And finally... What I bought in France

This is the last post about my holiday, I swear! I like to spread things out in order to showcase each day and each outfit that I photographed, so it takes a while to get through everything. As I'm writing this in the middle of June I already know I've got a busy few weeks coming up, so god only knows when all my scheduled posts will stop. Oh well!

Anyway, here's what I bought while I was in France. We did well, actually, buying little other than food and drink. Oh and we also brought some chocolate home that we can't get here - like lime dark chocolate, and a bar with chocolate mousse in! I didn't take photos of those though.

One thing about me is that I love French soap like this. My mum usually buys some for me and this time was no different. One stall at Brantome market was selling five soaps for ten euros, so I got these and my mum got two for herself. Mine are cherry, verbena, and eucalyptus. They all smell so good.

I got this in a little jewellery shop in Angouleme. The owls had been reduced to one euro so were a bargain!

Here's what I bought in Sephora. I love shower gel so Lee's reasoning was to buy a little pot of each of them for a euro each rather than a big bottle of just one. The flavours are mango, cotton flower, monoi, cherry blossom, green tea, and lagoon. I also got this gorgeous highlighter which was pretty spendy but is so pretty, and this lilac nail polish as I don't have a Sephora nail polish.

I love Yves Rocher and always like to go in them when I see one. I bought this verbena shower gel (you can tell I like both verbena and shower gel, can't you?) and these five bath cubes which I'll take on holiday later in the year. These were all cheap, I think it was about eight euros for these.

I found this washi tape in a weird, British type of shop in Angouleme. It was one euro forty (I've no idea how to do a euro sign on a keyboard...) and is so cute

And finally, I bought myself a purse on Brantome market. I haven't had a new purse in ages and really liked this rainbow one. It was six euros, I think.

Holiday to France - travelling home

I've got just a few photos of travelling home. I don't like flying, but it's by far the best way to travel in terms of time taken. I packed my tablet in my handbag so that I could easily read, and I made sure I had sweets to suck at take off, both of which make me feel a lot better about everything. I actually don't mind once we're in the air. No one is comfortable while flying, especially not in a cramped, sold out Ryanair flight, but at least it doesn't last long!

Anyway, just a few photos of being in the air. I had a window seat and was next to my mum.

Here's Jen and I at Limoges airport. It is a teeny tiny airport with nothing to do, so sitting and drinking is pretty much all you can do

Taking off from France

The northern coast of France - a bientot, until next time!

Clouds in the sky

And finally,. here's the UK. On the way out we went over Southampton, but on the way back we flew over London. You can see the river and the Millenium Dome here! I liked that quite a bit. 

What I Wore 10th June

This is what I wore to travel home from France in. I had taken this dress as I had never worn it, so I was determined to. In fact, it even still had the tags on it. I know I got it from Simply Be, but I couldn't say when. It is a Joe Brown's dress so it'll have been in the sale as I rarely pay full price for them. I didn't wear it while we were away, but decided to wear it to travel home as the day was hot and I knew I'd be all hot and bothered on the way.

It's a cotton dress with one of those crinkly styles that make it perfect for travelling in. It has an elasticated waist and this cute faux button top. I wore it with my pink cardigan which made the pink roses on the dress pop. I found it really comfortable and I'll definitely wear it again. It has drawstrings on the shoulders in case you wanted to make them thinner.

I wore my Dunlop trainers to travel in because they're so comfortable and I knew I'd be in need of that!

We took this photo just as we were leaving the gite. The sun was shining and I really wanted to stay!

Holiday to France - Friday afternoon

After our trip to the market we spent the afternoon in the pool and then, before we ate all the food we had left in the fridge, I took a few photos of the property. It is this property and I would utterly recommend it for a lovely place for a holiday. It's close enough to Limoges airport and to plenty of amenities, but it's also in the middle of nowhere and is incredibly peaceful. I would love to go back!

Lee was sweeping the pool cover before we got into it. We had had really heavy rains on Thursday night and it had blown tons of stuff into the pool.

Selfie taken while actually in the pool. I love this photo.

As the sun started to go down. We unfortunately got a hole in the rubber ring, although I'm hopeful it can be patched.

After my shower I put my new, spare glasses on. I love them, they're tortoiseshell

I had taken a new cross stitch on holiday and this is how far I got. It's a Winnie the Pooh one - you can see the beginning of Piglet at the bottom!

Joy and John have chickens and guests are invited to feed them. Here they were eating strawberry tops and were very hapy about it! I'd love to have some chickens, maybe if we had a bigger garden

Looking at the pool and the house. Our bedroom was the small window on the top left of the house.

So much greenery and space, I really loved it and felt really recharged and relaxed.

What I Wore 9th June evening

When we got back from Brantome we all spent the rest of the day around the pool, enjoying a last swim before we had to come home. Once again I had a shower and then put this dress on. I haven't worn it before although I bought it forever ago when Leah bought it too. I tried it on a couple of months ago but felt it was a bit too short and tight, but again, when I'm on holiday I just don't care as much. Having seen the photo I think it looks fine, so I think it's one of those dresses where I need to fake it til I make it!

It's a nice, cool cotton, and has a cute little pocket on the chest. It has a nice tie that I decided to tie at the front, but you could equally tie it at the back. I love the pattern and the colours!

Holiday to France - Day 7 - Brantome

As I said, we headed out on Friday of our holiday to visit the market in Brantome. Norman and Jen decided to stay at the gite, so the four of us went off in mine and Lee's car. We got there about half past ten and parked along with a million other people in the middle of a field. We walked across the river and down some pretty streets before finding the market. I could have spent a fortune, but just got a few bits. If we'd been earlier in the week I would have bought cheese and olives, but as we only had one evening left it wasn't worth it unfortunately.

Brantome is a really pretty town and the market is well stocked. We had lunch in a cafe in the market place, which was really delicious. I had the hugest salmon salad ever and a cafe liegois, my first and last of the holiday. Next time I really must eat more ice cream.

View of the river from the bridge

Brantome is kind of surrounded by water, a river and a canl, meaning that it's sort of on an island. It's cool, I liked it

I love French little towns

And French little streets

And water

These tomatoes were absolutely massive

And I wanted to buy cherries, but I didn't

The water here is part of the canal, and apparently the canal was made by the monks of the monastery just to the right of the photo, and the water wheel was theirs

This bridge was a strange one, it had to span both the river and the canal so had a cute little dog leg in it

Looking across at the market

Cheese stall

This van did shoe repairs!

Lee decided this was the most French thing he'd ever seen 

The monastery

All French towns have a Rue Victor Hugo and usually a Rue Henri IV too

Cheers! Kir Royale to drink

Look at this beast. It was so yummy. I ate a lot of salmon on holiday, which is absolutely not a problem

This little cat wanted some of our lunch so of course my mother and I gave it a titbit each

My cafe liegois. Coffee and vanilla ice cream, with cold coffee and chantilly cream. Delicious

Walking back over the river to go home

I liked the reflection in this photo. I like Brantome a lot!

What I Wore 9th June

On the last day of our holiday we headed to Brantome, a town not too far away, to visit the market. I've got a ton of photos from there, but my mum just added this one on Facebook which showed off my outfit, so I thought I'd post it. Well, my stepdad most likely added it, since my mum's at work, but hey.

I love this dress. It's from Asos and it's so odd. I get loads of compliments on it. I usually wear it with a green short sleeved cardigan but it wasn't clean after I'd worn it earlier in the week, so I put this pink one on instead. It's from Sainsburys and is really soft. I really like how it seems to lift the dress and make it look whiter maybe? I'm not sure. Definitely in love with this outfit, though.

My handbag is from Sainsburys too, I bought it a few weeks ago specifically for the holiday and it was really easy to carry but still fitted a lot in.

What I Wore 8th June

I wore this dress in the evening of the 8th, while on holiday. I find one of the worst things about holidays with pools is that I have to shower a lot more than I normally would to get the chlorine out of my hair, and then have to get dressed again - it's so annoying. I'm glad to be home and be able to let my hair does more what it likes!

Anyway, on the Thursday evening I put this dress on. I've worn it a few times before, like here, but for the past couple of years it's been in the back of the wardrobe as I felt like it was too short. However, I decided on holiday just at our cottage it didn't really matter, so I packed it and wore it anyway. It's really nice and cool, and I like the flounciness of it. I should just wear it anyway!

Holiday to France - Day 6

The Thursday of our holiday was forecast to be the hottest day, so we decided to stay in the gite and relax around the pool. It was hot and the sky was a gorgeous blue - if it had been like this all week my mum and I would have been happy, but everyone else would have complained it was too hot. Oh well! Here's some photos to make you jealous anyway (and myself to be honest as I'm not there right now)

My view of the sky from under the umbrella

View of the pool, again it was just so warm.

I had a different swimming outfit on. The tankini top was from Asos and has a wired bra top, which is a bit small for my boobs but oh well, and I was wearing black men's trunks from Marks & Spencer as bottoms. I was impressed because the tankini top didn't keep riding up while I was swimming and bouncing around. I took this photo and have had several comments on how nice my boobs look from friends - thanks!

The sun had this strange rainbow around it, isn't it pretty?

Lee and Jen reading in the shade

My mum sunbathing and Bettie about to float in the rubber ring

Later, we had a barbecue

My mum and stepdad

And finally, Lee and Bettie and Jen playing Scrabble by candlelight!