Garden plants have never been my thing. There's too many of them and I don't like to see them die in the winter. I've always wanted to love them, and this year I made an effort to actually put them in my garden and keep them alive. I've been buying a few here and there to spruce up the back garden and inject a bit of colour into it this summer.

My partner's dad (who is good with garden plants) built us a kinda-plant-bed-sort-of-thing and I've been adding more and more plants to it over the last few weeks with the ultimate goal being to fill it to the brim with plants and have my own little flower bed of interchangeable plants that I can swap out whenever I feel like doing so.

We started off with some sunflowers that my daughter grew herself from seeds (with the help from green-thumbed granddad, of course). They've recently started to flower and I'm very nervous to keep them alive as they took a bloomin' long to grow and my daughter loves getting her little flower-shaped watering can out and giving them some water everyday.


Then my partner came home with this flippin' great big hydrangea and I secretly love it. I mean, it's huge but also kind of a staple and fills up a good chunk of the flowerbed. And then because we loved it so much, my partner's dad (the very same green-thumbed granddad who helped grow the sunflowers) gave us a pink hydrangea, which is a nice contrast to the bluey/purple one we already had.


The one plant I was insistent on getting for the flowerbed, was a eucalyptus plant, and let me tell you, I searched high and low for one and could not find one anywhere. But then on a magical and somewhat impromptu visit to a garden centre in the middle of literal nowhere, we found them so naturally I of course bought one along with 3 outdoor succulents. I did the clever thing of remembering to keep the little tags that come with them so we have the following; a sedum oreganum tenue, an anthemis marschalliana and a sedum cauticola coca cola (yep really). I've got plenty of indoor succulents, but I've never owned any outdoor ones, so I'm completely bricking it on that front and if they are still alive in 6 months we'll call it an all round success.





And then we also have a random ivy which I got because I know they are easy to keep alive. And then just for decoration, we have these ridiculously cute dinosaur planters but the actual plant pot hole is tiny and I'm struggling to find plants small enough to fit in them, so for now, they're just stood there looking all cute and stuff.

There's still some space to fill in the flower bed but mo doubt we'll get there with it eventually!

Last week, myself and my partner went for a birthday ~ date night ~ which was great for two reasons, the first being that we were completely toddler-free for the entire night, and the second being that we got to try out the food from The Open Jar on Norton high street. I've been wanting to go here for a while now but meals out are a rare occurrence these days, but on this particular evening, we got our glad rags on and headed out for our first date night in about six months.

We got seated within 5 minutes of turning up, which was a relief because they don't take bookings on weekends and I'd mentally prepared myself for a half hour wait at least but lo and behold, the service was very quick and our waitress was absolutely lovely.

They had a decent selection of starters, mains and desserts; the usual something-for-everyone type of menu, but my boyfriend went for the cheeseburger and I went for the southern-fried chicken parmo. Now, if you're not from Teesside or the surrounding areas, you're probably thinking what the hell is a parmo?

Well, let me enlighten you.

It's very simple. It's chicken breast covered in breadcrumbs and deep fried. Then it's topped with betchemal sauce cheddar cheese, and then grilled to gooey, cheesy perfection. It's what the people of Teesside are proud of. It's what we shout about. It's what we look forward to as a weekend treat.





However, I went for a bit of a parmo twist and opted for the southern fried version. It came with proper home-cooked chips and a pot of garlic sauce, and I can confirm that it was absolute HEAVEN. Probably one of the best parmos I've ever had, which is a bit of claim to make and not something a Teessider says lightly.

I have also been informed that the cheeseburger was also a delight, and this is coming from a bit of a fussy non-foodie, too.

I actually had no plans to write up a blog post about visiting The Open Jar, but now I feel the need to shout about this place because the food is amazing.

If I had to complain about anything, it would probably be the fact that we went there on a Saturday evening and because the setup is half restaurant half bar, there were a lot of people who were there just to have a bit of a boogie and the music was ever so slightly too loud.

But the food was fab.

Title: One Perfect Summer
Author: Paige Toon
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Publication date: 10th May 2012
Pages: 455
Genre: Chicklit

Out of all the books I bought in my hefty Paige Toon haul, I started off by reading One Perfect Summer, mainly because the weather was treating us fairly nicely and I wanted a book that had a summer vibe (does anyone else do this?)

One Perfect Summer focuses on the life of 18 year old Alice, who meets an also 18 year old Joe whilst on holiday in Devon with her family. They quickly fall in love and are convinced they will live happily every after, but when things take a turn for the worse in the form of Joe's older brother, Ryan, they have to separate quite quickly. They soon loose touch with each other despite Joe's promise to come and find Alice when she starts University in Cambridge.

As the months go on, and there's no sign or communication from Joe, Alice starts a new relationship with a wealthy, German student called Lukas. Things develop quite quickly for Alice and Lukas, but Joe is always on the back of Alice's mind and she can't ever quite shake off those feelings towards him during that one perfect summer. 

We follow Alice (& her somewhat rocky relationship with Lukas) all the way up until she is 26 years old. During this time, she and Lukas move in together, get engaged, get married and start their own careers. But then Alice learns of what Joe has been up to since they met all those years ago; he's become a very successful Hollywood actor. When Joe begrudgingly mentions Alice on a chat show programme, the two get back in touch, despite Lukas's threats of their marriage being over if Alice goes through with it. They rekindle their love, and Joe even tells her he would give up all the fame and fortune if it means they pick up where they left off. Alice cannot deny her feelings for Joe any longer, and the two end up together in the same cottage Alice stayed at all those years ago in Devon.

So, as far as the story goes, that's pretty much it.

I had a lot of thoughts about this book - some good, other's not so much.

We'll start off with the good, shall we?

The chapters of this book are short and sweet, ranging anywhere been 3 and 8 pages in length. As someone who works full-time and has a toddler, I struggle to commit to reading 20+ pages per chapter (and I'm one of ***those*** people who needs to finish a chapter before putting the book down).

Typically, I don't enjoy an ending of a book that doesn't fully finish the story - in my opinion, if there's a story to be told, tell the whole thing instead of leaving the reader wandering. However, in this case, I think it worked quite well. Because the storyline was very lovey-dovey, I think giving the characters a happy ever after would have just been too cringeworthy in this case. The ending didn't fully clear things up, but there was a good hint as to what happened, and there's a follow up short story to this book also (One Perfect Christmas), so all is not lost in terms of closure on the characters and their stories.

Another thing to note, is that Alice's character development was great in this book. She started off as a very immature character given her age (more on that later), but as she grows up, her maturity does too. We initially see her as a very immature 18 year old, but she goes on to become a qualified teacher who can hold her own in arguments and knows what she wants from life in regards to her career - even going as far as telling Lukas she does not want children yet despite the fact he tells her that he does.

Now, onto the not so good, and there's a fair bit of it.

Alice was very irritating and very immature for an 18 year old in the beginning of the book. She acts as if she is about 14 and is a bit too bratty. When I first started reading the book, I honestly thought that this was perhaps just Paige Toon's way of writing characters and I mentally prepared myself to dislike this book based on Alice's character alone, but I was happy - not to mention relieved - that Alice wasn't portrayed this way throughout the rest of the book.

Speaking of characters I didn't like, we need to talk about Lukas. I hated him. He was a degrading and boring and I just did not like him as a character, but in a purposeful kinda way. I think we're meant to have some degree of hatred for his character because the whole book ultimately focuses on Alice's undying love for Joe.

There were a lot of characters in this book that were far too under-developed to warrant getting to grips with, and they kinda just lingered around in the background of the book like why are they even here? Alice's parents, Lizzy, Jessie, Emily, Lukas' mother, Joe's parents & his brother were mentioned a lot but were never actually fully present enough to justify them even being a character or playing any kind of significant importance to the roles of the main characters. It just struck me as kind of odd, as to why there would be so many characters in one book that are meant to influence and have some degree of impact on the two protagonists but were just a bit meh (do people still say meh?)

Characters aside, another thing that struck me as a bit odd, was how jumpy this book was. Like I mentioned above, we follow Alice from the age of 18 right through to the age of 26, so there's a lot of her life to cover in this book, and I understand skipping 6 months, but the whole "17 Months Later" jumps seemed really oddly placed and happened at the wrong time; suddenly we're seventeen months into the future with no explanation or justification as to why.

Also, the dog dies, so that's a bit shit.

Overall, it's not a terrible book, but I can't say it's topping my list of favourites. It's a sweet story but nothing groundbreaking. However, if you're looking for a book that is cute and one that you don't have to use much brain power for, then this is a good, easy read.

Verdict: ★★★