A wonderful, mad, crazy week • The MADs 2014

On January 1st this year we said to each other we were going to slow life down more this year. Less travelling, less Sunday nights spent unpacking the car and carrying sleepy boys into bed and lazy Saturdays at home, in pjs.

Well. we are now almost in October and life is as hectic as ever!

But I wouldn't change it for the world. I started the week full of nervous excitement and ended it in the same way! On Tuesday we watched our emails, waiting for the all important, "It's official" message from our solicitor to say the forever house was finally ours forever. And earlier than expected, before I had even left Weston to head towards Somerset to the estate agent, to be ready to collect the keys, a short and sweet email popped up saying, "It is yours....!"

Mum headed to the estate agent and I headed to the house to meet my in laws with Rich and Ollie following from Weston after pre school.

All three of them tooted like a fanfare as I turned the key in the door! 

In 48 hours we had pulled up carpets, uncovering a beautiful oak herringbone floor in the sitting room, hired a sander and started bringing the floorboards in our room and the boy's room back to life and filled a skip in almost 10 minutes flat.

We all sat with plastic glasses of champagne, on camping chairs, with fish and chips on our laps taking in the garden (which I still can't believe is really ours) and toasted the start of a new adventure! I can't thank them all enough, the house needs.... well....more than a lick of paint and they all just got stuck in, cleaning, ripping down old partitions, running errands and entertaining boys! And then my sister, Andrew and Yasmin came to visit with a croquet house warming set! 

But it's ours. And now we have all the time in the world to bring new life into it. 

Then from sanding and painting I whizzed up to London (complete with my hair in heated rollers in the car) to celebrate with all the Finalists in the MAD Blog Awards. I shimmied into a sparkly number in the car as we approached the hotel (classy I know) and ran up to join everyone at the champagne reception.

It is both wonderful and surreal to be in a room with all the people you talk to online. Lots of hugs and kisses and giggly hellos! I love it!

I had the pleasure of sitting for the dinner with lots of bloggers I hadn't met before and our table definitely gave the loudest cheers of the night! Go Emma and Lori! It's a night to celebrate the hard work that everyone puts into their blogs and it does make me laugh to look around the room and see the majority glued to their phones! 

It was a complete honour to hear my name called as the winner of the photography award. It is incredible to win again this year and I feel so lucky! I have worked hard this year to try and challenge myself technically and creatively and it is amazing to have all my love for photography rewarded by my peers. Plus the competition was stiff! Annie, Katie, Charly and Helene, you are all talented photographers and I was very lucky to win this year. 

I wished I could have stayed the night, brought my camera and had had longer with all the lovely bloggers, (A big shout out to the adorable Jenny for my beautiful vintage serving spoon - what a sweet gift!) but we had to head back to my in laws in Poole for an overnight pitstop, we got back at 3am, and then raced off to the house on Saturday morning for more DIY. 

A million thank yous to everyone who voted, for everyone who puts up with being friends with and family of a woman in love with blogging and to Rich for driving me home, having spent the evening pottering around London on his own. 

I have felt so loved by the blogging community this year, so supported and showered with kindness. As I said in my speech on stage, we get to share the worst of times and the best of times, and this is one of the absolute best!