Hen do weekend

In exactly one week today, my friends Chris and Chloe will be walking down the aisle to become Mr and Mrs Wright. As the Maid of Honour, one of my jobs was to organise a hen do for the bride to be. Although it was rather stressful and quite a lot of pressure, I did really enjoy planning it all and making sure that Chloe had a lovely final 'shin-dig' before becoming a married lady!

Ollie, Chloe and I after several glasses of fizz on the first night

We went to Derbyshire for the weekend, near a little town called Ashbourne and rented the cutest barn and cottage for the nine of us. It was even nicer than I thought it would be, so I was really pleased as finding suitable accommodation for all of us proved to be quite the task! It was called Orchard Barn and Anvil Cottage and it was the perfect little place for the weekend; I'd definitely recommend it!

Over the weekend, we went into Ashbourne and browsed all the cute shops and markets and we also went for a nice meal at The Lamplight there on the Saturday evening, dressed to the nines in our glitzy 1920s best as the theme of the hen do was The Great Gatsby! We spent the rest of our time eating yummy food, drinking lots of fizz and playing silly games back at the barn.

Sophie sporting an amazing bin bag wedding dress

On the Sunday we stopped off at Chatsworth for the day which was perfect and such a nice way to end the weekend. I'd never been before but I fell in love; I'll definitely be going back again soon!

Ollie and Chloe looking regal at Chatsworth

All in all, I think the whole weekend was a success and everyone had a great time. We had lots of fun and laughs and made some lasting memories, and it was an honour to organise and be a part of. I put together a scrapbook for Chloe after the weekend in which I stuck photos I'd taken over the weekend on a disposable camera (forgot how much fun these are!), and some nice messages from all the hens for Chloe to read. I was quite proud of how it turned out, and I really wish I'd taken a photo of it but I was so eager to give it to Chloe I forgot.

So now the next step is the wedding day where my main aim is to not trip over/spill something on my dress. My track record for this isn't great but I'm holding out hope!

Photographic memories

I was looking through a big ol' pile of photos at my Mum's the other day and I felt so nostalgic, looking back at memories from all the years past and smiling thinking about that day or that moment in time.

It got me thinking... with everything being digital now, we (well, I at least) don't 'develop' photos anymore. Some people may be really good at printing out every photo they take but I admit I'm not so good at this. I'll maybe print the odd few, if I want to give them to family or frame them but I never just print a load off aiming to pop them in a photo album to create memories years down the line. Looking at photos on a computer screen is nice but there's nothing better than holding actual photographs in your hands. In 10, 20 years time will I have piles of old photos to look through like I do from my childhood? Or will they all be stored on a computer, or an SD card somewhere? Takes away some of the magic dontcha think?

I've also realised that apart from taking the odd photo on my phone, I don't capture memories anymore. I can't really remember the last time I got my camera out and took some photos of my friends/family/boyfriend/etc. However this may be because my current digital camera is infuriatingly USELESS. So I have decided that at the end of the month I'm going to buy a new digital camera so I can take lots of photos for me to sift through and remember the good old days in years to come.

After all, I'll only ever be this age, in this moment, once.