I ♥ Paris

What a fantastic time I had in Paris with my boyfriend.  We stayed in a fabulously cute apartment in Montmartre and ate lots of lovely food  (I got the box of Laduree macaroons - and they were as amazing as they look!), saw some great shops (Luka Luna, Petit Pan, Colette, Petit Atelier De Paris and Madame Mo and more) and as it was my birthday my boyfriend bought me lots of lovely pressies too - I was spoilt rotten!  So many more places to see there though so need to start planning the next trip back.   I'll try and upload some of the pics we took in the next day or so ...

Alston Art Apartments

This is a plug for my parent's new venture.  They have recently restored some old barn buildings in Alston in Cumbria, the village where I grew up, and turned them into lovely holiday cottages, called the Alston Art Apartments, in a cozy but contemporary style.  Even writing this post and looking for pictures of Alston is making me homesick, the landscape in and around Alston is just spectacular, there are so many images of Alston I could easily have filled a whole blog page with beautiful images. Alston is in the North Pennines, close to the Lake District and is in what is called an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and has also become a UNESCO Geopark.  It is the perfect place to come to unwind and forget the pressures of life.  Leave your mobile and laptop at home and come here to get away from it all and just enjoy being somewhere very special.