finally came! Being frugal as ever, we booked an early train on the Wednesday, and a late train coming back on Thursday so we could have two full days and only have to pay for one night in a hotel.

It was really nice of Eurostar to give his beard a free ticket

On day one, we walked everywhere, from Gare du Nord to the Arc du Triomphe, down the Champs Elysees, detouring to the Eiffel Tour (yup, walked up that too), back to the Champs Elysees and the Petit Palais (where there is free admission to the  permanent collections, stunning paintings by artists such as Nicholas de Largilliere, and amazing ceilings), along the Rue De Rivoli via the Louvre, to Le Marais and ending up at the Pompidou Centre before retiring to our hotel.

The Ceiling in the Petit Palais - breathtaking

One day two, we walked everywhere once again! Down from the hotel to Notre Dame, back up to the Rue de Rivola where we breakfasted at Angelina on their divine hot chocolate (basically: chocolate, melted) and a pastry (well, it was my birthday). Angelina is an infamous, gorgeous old tearoom, with queues out of the door at times and now we know why. We tried to get in on Wednesday afternoon but their was a long queue which the guidebook had warned us of. I am glad we went back to try our luck earlier on the second day as we walked straight in with no wait.

The signature Mont Blanc pastry

After that we walked to Montmartre to take in more stunning views of Paris from the Sacred Coeur before meandering back into central Paris with the sorest legs ever.

The Sacred Coeur

We ate some fantastic food, the crepes at Houblon & Sarrasin, near our hotel particularly stood out for me, alongside the delights of Angelina. Otherwise on the agenda, was plenty of beer, vin rouge and CHOCOLAT. Some of the goodies we took home were a meringue as big as my face and some Ovomaltine spread which we'd bought on a previously holiday to France and just had to have more of. We also bought some tea and coffee from the decadent Fauchon, which we were completely giddy over. Get this: salted caramel butter tea and noisette coffee. I know, right?! They both smell and taste amazing, best thirteen euros I've ever spent.

Giant Meringue and friends

We had booked Best Western Hotel Faubourg Saint Martin in the vicinity of Gare de L'Est, and it wasn't disappointing. While our room on the first floor was fairly small with a low ceiling, it was well decorated and clean, and came equipped with an iPod dock (not ideal for two Android users, but a nice touch nonetheless) and a Krups coffee machine. It wasn't noisy, despite being located near a fair few restaurants and bars, and was a perfect base for our one-night stay. The stay was £77.29, booked through Agoda, without breakfast.

The trip was great, two days was enough time to see everything, although it would be great to go back for longer and really take it all in. The Louvre is so very big that we didn't feel that we'd get our money's worth from the admission fee as we were so pushed for time so we spent some time admiring the scale of it, but didn't bother queuing and entering. Neither of us had been to Paris before in our adult lives, we'd been taken as children we were too young to remember. I'm looking forward to digging out the 1989 photo album the next time I visit my parents.

Nothing in Paris is particularly cheap, we managed spent about £250 in two days on eating and drinking, a few insignificant souvenirs, and the only thing we paid admission for was the Eiffel Tour. But it's such a charming city, with awe-inspiring architecture at every turn, and we really enjoyed scratching its surface.  My Lonely Planet Pocket Paris guide served us really well too, thanks LP, I know I can always count on you!

For shopping, we enjoyed exploring the stunningly decandent Galeries Lafayette and Printemps department stores, just look at this picture from inside the former.

Galeries Lafayette - Debenhams it ain't.

I also relished having a good oold squizzy in Sephora (all the while whinging that we don't have it in the UK anymore). The Bearded One treated me to some bits for my birthday, including a caramel candle, some oil blotting papers, some handbag breath spray (sexy) and an exfoliating disc for my face and they threw in some samples too, which I am looking forward to trying.

What do we want? Sephora UK! When do we want it? NOW

It would be lovely to go back for a good week with money being no object...maybe in a few years?

Too many books, too little time...

I am in love with books. I can't stop buying them, collecting them, hoarding them. I reckon if I stopped working tomorrow due some unimaginable windfall, I'd still not be able to get through all the books I want to read/pore over in my lifetime. 

Fictionwise, I don't really buy books, I swap them. ReadItSwapIt is a great site, where you can list all of your books, then swap them with other users. They can request from your list and you see if there's anything they have that you want, and vice verse. Then you post them to each other, which means effectively new books for around £2.20 a piece. Brilliant! I've got a little obsessed with the site, I've had to ban myself from trawling it, although I do have certain books on my wishlist, so if they come up I get an email notification and I can pop onto the site and request them. Here's my list of books available for swapping. My current pile of books to read looks like this:

It's quite daunting, and yet I keep going to Foyles and making mental lists of the ones I want next. I can't stop myself. I also have so many beautiful craft, travel and recipe books, and combined with the fiance who collects comics, we have built up quite a collection. They are all stored, double stacked along with DVDs and games in our IKEA storage unit - you'll see that the left hand side is pretty much his side!

We currently flat-share, and will be for another year and a halfish until he finishes uni then we get married and set up a home again - when we lived in Sheffield we were living together as a couple for 5 years in much larger properties than London rents will allow, so it's been really hard to go back to living with other people, especially when that other person is really minimalist and doesn't understand why we like having so much stuff! When she moves in with her boyfriend is May, another friend is moving in who loves books as much as I do, so I am looking forward to not feeling guilty about owning stuff.

When we are settled and married, and of course rich, I look forward to having our books proudly displayed like this:

Design Milk

Feedfurniture

The latest in my collection, on my mind and on my wishlist are in the travel category.I am going to Paris this week for my birthday, which I am really looking forward to, I've not been to Paris as an adult so I can't wait.  I am also going to Melbourne in May! I am going with my mum and we booked it last week, we're going for 2 weeks to see my sister who is living there for a year. I am so excited to be going to the Actual Other Side of the World and to see my little sister for the first time since July last year!

Yesterday I trawled every charity shop between Archway and Covent Garden for travel books for these destination. I finally had some luck in the British Heart Foundation shop where I got this Lonely Planet guide to Melbourne for just £1, it's the 2002 edition, but the geography remains the same, and my sister can fill us in on the latest places to eat and shop. On the Paris front I admitted defeat in the charity shops and bought a mini guide by Lonely Planet from Foyles. I also have pictured above some books I got last Christmas, Markets of Paris, and Paris Made By Hand. I probably won't take these two with me as they'll weigh me down but I'm going to pore over them until our trip.

I also have a little obsession with the Wallpaper Travel Guides by Phaidon. I love that they come in different colours and can't stop buying them whenever I see them, even if I have no plans to go to that country any time soon! Gaps I have in my collection for places I have actually been to are Tallinn (I don't think they have one yet), Beijing and Shanghai, and now Melbourne, if I don't acquire it in the next couple of months! Here's my collection so far.

We also spent a large amount of time yesterday in the enormous Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road, where they have a stunning selection of books. I found this beauty: 36 Hours: USA & Canada, West Coast, produced by The New York Times which is a now firm feature on my wishlist as we are hoping to do a road trip for our honeymoon next Summer.

Tokyo 2012

In September 2012, I went to Tokyo with my Fiance. It was his 30th birthday and we wanted to celebrate with a trip to remember, and with him being an avid video gamer and me being obsessed with the kitsch and cute, where better to go than the Metropolis that is Tokyo?!

Tokyo Tower

View of stormy Tokyo from Metropolitan Government Building

We flew via Hong Kong, and spent the first week staying at Hotel Montery Hanzomon which was a great place in a quiet location not far from the western side of the Imperial Palace. The hotel was 3* and worked out about £75-£80 a night. It was quiet and peaceful in the hotel, but we didn't do much there apart from sleep as we wanted to see as much as possible. We didn't opt for breakfast as it was about £15 additional quid a day, so mostly we ate on the go or took early lunches. Food in Tokyo is pretty reasonable, and we were on a bit of a budget so opted for their fast food options a lot of the time - though I mean Japanese fast food, not American! You could get a decent portion of Katsu curry or Ramen for around £3-4 each so that was most of our lunches sorted, then we spent a little more in the evenings. Some places even have vending machines outside with pictures of the food so you could press a button and pay, then take your ticket to the counter, which is great for non-Japanese speakers like us! The sheer volume of restaurants was astounding. You could walk past a building that looked much like an office block with 6-8 stories but then find it had a restaurant or two on every floor. One warning though is that sometimes the lifts would open right into a tiny restaurant so by the time you'd walked out you'd already be greeted and seated, with no time to decide if you actually want to eat there or not! Booze was a lot more expensive than I thought it would be, in China we paid about 20p for a large bottle of beer, but in most bars they were at least £4-5 for a tankard. We often took some canned sours drinks back the hotel with us for a low-key drink in our rooms.

If this is fast food....

The second week we stayed at the Andon Ryokan, where the rooms were more traditional, with futons that you rolled out yourselves and straw mats on the floor. The lobby area was modern, with WiFi and a fridge of beer and facilities to cook for yourselves although we never took that option. The place is located further north, close to the Asakusa area where there are more traditional temples than fancy modern architecture. The staff were really helpful, great at offering advice and directions and the cost was more modest at around £55 a night. In hindsight, we could have stayed there for the whole time, as it was a much more intimate atmosphere than the hotel which was more faceless, but before travelling we didn't know what to expect, and worried about comfort in the guesthouse so opted for a hotel with a "real" bed so we knew we'd get some proper sleep.

Rainbow in Ginza

I'm not going into a day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of everything we did in Tokyo, here are just some of my highlights.

See? Ridiculous

Tokyo Disney! I spent all day smiling! It was quieter when we arrived and got much busier, with enormous queues even though we went midweek, but I loved taking the Boyf on "It's a Small World" which I remembered from Disneyland Paris and really enjoyed the Pirates! ride and the incredible Captain EO 3D film with Michael Jackson! The shops were great too, loads of great Disney merchandise, I got a ridiculous Marie hat/scarf/glove combo which I haven't dared to even wear yet! The light parade at the end was really special. The tickets cost about £50 each so it wasn't cheap and I think the Boyf was a little apprehensive about going but we both had an amazing day, our faces hurt from grinning ear to ear for the entire duration!

Kiddyland / Hanuhinken  - both amazing toyshops in Harajuku/Ginza respectively. We had so much fun in there, me with the Hello Kitty and Rilakuma goodies and Boy with the Transformers and Lego! I found so many gorgeous bento boxes and wanted to buy them all but they were quite expensive. I ended up settling on this adorable Rilakkuma set (Rilakkuma is a very cute, but grumpy bear by Sanrio).

Golden Kitty!

My friend had asked me to get her as much bento stuff as I could but I knew there must be some better value bits out there, so I kept on hunting and eventually I found a great 100yen (80p) shop in Shibuya, where I got her (and myself) some really sweet bento items, and now she's looking forward to competitive mumming when her little boys starts nursery! He will be the only one with flags in his food and little rice balls! I also got myself and my parents a little Japanese ceramic cat from Daiso, another chain of 100yen shops in Harajuku. I didn't want to spend too much on my parents as I spent a lot on some gorgeous carved wooden chopsticks for them in China which they admired and then promptly gave back because they don't use chopsticks, ungrateful sods! Here we also stocked up on sweets to take back to work with us.

Rilakkuma Bento!

Kiddyland also has a sponsored street underneath Tokyo station where there is a shop for each of the popular characters, Hello Kitty, Rilakkuma and many more we hadn't heard of before. A lot of time was spent here buying souvenirs for relatives. I had been told about it by a Twitter friend, and I am glad she told me as it was quite hard to find, we probably wouldn't have found it off our own bats.It was next door to Ramen Street, an underground street full of....noodles! We found a great shop down here which sold a lot of Japanese confectionery where we found KitKats in amazing flavours like Wasabi and Cayenne Pepper - both delicious!

Tokyo Station by night

On the subject of food, when in Tokyo, one must visit the big department stores' food halls, they are like museums! So much beautifully presented confectionery and bento! Mitsukoshi in the heart of Ginza was a favourite .

Books from Tokyo

I also really enjoyed Kinokuniya bookshop in Shinjuku. I love books, and they have an amazing floor where they keep their English books and art and craft books. We walked away with some stunning graphic art books and a Hello Kitty guide to learning Japanese, sooo kitsch! We also went to the antique books area near Akihabara where I got a vintage Japanese quilt magazine for my flatmate and I picked up some really sweet craft books and a guidebook for London in Japanese, which was possibly a purchase even more ridiculous than my Aristocats hat, but completely necessary!

At this point it sounds like all I do is shop, how dreadful! Here's some culture bits:

Dolls representing stillborn babies, Zojo-ji Temple

Saki barrels at Meiji Temple, Harajuku

Sensoji Harajuku

Asakusa is the traditional district which seemed to be stuffed with temples and pagodas (and a market, but I managed to avoid spending at all there!), and despite being stuffed with tourists like us, I found it was surprisingly peaceful. Another haven of peace was the nearby Sumida Park, next to the river. The Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka was also exceptional. You have to buy tickets in your country of origin prior to going, and they only have a set number of visitors each day. The first room was the most impressive with some amazing models showing scenes from the films. There is also a room upstairs covered with artwork from the films, which are stunning, and your ticket will include a screening of a short film which nobody outside the museum has seen.

Hibiya Park Garden Installations

View of Skyscrapers from Imperial Palace Gardens right before a  storm

Imperial Palace

Hibiya Park was also a highlight, it's a beautiful park right in the centre of Tokyo, but is so peaceful and tranquil. While we were there they had a competition for garden design, and there were loads of miniature gardens for the public to admire. We also found the nearby Godzilla statue, which was a lot smaller than I thought it would be! We spent a lot of time walking around the Imperial Palace Gardens and got caught in a  hailstorm, huddling together under our umbrella in the middle of this historic sight was memorable! There is a section of the gardens which you can enter but we went on the last day of our trip, a Friday, and unfortunately it is closed on Fridays. Ueno Park is also enormous and beautiful, and home to many of Tokyo's museums and a small zoo.

Ueno Park

My culture section seems a lot shorter than my shopping section, oh dear! When I go somewhere new, I want to be able to bring back with me as many reminders of my stay as possible, and I certainly feel we did that! There was so much more that I wanted to bring back but was running out of money and was getting paranoid about my baggage allowance (as it happens, I ended up with 3kg to spare, and was full of regret that I hadn't utilised it)!

That was lengthy! Everything about Tokyo was amazing, I loved every inch of it, even the crazy-busy bits. I want to go back the first chance I get. From now on I will just have to get my cute dosage from Super Cute Kawaii instead.

This year brings a trip to Paris for my birthday in March which we booked last night via Eurostar. We are going early on a Wednesday, staying one night and heading back on the Thursday which is my birthday. I can't wait, I am so excited! I am also hoping to go to Melbourne with mum around May but this depends on whether dad needs a back operation and when it will be. Fingers crossed!

A Polish Christmas

My mother's parents were both Polish, they escaped during the Second World War via Sweden where my Uncle was born, Scotland where my mum was born and then had six months living in Argentina before finally settling in London. For fear of being arrested, they never went back to their homeland. Nan worked as a bookkeeper on Fleet Street and Granddad worked for British Rail, they got a decent sized house in Southh West London, which my Grandmother at 91 still lives in (Granddad died in August 1991).

Like many Europeans, for Poles, the Christmas celebration was on Christmas Eve, so every year we'd drive up to my Nan's from Kent. With my cousins and aunts and uncles, she'd do a full Polish Christmas dinner for us, complete with herring, breaded fish, potatoes and bigos, and poppyseed cake for dessert (eurrgh!). After that, we'd open our presents from that side of the family then head home, before celebrating a British style Christmas at home on the 25th.

As the years went on, the dinner stopped, as cooking for 12 people was all too much and we'd go for coffee and cake instead, but now, Nan isn't really able to do much as the host, and the tradition has stopped altogether, and my Uncle's family prefers to take holidays in the UAE at Christmas, so Nan comes to us, along with my Dad's mum, all the way from the Black Country.

This year Nanny Kiki (so-called as that's what she called me when I was a baby) had a heart attack the weekend before Christmas and spent the 9 days in the run-up to Christmas in hospital. Her hearing is dreadful and her memory worse, but she loves to talk and is always cheerful. She had us very much on edge all over Christmas though with sudden gasps and grunts, and I felt I shouted "ARE YOU OK?" more than I said anything else! What I love about my Nan is her relentless cheeriness, even though it's repetitive, her most used words are "unbelievable", "lucky", "amazing".

Nan probably won't be in her own home much longer. The vast amount of medication she was given is too much for her to remember to take properly, the stairs in the house are steep and it's all becoming a bit of a worry. For years my mum has been doing the Christmas shopping for her, as it's difficult to get to the shops, find the gifts we want and carry them all home. This year my mum bought me on her behalf the stunning Rose Petal Jam Polish cookbook by Beata Zatorska and Simon Target which I thought was a particularly thoughtful given the circumstances.

My Nan may be with us for many years to come, or this heart attack may be signalling that her rich life is coming to an end, and even though she didn't choose this book for me herself, I can remember her by it.

2 days after Christmas, Nanny P went home from our house, and on the very next day, she fell over and broke her ankle. If it doesn't rain it pours (all this follows my Dad's back injury which he is still recovering from)! She is 96, and is very, very immobile anyway, so it's unlikely that she will recover well and will probably need to go into a home too. I am glad we go to spend Christmas with them both at home this year, and in subsequent years we can make the best of whatever the situation is.

I grabbed a handful of old photos from Nan's house yesterday. Unfortunately I don't know who's who in most of them. With my grandparents escape to the UK, I never knew my other older relatives or their friends. That's them at the back, top left.