Afternoon tea, 140 Park Lane

As you all know, I’m a massive fan of Groupon! I recently saw a deal for an afternoon tea Groupon that involved gin. Sounds like my kind of deal!

I went a couple of weeks ago with Ryan and we had a great time. It was my first afternoon tea so I wasn’t 100% what to expect, but I’ll definitely go to another one.

The afternoon tea was at 140 Park Lane, as part of the Marriott hotel.

Gin cocktails to start, served in a tea pot.

Regular tea, served in a regular tea pot.

Excited at the arrival of the food! Cakes on the top shelf, scones and crumpets in the middle and sandwiches on the bottom.

A hot, buttery scone, with clotted cream and jam. Served the Devon way, of course!

I was actually surprised at how filling all the food was. I couldn’t finish my amount, I was so full!

Ryan and I spent the rest of the afternoon going round London, enjoying the M&M world, cocktails at Dirty Martini and to top off the day – tickets to Wicked!

Have you ever been to an afternoon tea?

Easter and a Cookie Arrival

Hello lovelies! Did you all have a nice Easter? I spent the Easter weekend down in Devon with my parents and had a lovely time with the whole family. We haven’t seen each other since Christmas, crazy! I took Tuesday off work too to extend my Easter weekend just that bit longer, hello three day working week.

Easter was spent doing what I normally do when I go back down to Devon, eating good food and catching up with friends. Ryan and I had dinner with my friends who are moving to Australia, met with Ryan’s friend who is at University down there, went on a tour of Plymouth, had a pub lunch, visited my Grandad in hospital and I drove for the first time in over a year. Phew! I took some photos along the way, so here goes…

My friend Adam has just set up his own business doing tours of Plymouth so of course Ryan and I had to go on the tour! I lived in Plymouth for 18 years before leaving for University so I would say I knew the area and the history of Plymouth fairly well. But I was wrong, the tour was so thoroughly researched and in depth that it opened my eyes and definitely got me wanting to know even more about the history of Plymouth. Plus I got to see places that I’d never seen before.

The famous Cap’n Jaspers food hut.

Plymouth Harbour.

West Hoe looking over to Mount Edgcombe.

We also enjoyed a massive family lunch with everyone I hadn’t seen since Christmas. My Mum did a massive Chilli and lots of fixings, it was delicious. Plus I had a Spritz on the side – yum!

                  

 

No family gathering as far as I’m concerned is complete without pudding. Everytime I go home my Mum always buys me a lemon drizzle cake from Marks & Spencers. They are simply the best, I’ve never had one to rival it. Even when I lived in Italy I asked my family to bring me out lemon drizzle cake. Seriously, go and buy some. They’re so good. So good in fact, that I didn’t want to share! Yum!

 

That pretty much sums up the main highlights of my Easter weekend. I love going home because it means someone else gets to do the washing up plus I get to see all my friends who I normally go months without seeing.

When I got home on Tuesday evening there was a very exciting package waiting for me….My cookies from my cookie swap with Jemma @ Celery and Cupcakes!

I’ve already tasted one and they are so moist and peanut buttery, just absolutely delicious. Thanks again Jemma for the cookies and Tam for organizing the swap!

Did you have a good Easter? Do you know much about the history of your town?

A lazy, rainy weekend

I’ve had a lovely time this weekend, with some delicious eats and catching up with lots of people.

Friday night Rylar came over and we cooked the most delicious curry. I would seriously chose this over a take away anytime, and it’s vegan! Recipe to follow later this week!!! We finished it up with a delicious dessert from Gu Puds. We had the After Dark Hot Chocolate Souffle and oh my goodness, they are so delicious! Why have I never tried them before now? Wow, is all I can say! Luckily they’re on offer in Sainsbury’s, so we’ve got another two sat in the fridge waiting for us. Yum yum!

 

On Saturday morning I headed off to meet some ladies from my local WI. As some of you probably know, I moved to Surrey in August and since then I’ve been finding it difficult to make friends in my new town so I thought that my local WI might be a good way of making friends. Plus, the WI is well known for doing all the things I enjoy, baking, crafting etc. Unfortunately my local WI has a long waiting list, but the ladies were kind enough to meet me for a coffee. We had a lovely chat and I’m hoping they will pass my details onto younger members of the WI so hopefully I can start to expand my social group!

After coffee I met Rylar and his family for the afternoon. They’ve travelled down from the Midlands for a weekend visit. We had a lovely time wondering round the shops in my town, stopping for a delicious bagel for lunch and having a good catch up. For dinner we met up and went to a delicious gastro pub called The Jolly Farmers, which isn’t too far from where Rylar and I live. For drinks, we had a delicious pint of Addlestones cider, yum yum! The menu was incredible, and we all had a hard time choosing. I chose sausage and mash, with sticky toffee pudding for dessert. So so good. Sadly I forgot to take any photos!

This morning we met with Rylar’s family for breakfast, (I know, all we seem to do is eat!!!), at a delicious artisan bakery. Chalk Hills is a wonderful artisan bakery in Surrey and has the most wonderful breakfast menu. I had roasted tomatoes on sourdough toast and a soya hot chocolate. Yum! Sadly my computer/camera is having a bit of a melt down and I can’t find the photos I  took. Oh well, definitely an excuse to go again!

Rylar and I are now spending the afternoon reading, and then I’m off to go and pick up my new blender! I chose the Philips 2160/50 blender, but found it cheaper at Argos. It’s got really great reviews and an ice crush function, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to start making lots of smoothies. I’m especially looking forward to that as the weather starts to warm up!

As this post has been quite word heavy, I’ll share a few photos from my recent trip to Palermo!

                  

An entrance into the city                                  The Giardino Inglese

 

               

Waiting for the Palermo vs Lazio game to start! Palermo won 5-1!! The crowds went mad, and even let of flares and fireworks for the goals!

           

A beautiful fountain tucked away behind some buildings and guarded by lions.

A photo which to me sums up the true Italy, the juxtaposition between history and modernity, with an ancient statue surrounded by rubble from renovations.

    

Palermo’s cathedral.                                         An ancient and very famous Foccaeria.

 

I’ll do a separate post on our eats of Palermo, very important!!, and the day trips we went on.

Have you done anything nice this weekend?

Power cuts and Pies

Another eventful night in the household of Ryan and Emma, and another meal using my Veg Box! This time the leeks had the opportunity to shine! I was very unsure what to cook using my leeks, but thanks to the trusty BBC Good Food website I found a great looking Ham, Leek and Potato Pie.

We followed the recipe pretty well, I don’t think we changed anything.

     

Chopped onion, leeks and potatoes

All softened up in the pan with butter

 

But, disaster struck half way through cooking! The power went out! We couldn’t believe it, we were almost ready to put the pie in the oven!

 

Ryan in the dark!

We decided to give it half an hour as it was already getting late. If the power hadn’t come on in half an hour we would freeze the filling and order a take away.

 

Mixed in with the cooked ham, stock and creme fraiche

Literally as we were putting the filling into the freezer the power came back on! Fate!!

In the dish!

With the lid and a pretty topping

Waiting, rather impatiently, for the pie to cook!

All cooked!

This pie was absolutely delicious, and I would 100% make this again. Although next time I think I might use less mustard.

 

All plated up!

What other recipes would you recommend with leeks? Have you ever made your own pastry? I used shop bought puff pastry, but definitely want to try and make my own.

Finding New Friends in a New Place

Since I’ve moved to my new Surrey town and new job I’ve been trying really hard to make some new friends. At University it’s pretty easy to make friends, everyone is in the same boat and friendless to begin with, and you live with new people and share classes with new people. If only it was like that now!!

(source)

Moving to a new town, for a job and not knowing anyone can be tough. I’m lucky that Ryan decided to move down to Surrey around the same sort of time as me, and having him here has certainly made things easier for me.

My team at work is made up mainly of families and people who live hard away, so it’s not easy to fit into a circle of friends there. They already have their own established friendship groups and plans with family, and so I’ve had to look elsewhere. I’ve been to nearly every social event outside of work hours that my work offers, including pub quizzes, pub nights, cinema nights, and a food club. All have been excellent opportunities to make new friends, and I’ve made some good contacts which may help me with my career.

(source)

After about a month of being in my new town I joined a local gym, and whilst I’ve not made super close friendships, it’s helped going somewhere regularly where people recognise you and you can have little chats. The staff at my gym are really friendly, always up for a chat and have loads of recommendations for the local area. Going to the gym has been a great way of me getting out in the evenings too, otherwise I would quite literally sit at home and rock!

I also picked up local newspapers and newsletters wherever I could and looked for local events in the area. I found my new town has a ramblers group, a running club, a meditation temple, yoga groups and much much more. Whilst I can’t join and do everything all at once, when I start to get a bit more established in the area I’m going to look at joining something else.

(source)

I also took to twitter when I knew I’d be moving to the area and discovered the wonderful and gorgeous Kate from Running Riot lives close by. We emailed frequently and finally had the chance to meet a few weekends ago for a lovely breakfast! I hope that we’ll catch up again soon, we had such an awful lot to chat about, it was as if we’d been friends for ages!

(source)

My last piece of advice was never stop looking for friends. I went to get my hair cut after I’d been here about two months and mentioned to the girl cutting my hair that I was new to the area and struggling to make friends. It turned out we had loads in common and she offered to swap numbers after she finished with my hair. We’ve met up for dinner and drinks a few times, and even went on a double date with our other halves to watch a TV show being filmed!

Have you ever had to make friends in a new town? How did you do it? Any tips for me?

My Birthday Round Up

First of all, thank you all so much for the well wishes for my 23rd birthday! I had a truly great time, and there were a few things that made my birthday really special.

First, as I mentioned previously, I had a wonderful weekend in London with Ryan. We went to the Winter Wonderland, and enjoyed a fantastic trip to every food bloggers paradise Wholefoods! 

Last weekend, for my actual birthday, Ryan organised a fantastic surprise! Since October Ryan has been planning for my three closest friends and their partners to come and visit me in my new home. It was such an amazing surprise and I cried!! I love these girls so much, and we always have so much fun together. We ate lots of food and had lots of laughter and chat, it was a great weekend!

I also got some fantastic presents for my birthday.

My parents bought me kindle and I already love it so much! It is truly going to revolutionise my book reading. I’m currently reading the highly claimed Hunger Games. I’m 9 chapters in and it’s very good.

I also bought a new digital camera (Nikon s6100 coolpix) with some birthday money, and it’s much more high tech than my old one. I am really looking forward to spending some time learning all about it over Christmas. If anyone has this camera and can share some tips, please let me know!!

 

I also got some other nicknaks and tidbits but they’re the main things!

Do you normally get big presents or lots of little ones for birthdays? Having my birthday so close to Christmas can make things difficult for me, but I am always greatful, nonetheless.