If you want your house to smell as pretty as it looks, then here are some tips to keep it smelling fab!

1. Try burning incense: It's not expensive, and if you get the proper Indian incense, it'll smell absolutely heavenly. There is a link to IncenseMan in the link-giude at the side, who i have bought incense from many times before, and is a thoroughly nice chap.

2. Scented candles: I prefer jar candles either from Yankee Candles or McCalls. Both have a magnificent range of candles, they cost more than most, but they last a long time too.

3. Make your own Pot Pourri: This isn't as difficult as it might sound. It's even easier if you have your own garden! The basis of a good pot pourri are rose petals from a heavily scented rose, lavender heads, rosemary, cinnamon sticks, dried orange and lemon slices etc. There are numerous places on the 'net with recipes and methods, or you can be adventurous and formulate your own!

4. Oil Burners: These are good in a bedroom, as they give off a slow medium amount of scent. I don't use any synthetic oils, i always make sure that they are essential oils. This means it's not only natural, but it also has medicinal benefits. From the calming, relaxing smells of Lavender, to the sensual Ylang Ylang. You can also blend oils to create your own scents. Give it a go!

5. Linen sprays: I recommend making your own, it takes no time at all to do and is so worth doing. To make a Lavender spray, add a couple of drops of lavender essential oil into a spray/mister bottle, add some lukewarm water and shake thoroughly before use. Spray a small amount onto the ironing board before you iron, and the clothes will absorb the scent. Be careful not to spray it directly onto clothing, as you could end up with an oil spot!

Finally, remember that masking odours isn't the best way to make your house smell gorgeous. Air duvets and pillows regularly, hoover often, and wash bedding once a week - be it yours or the dogs'!

I was up early and in town at an insane hour this morning; I was on a mission! I have been looking for some nice pieces of pretty (and of course, functional!) glassware. I really came up trumps when i found the below-pictured beauty for £2.49 in a local charity shop! It's perfect, just what i've been looking for, despite a couple of chips on the rim (which you can't see unless you look). Fabulous. Now, i have to find something to put in it, which should be easy, because i have so much stuff, but it's choosing what is the hard part!

It's raining, so spending time in my (i should say 'our', but it's really mine hehe) gorgeous garden is not going to happen. Yesterday however, i did plant some lovely sweet peas out in the garden and created some obelisks out of bamboo for them to climb up. Lets just hope the slugs don't find them.

In our garden we're going totally organic, not one pesticide, weed killer or slug pellet in sight. We're composting all of the garden waste (we have a mammoth compost heap now!), and ridding ourselves of weeds the old fashioned way which is on yer hands and knees ;-). It really is back breaking work, because our garden is huge. We love it, though, it gives me purpose, and a place to escape. We're growing veg, of course, this year we've gone for 'Alicanté' tomatoes, purple sprouting brocolli, sweetcorn (which we've had excellent results with before), peas and carrots (which are bright red!).

When we bought the house, the garden was so overgrown, the grass was up to our chest. It hadn't been looked after for years, which was a pity, but in that fallow time, it had allowed lots of wild animals to take refuge in the garden. The slug population isn't huge, and we encourage native birds like thrushes to inhabit the garden, they are our pest controllers. They adore slugs and snails! We also have frogs, many of them in fact, which helps keep pest numbers down.

So far i have managed to excavate our veg patch, which is now home to our ever-burgeoning compost heap, the purple sprouting brocolli and peas. The cottage garden patch, which will house a combination of old-fashioned cottage garden plants, medicinal herbs and hybrid tea roses, is mostly cleared. The sweetcorn is having to share that patch at the moment, though, due to space restrictions on the veg patch!

As we've got frogs, we're hoping to put a small pond in amongst the cottage garden patch, which will be mostly hidden by plants at lower-levels, thus allowing breeding of frogs in peace and quiet.

There is nothing like sitting in the garden, with a cup of tea, feet up, after a day of pottering around weeding, sowing, and mowing :-)

Sorry about my lengthy absence, it's been a frantic month! My partner and I have moved into our new (first) house, and i've been busy making it gorgeous, which has been a task and a half! The garden hasn't been touched for a long time, which means that it's a grass jungle, which is in places up to your chest! I'm finally taming it, with the help of my partner, who has just found out that he rather likes gardening (or at least weeding, he doesn't know which plants are weeds and which plants aren't, which i'm teaching him!).
I have included my own visual representation of the garden (so it's not very accurate hehe)


The back bedroom / study, which was once a childs bedroom, had been painted bright purple and yellow, is now a tasteful white - which i have grand plans for! I have always known the colour theme for this room, which will be mainly cream, and above the picture rails (the joys of living in an old house!) will be a sumptuous green. I had been shopping a month or so before we moved in, and found the most gorgeous curtain material. It's an old chintz, with big full blossoms of rose etc. It's heavenly :-)

Now, after my mad morning of manic gardening, i'm off for a nap, and a read... Perfection :-)