You know when you feel like you've been a very good girl this year? When a Harrods Hamper turns up on the doorstep. I might, yes might, have twirled at the postman.

It feels incredibly special and there's nothing quite like a hamper experience. A collection of beautiful products, all perfectly packaged and every layer feels just as luxurious as the next. It's just like a Mary Poppins bag of delicious food and drink with the prettiest bauble on top!

We are hosting Christmas this year and I will be using all of the goodies inside for our Christmas feast! You name it, it's in it, all wrapped in individual polystyrene slots, in divine, yet simple packaging. It makes you feel special, even if you are not a Christmas pudding fan.

This is just a hint of what's inside. 

These are, without doubt, the ultimate Christmas Hampers.  The ultimate gift for someone very special.

I have saved all sorts from this Knightsbridge Hamper for the big day itself but thought it would be lovely to test out a picnic loaf recipe for Boxing Day using some of the delicious chutneys and relishes.

I LOVE this idea. All your favourite leftovers encased in a crusty bread cave.

You can substitute any of the ingredients with what you have left in the fridge! I used:

• Pesto
• Chorizo
• Avocado
• Salami
• Harrods Pear Jam
• Sliced Turkey
• Shredded Beetroot
• Soft cheese
• Harrods Boxing Day chutney
• Sprout Surprise
• Harrods Mustard
• Sundried tomatoes
• Pesto pasta with pine nuts

Slice the top off your round loaf and scoop out the inside. Set aside and freeze if you want to or use for breadcrumbs or dunk in soup like we did!

Layer your sandwich and when full replace the top and wrap in cling film. Leave in a fridge for approximately 6 hours to let the layers settle. Top with salad when serving if your layers have dropped! 

Slice and serve at room temperature.

I added a couple of layers of our sprout surprise. We make this all year round, a snack to nibble on when cooking which is meant for the dinner table!

Slice your sprouts and sprinkle on a baking tray. Drizzle olive oil, soy sauce, a good dusting of salt and brown sugar. Bake at 180 degrees/Gas Mark 4 for 15 minutes until crispy. Enjoy!

Christmas has definitely come early this year and I can't wait to stuff this beautiful wicker box with snuggly blankets after we eat and drink our way through it over the festive period!

It couldn't be a more heavenly gift to send or receive. I've made up lots of my own in the past, with cellophane and pretty baskets but there's something about the history and heritage of the Harrods Christmas Hampers that just adds a new level of sparkle. 

In collaboration with Harrods

Yes to months that whizz by, especially when it's November! Because you know what that means... Christmas is coming! I adore the lead up to Christmas and it feels that this year everything festive has crept into the last couple of weeks of November.

All my work has been focussed on Christmas styling, updating seasonal imagery, making advent calendars and everywhere you look there's boxes with balloons, wreaths and baubles! I've squeezed in more trips to London than in the whole year into this month and have made some new friends in the online world.

You know when you just click, to the point you can almost hear a clunky sound?! Well that's how I feel. I've found a firm friend and confidante in Katy and it's been lovely to see her so much at press shows and events, to put the world to rights and bounce ideas off each other. 

I feel like I have been welcomed into a new world of blogging, meeting some of my favourite interiors bloggers and stylists and it's made me realise there's so much about the house I haven't shared. I hope you will enjoy some of my makeover and inspiration posts I have planned over the next month, so you can see how we are slowly transforming this old shell.

We spent a rather smelly week with the downstairs toilet soil pipe being open after the cloakroom decorating turned into a more major revamp! It was not pleasant. 

But once the new pipe was fitted, the tiles laid, the beautifully smooth (and I tell you in a very old house smooth walls are an anomaly so I just wanted to stroke the bare plaster!) new plaster painted and the woodwork finished we just couldn't stop standing in the door way for no other reason than to admire it!

As soon as I have hung a mirror and have sourced a few accessories, I will share some photos! It's funny how the smallest room in the house can actually have such an impact. Just off the hallway it's a room that gets seen and used by everyone! There are two other bathrooms in the house that desperately need remodelling but with Christmas approaching they will definitely have to wait at least until next year, if not the year after. 

For those who know me well, know I am not the most patient person. Once I have a vision I steam roll ahead, but with a house you can't do that, unless you win the lottery of course! But the more you have to wait, the more you appreciate what gets done. We have lusted after Fired Earth tiles for a long time, so to finally see them laid in our house felt like a major achievement! And that is in no way an advert, I just thought you might like to see!

We started November with my sister's birthday, and I joked with her that we all just assumed we would spend the weekend together. No real discussion just that on very special occasions we love just being in the same room. We FaceTime at least 4 times a week, just a quick 10 minute hello and catch up on our days, it's nice to see her face. Her bump is growing at a rate of knots whilst the rest of her has barely changed. We are all wildly debating what the baby might be, will it be another girl, will she look just like Yazzy, or will they have a son?! I looked through all my baby boy boxes of clothes that I have been saving just in case and would so love to see them worn again, but I know how much we treasure being sisters so it would be just perfect for Yasmin to experience what we have. 

We've started planning her hare themed baby shower, Yazzy nicknamed the baby "the baby rabbit" at the first scan and it's just stuck. And it's one of those things that suddenly everywhere we all go we see rabbits! On cushions, on prints, on clothing! 

We also had exciting news from across the pond. My brother Patrick and my sister in law Carlotta announced they were having a little girl! We had kept the secret for a short while and the boys are so excited to have another girlie in the family. Two boys, two girls and one surprise to come!

I packed up a box of goodies, a British baby magazine, a Dada book that ironically I had bought when we visited them in the summer and they first told us they were pregnant, and lots of lovely creams and potions for Carlotta which my mum took over for Thanksgiving.

They are flying back on Christmas Day this year and we will have a second Christmas on Boxing Day. It's amazing to see her little face on the scan, her profile so clear. It's almost impossible for me not to buy pink things...

Our feet aren't going to touch the ground next month, the school fayre last week signalled the start of the Christmas parties and we are counting down the days until we fly off with Mark Warner Holidays to take the boys on their first ever skiing holiday (They still don't know so I am devising a surprise to tell them!). 

I just can't wait to see them in the snow!!!! It's going to be a magical trip and we feel so lucky.

This weekend we braved the Great British weather and headed to Southbourne with lovely friends and their baby. We got blasted by the sea breeze on the beach, wrapped up the three boys and went to a couple of play parks. Nothing fancy, just a chance to be together. There's nothing quite like going away with real old friends, people who you can wear your pjs with, with no make up on and all crash out at 10pm exhausted from being woken up by children all night! There's no pretence, just a sense of contentment. 

We managed to snap this photo just before it was dark last night, and I will always be grateful for this Me and Mine Project, because without it I wouldn't have a photo of the four of us this month. A record of the chipboard haircuts, the small boys in tartan, with gappy grins.

I'd love for you to get to know them a little better, they are such a big part of this blog, even if you don't always see them so next month I thought a little family video interview might be fun! 

Come and join in with us and share your family photo for November. This month I want to send you to Lucy at Dear Beautiful who has a special small person in their family photos. Their littlest made her Me and Mine debut last month and our Me and Mine gang have a couple of others to come as well. Fritha - we are all so excited and Katie has a blue one joining her pink tribe next year! 

Gathering is my word for November.

It's felt like winter has set in earlier this year, autumn sunshine has fought hard to blast through the dense grey cloud, but the bitterness and hardness of a fierce winter to come has kept it hidden.

I've spent a lot of time this month gathering my thoughts. We all think all the time don't we, so I guess this sounds a little over the top, to be so formal, but everything has sort of come to a head this month. I've realised I need to plan more, not just everyday to do lists but write down a plan for the future. For home, for work, for general life!

And I think better outside. When there are less distractions - does that make sense? Like when you talk a long walk along a beach and the sea air almost strips your mind of everyday worries and gives you a clear space to ponder.

I'm making steps to consciously change the way I work, to manage my time better, to be more responsive and to plan my weeks so I am not in a headless chicken mode! I am ridiculously excited about a new website, a new layout and a new design.

I've been busy researching the colours I know I want to use in new branding, the type of motifs and emblems, the way I would like you lovely readers to navigate through my blog and finally get my dream of an online product store live. 

It all starts on the 7th December, I found a design team who I knew were right for me, from the second we sat down together and who wrote my hopes and dreams and ambitions all over the windows of the meeting room.

They had me at hello. Or rather Hullo. 

A new year feels like the perfect time for a new start.

And as I walked around the garden the other day, gathering old seed pods and flowers for this Styling the Seasons post,  I realised it's not just about gathering physical things that help you make decisions it's gathering those who you trust, the people who mean the most close to you. Things that also represent an emotion or a connection.

And then I had an idea, to gather all my bits and bobs that I've collected over the last few years that I used for props to create flat lay photos and vignettes for Instagram and product photos. 

So I have a lovely post next week full of inspiration for creating your own dried flower collection. And decided writing on the windows would be a good idea too!

I love how mixing textures and fresh and dried flowers can evoke such a soulful feel in a photograph. That traditional autumn colours can still be as fresh as a spring composition, the lush greens against pink peppercorns and the deep orange of the dried rose.

I laid them on one of my favourite vintage tiles and snapped some photos to share to join in with Styling The Seasons challenge this month of flat lays. Just take a peek at the STSxMakelight gallery this month - so many beautiful photographs to inspire. 

I hope you are having a peaceful and restful Sunday. 

December I am ready for you!