This September I have decided to challenge myself. Now that I have finished my Masters, I thought it would be good to have something fun to work on whilst I continue the search for a new job. So, I decided to try and wear a dress for each day of September. I love wearing dresses, but I definitely sometimes need a break every so often so it will be interesting to see how it goes. As sad as this makes me, I definitely do not own 30 dresses, even if I included my wedding dress (as much as it would being me joy I will probably not be including that dress in this months wears). Consequently, I have given myself the following rules for the challenge:
I have to try and wear a dress everyday but I am allowed to include skirts in this.
I can wear the same dress more than once over the space of the month.
I don’t have to wear the dress all day (this would make working out very hard).
If you want to follow along on this journey with me, I will be posting a concluding update on here, but if you want to see my dresses everyday come check out my instagram @dearlybookish, where I will be posting semi-regular updates. If you want to take part I would love to see your daily dresses too, so please tag them #dearlydresses.
I’m recently back from a glorious week down south in Lyme Regis, Dorset with my wife’s family. There were 8 of us in total, and we were all able to stay in the gorgeous Landmark Trust Property, Belmont.
Belmont House, Lyme Regis
‘I honestly don’t think we could have had a better location, the bottom of the garden had a gate that led onto a road that took us straight down to the seafront and Cobb. Even the view from the back of the house was spectacular.
Day 1: Arrival
We arrived midday just in time to meet the second half of the party and head down to the seafront for lunch. We found this lovely cafe called Swim that became our firm favourite for the rest of the week. Half of us then headed along to the Cobb for the first time and got some yummy ice-cream on the way back up the hill to the house. Special shout out to you Baboo Ice Cream for providing much needed refreshments for the majority of the holiday. We checked in to Belmont and explored around the house and its accompanying observatory tower (yes I said TOWER)! We spent a lovely evening with drinks in the garden before relaxing after our long travel day.
Day 2: Fossil Walk
On our second day it didn’t just rain, it poured. However, we set off suitable rain-jacketed and full of excitement for hunting down some of the famous Jurassic Coast fossils. We met up with our tour guide, and the rest of our fossil hunting group, outside of the Fossil Museum. With the help of the guides we found lots of different fossils including ammonites and belamites. Towards the end of our 3.5 hour walk the sky opened and the rain started bucketing it down even more. We all sped back along the beach and into the main part of Lyme Regis where we, slightly soggily, grabbed some bits for lunch and anything else we had forgotten to order in the food shop. After quick shower and some soup and pasties to fortify ourselves, we retired to the living room for an afternoon of napping and reading before a games night that evening. Top games of that night included Happy Salmon, a must-play for all of the family. (although it must be said Granny graciously bowed out of that one, and Exploding Kittens where much hilarity ensued.
Day 3: Let’s Explore
It was fish for the meat-eaters and Halloumi for the veggies for dinner that night, so an exploration team, including myself, was sent out to find the fish shop. This early morning walk gave us the best opportunity to explore parts of Lyme Regis that we had yet to visit and meant we found some of the most gorgeous ares including the one below.
A few wrong turns, double-backs and some 5,000 steps we returned to the house sans fish (the shop didn’t open until much later) but full of laughter and tales of our morning adventure. A fortifying cup of tea later, we all set off this time, some to (finally) get the fish, and the rest, myself included, to head for lunch (Swim again) and explore the seafront and Cobb a bit more. We had a lovely time walking around and took some amusing photos at the end of the Cobb, and on Granny;s teeth (the site of the infamous fall in Persuasion). The fish and ‘fishish’ dinner was a hit, and whilst some headed to bed early that evening, the rest of us stayed up chatting until the early hours.
Day 4: Birthday Girl
It was my lovely wife’s birthday on day 4, so we let her decide what to do. I started the morning by decorating a little bit for the birthday girl, including blowing up some balloons that I had picked up before heading down. Then it was cake time! The birthday girl requested Passion Fruit flavoured cake, so that is what she got. In the end it became a Victoria sponge cake with passion fruit curd and cream in the middle…yum!
The birthday girl then made her morning appearance for breakfast and presents. We all got in the car and headed to Forde Abbey, it was gorgeous. We were there way before the abbey actually opened so we decided to head round the gardens first. The fountain that went off shortly after our arrival certainly did not disappoint, and the rest of the gardens were truly spectacular. After a quick lunch stop, we had a look round the abbey itself and even played dress up with some of the costumes. The gift shop was a highlight too, especially the Tam Mason hand scrub that we all came away with. Seriously makes your hands so soft, it was in the bathrooms there, and we all became obsessed.
We headed home mid-afternoon, for a relax and a bit of a wander before dinner. We ended up at HIX Oyster and Fish House which was lovely, and had great vegetarian options considering it was a fish restaurant. After far too much food we meandered back up the hill for a cup of tea before heading to bed.
Day 5: Beach Day
We chose a relaxing day on the Friday and spent a lovely day at the sea swimming, playing games and enjoying ice cream. We even found the time to do some souvenir shopping, and were able to enjoy an afternoon in the garden and having some visitors over for dinner.
Day 6: Bridport Beach Day
For our second last full day we chose to venture out of Lyme Regis again and along the coast to Bridport, location of the popular British show Broadchurch. A lovely walk turned up some gorgeous pictures of the beach and sea. After lunch at the local pub, we even got to enjoy a quick run in the car around the town itself.
Day 7: Charmouth and our final day in Lyme
Sunday saw us again taking off and heading along the coast, this time to Charmouth. After some lovely walks along the coast we headed for lunch. We finished our time in Charmouth at the local museum, before half of the party chose to walk along the beach back to the Lyme regis. The rest of us headed back, and me and the wife took a wander back down into Lyme to see the Fossil pavement and pick up some things for our little nephew that is due at the end of the year. We also successfully tracked down some tins of the famous Dorset Knobs for everyone to take home. We of course had to head back to our favourite, Swim, for our last dinner in Lyme Regis.
Last Day: Heading Home
It was finally time to pack up our bags and leave Belmont. I was sad to leave the beautiful pink home that had provided such a lovely base for our holiday. However, it was nice to be heading back home to our sweet little cats and house. We enjoyed a lovely brunch at River Cottage before heading to Bristol Airport to begin our journey home.
Favourite Reads of the Holiday:
Paper and Hearts Society by Lucy Powell
A lovely holiday read, that filled my heart with the joy and hope that comes with finding your people. I found I could relate to many of the characters in the book, and enjoyed hearing more about places that I had visited too, and the greatness of friendship and love.
Persuasion by Jane Austen
I must-read considering part of it was set where we were staying. I enjoyed it just as much this time as I did the first time. I think Anne is one of my favourite Austen heroines! It was the perfect start to my planned re-read of all of Austen’s books.
Favourite Dress of the Holiday:
I suppose that I am kind of cheating with this one, as I have it in both colours, and I refuse to choose between the two, but it would have to be the Natalie Toile De Jouy Dress from Joanie in both pink and blue. IT was so pretty and worked great for dinner and days just wandering around Lyme Regis. I loved the feminine floaty style of the dress and the buttons up the front made it perfectly summery. It even had pockets!!!
Dearly Daryl 