Hellooooo! Happy summer everyone!

Ok so I am not really on the biggest go slow like this blog would have you believe. I am madly working behind the scenes, racing to meetings in Bristol with my development hat on and photoshoots with snow and baubles. But I miss the blog and am planning a major holiday love affair with blogging when I head to Spain for 2 weeks with my boys without Rich on the 1st August. Roll on evenings with a glass of sangria, aftersun smelling boys in a Queen size bed they will undoubtedly share with their soft touch mama, and a mammoth catch up on posts that have spent 6 months or more in draft.

I came home from a shoot today with handfuls of flowers from a charity roadside stall I spotted on the way back from Devon and felt inspired to give you something back. For still checking in.

So here is a brand new set of free floral phone backgrounds for you to download. From my neighbour's flower patch, from my country garden and from the roadside jam jars I stumbled across on my way back home today.

Download one or download them all. Have fun. Just click on the image to download it to your phone. 

Don't forget to check out my other free downloads if you are a floral fan! 

How is it nearly the end of July? I am not in any way ready to be 35 next month!!!!

I have never ever in 3 years been quite as dramatically late with my monthly Me and Mine post and it's a horrible feeling that has eaten away at me all week. The whole point of the Me and Mine posts is to nudge us all to capture a family moment and for us June has been full of them.  

This week we've given Ollie an early birthday to remember, a whole weekend with almost all the people he loves and time stopped for everything else. So I hope my co hosts, who I have spectacularly let down this month, will forgive me for being so dreadfully behind. 

It's like I have two worlds. One when I am in amongst the blogging community and then one I drive home from the station or from the motorway and weave my way down the country lanes and the world slows down. It's like having the best of everything, even if sometimes, like this month, blogging has meant more time with people than writing about people, if that makes any sense! I came home from a press day in London on Wednesday and felt giddy from seeing friendly faces, high from conversations that sparked a hundred ideas. 

I've had some incredible experiences in the last few months. A weekend at Sisterhood with the most inspiring group of women I have ever had the pleasure of sitting around a camp fire with, a day with one of my absolute favourites and her new tiny Lucy at Blogtacular and an evening celebrating the amazingly talented people who continue to make blogging a profession to be proud of and the most remarkable hobby which connects ordinary people together in an extraordinary way. I may not have come home with an award at the Brilliance in Blogging Awards but I wouldn't have missed hearing my name called out and cheering for every single one of the bloggers illuminated on the big screen.

Each of those times deserves to be written about so for my Me and Mine I wanted to share a special day from June, when our sleepy village became washed in red, white and blue.

There's a lot of love for the Royals in this village, especially for Her Majesty. We had commemorative mugs, bunting that's been stored in garages and lofts since the Royal wedding and the 80th Birthday celebrations. As you drove through you couldn't help but be washed in a wave of patriotism and absolute pride for the collective spirit of a community. Flowers grown in gardens for the small glass jars on the tables, china plates bursting with cup cakes and generous smears of clotted cream sandwiched between pastry and strawberries.

In cities, in schools, in churches, in sports centres and in streets there was this incredible sense of belonging and togetherness. The exact same feeling I have when I stand in a room of bloggers.

Here are mine. My two little kings who lap up everything life has to offer them. On Thursday they break up for the summer and as much as I imagined I would be dreading it, I actually can't wait for them to have a rest. Ollie is falling asleep in the car on the way home and although he's grown up so much since starting school, he's still so small when I look back at his nodding head and droopy mouth in the car seat, snoring away. I want them to have the carefree school holidays you read about in Enid Blyton books. To pack picnics, ride bikes, see friends, go to bed with grass stained feet. 

I feel like I don't see them. Everyday is a race against the clock, a battle to get dressed, frustrations over school socks that ruck up in their scuffed black shoes that are destined for the bin on Thursday evening! To give them later bedtimes, pj days and ice creams that melt down their wrists. Well, if we get any sun that is!

We have booked a special family holiday and leave on Saturday for a week in Rhodes with Mark Warner. We loved it so much last year, felt totally spoilt and honoured representing them as family ambassadors with a week in Kos at the Lakitira resort, that we booked to go this year in an unofficial capacity!

Time is the most precious thing we have. I listened to Lisa Congdon speak at Blogtacular and felt like she was talking just to me. She had this incredible way of resonating with the whole room and hearing how her success story had times of great stress on her relationships, her health made me realise that it's more important to keep in mind the reason we work and blog and take a moment to breathe when you need one. That you can get on and off this crazy ride, without a fear of slipping off a hamster wheel and not being able to get back on.

Take time to live well.

Happy July everyone, we are ready for the next adventure!

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Share your Me and Mine with Lucy, Katie, Jenny, Alex, Fritha and me. Pop over and see what their broods have all been up to last month.

I love our house. Love it love it, lemon love it. But, if I had a magic wand, I would wave it frantically over the conservatory at the back of the house. 

I have never ever been a fan of conservatories, too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter and I always find they are full of strange furniture you wouldn't see anywhere else but these indoor greenhouses. That we are pre conditioned to exclusively furnish them with uncomfortable rattan seats and look at the room through a closed door 99% of the year. 

But having finally lived with one, I can't believe I am going to say this, I'm not sure I could live without it and I find myself saving vintage wicker seats to my wish list Pinterest board. Imagine a blogger and photographers dream space for photos, what would it look like? A light filled room all year round with walls to prop tables against and beautiful even light at 6am in the morning through to dinner time in the summer. Our conservatory has been my life saviour over the last 18 months. A home studio to dress and rearrange for different mini shoots combined with an extra room for the boys to use as a playroom. The space is so flexible and has so much potential we just need a way to transform it into a dream room. 

I had the pleasure of meeting Thomas Sanderson at the Ideal Home Show a while ago and realised that there are so many ways I can bring ours back to life. 

I just wish we could paint it, re roof it, change the doors and the window handles... you name it - I'd like to change it. The mahogany stain is so out of character with the rest of the house, and I dream of the day far into the future when I take this exact photo but instead there's a beautiful orangery staring back at me.

Because it turns out, that I do in fact love the principle of a conservatory or garden room, I'm just not so in love with ours right now. And I am sure I am not the only one who wishes I had a fairy godmother who could cast some magic over this unloved shell.

So what can we do?!

I've found 6 ways to make the most of your conservatory, to give it a new lease of life and make it into a dream room. 

1. Instant update with New Blinds

I talk with friends who say the same. "It's a sauna in the summer and a freezer in the winter!" It's silly really because there are clever people out there who can help and ta day! An extra room in your house you can use 365 days of the year.

I had no idea about the range that is available now. Forget the old fashioned styles you'd have seen at your parent's houses in the early 90's there's a wealth of styles, finishes and colours for every taste.

These Duette® Energy Smart blinds put our old ones to shame. Not only do they help to relate and control the temperature but the clever double layered fabric design also absorbs noise. The honeycomb design has a special coating on the window side to help improve energy efficiency even further. Ours can feel like the sky is falling down during a heavy rain shower and I can't hear myself think let alone take a phone call - the impact of the raindrops on the ceiling feels like you are in a tropical thunderstorm, without the beach in the distance! 

2. Fill it with things you want to look at

It sounds like a obvious statement doesn't it? But so often I see conservatories that are the forgotten room, a little souless and almost like the after thought. Odd furniture, obligatory plant, rooms that don't scream come and sit in me! I feel so inspired when I am surrounded by the things I love. Artwork I've collected over the years, cushions that I've bought year after year that fill the sofas, but our conservatory is filled with random bits of furniture and hasn't had the same sort of TLC we are giving the rest of the house. 

I love how this room is decorated with precious possessions and this photo taken by Natalie Jeffcott makes me want to lean into the screen and thumb through all those book pages and peer at what is under those glass bell jars. 

If your space is full of you, your things, your most loved things I guarantee you will want to spend more time there. 

3. Embrace Shutters

I long for shutters, with the same longing I feel for an ice cold cocktail on a balmy summer's evening. I must have visited an old french house at some point in my life and had the image of these beautiful window finishes etched into my subconscious. Because every time I pass a house with shutters I have to stop and let out a gentle sigh. And try and sneak a cheeky photo.

Beautiful and practical - a winning combination! I can't imagine there is a window these shutters couldn't fit with a bespoke and ready made service to choose from. I felt the PVCu engineered samples and was so impressed with the finish, if we were keeping our conservatory indefinitely I would blanket every window with them.

4. Say Hello To New Flooring

We have a sorry looking carpet in our conservatory that dogs and boys have trampled all over, not wiping their feet or their paws and a wet start to this summer means it is almost crying out to be replaced. A new floor can instantly lift the whole feel of a room and I adore this bold use of patterned tiles in Ulises and Melissa's modern sun room. 

We went for something similar in a blue colour way for the downstairs cloakroom but I hadn't thought about covering a much larger space with such a statement print. It's a treat for your eyes and the light bouncing from the walls and ceilings makes it shine brightly. I love the subtle colours they chose letting the heavy terracotta pots and house plants bring a natural colour palette into the room.

We have chosen these Fired Earth tiles for our ensuite but how spectacular would they look in the conservatory?!

5. Paint the house walls

I had never really thought about the idea of making the wall of the house adjoining the conservatory into a feature. Now we are in a listed house so we might not get away with such a bold statement but I think the idea of choosing a colour and making a feature out of the brickwork or stone is a fabulous one!

This modern glass extension by Sigmar in London features a contrasting charcoal grey wall that compliments the dark radiator and window frames perfectly.

And it could work perfectly in any sized conservatory or sunroom, you could even repaint the wall as the seasons change.

I would kill for a white brick wall to shoot against! You can also easily add a false stud wall in front of the fabric of the building itself and paint that. 

Making a feature wall gives you so many decorating options. 

6. Give it a right good clean

I hold my hands up. I have no idea what our conservatory looks like when it's sparkling clean, because in 18 months we have never really touched it on the outside. What we need to do is book a conservatory valet and I bet it would be a revelation. To have the handles and hinges properly checked and repaired, to have the guttering professionally cleaned and the roof panels meticulously washed and scrubbed would absolutely make a difference to the whole look and feel of the space. 

So what would you do with your conservatory? Or are you thinking of adding one to your home? My ideal garden room would have a window seat around the base of the brickwork and an open plan space which lead onto the kitchen. Hues of calming green, stripped wood flooring and a day bed. Just pass me a cup of tea and a magazine now could you?! 

In collaboration with Thomas Sanderson