Happy first birthday little blog!

I'm doing the wedding photography so have been practicing  my portraits!

My tiny little corner of the internet has been up and somewhat loosely running for just over a year now. And on its one year anniversary we went to see the mortgage adviser  Though he kind of told me what I already knew (he said I'd clearly done my homework!) I don't think the BF actually believed me, but now it seems he is on a roll in terms of looking for properties to view.

After the appointment we had two viewings, one was almost like having our own house. It was a maisonette in a quiet area with communal gardens and a garage. However it was priced a little higher than I want to go as I want the monthly payments to be manageable and with the ground rent etc it would leave us with not a lot of spare money to live on. The next flat was in a small block, good location, garage and space but wires were sticking out everywhere and the plumbing was a bit weird in the bathroom.

However, I feel like we are finally getting somewhere and cannot wait to find 'the one'. We've started looking early, though I think we are probably looking at getting something going through after Christmas.

I haven't been blogging much lately as the BF is around in the evenings and weekends and I tend to do it when I've got an evening to myself. I've also had a hen night, a uni reunion and a cousins 21st birthday party so the weekends have been spent out and about. I did manage to stash away an extra £80 last month on top of my usual savings so despite the busy-ness I've come in under budget. However this month may be a different story with my Aunts wedding, my birthday and our five year anniversary to contend with :S

Pumpkin soup

I love this time of year when the supermarkets stock pumpkins ready for Halloween at great prices; at the beginning of the week I picked up a medium sized pumpkin for 87p to make some soup with. Last night I whipped a batch up to eat at work at lunchtime. I also wanted to use a few fresh ingredients up in the fridge as I'm heading home for the weekend in a few days time.

Ingredients 

• Half a medium pumpkin
• One white skinned sweet potato
• A small handful of shallots
• Some sliced onion
• Two cloves of fresh garlic
• One stock cube 
• Dried Italian herbs
• Peanut butter
• One yellow pepper 

I chopped all the ingredients up, boiled them for approximately 15 minutes and blended with a hand blender (£5 from Asda smart price, which was a moving in present from my mum). This made three portions of soup which was poured into old (clean!) glass jars, as well as one portion which I poured into a Heinz baked beans fridge pack carton which I'll probably freeze for next weeks lunches. I haven't tasted it yet- oopsy!- so I'll let you know how I get on at lunch. 

Has anyone noticed how the papers (or is it just one I pick up on my commute?) has been full of doom and gloom over the last few days- first energy is predicted to go up by 10% in the new year, then petrol prices are ever-increasing, and then I read this morning that food prices are set to rise due to the heavy rainfall. Ergh! We'll just have to keep plodding on with it all.