Isn’t this time of the year just wonderful – the weather starts taking a turn for the better, we have more hours in the day to enjoy that weather, and most importantly, more days off work to enjoy it – thanks to all the bank holidays… and I’ve certainly been making the most of the extra time off this month.
Last weekend, we started our weekend off with breakfast – as usual, at my favourite place – The Wild Plum. After that, we went on a little jaunt around some lovely garden centres, to see if we could pick up any lovely little bits for the house.
This led us to discovering the wonderful Neptune store near our house, that I talked about in my recent haul post. Bank account emptied, and stomach full of copious amounts of cake, we ventured back home to enjoy all our new purchases.
Easter bank holiday weekend was spent away at the seaside with my family. Before we set off, we enjoyed another one of those wonderful breakfasts at the garden centre, then hit the road for a weekend of ice cream, beaches and sun.
On the drive down, I actually listened to a really great podcast about how eating the right foods can really help with your inner and outer beauty (shiny hair, strong nails, etc); and it really inspired me to make some positive changes to my diet. I still enjoyed an ice cream on the beach, and some sugar doughnuts at the fair – but I also started thinking a lot more about the foods I am putting into my body, and this has had a really positive impact on me so far. Here are my film night snacks from that weekend, that I actually really, really enjoyed. I poured boiling water onto the broccoli, to soften it ever so slightly, and warm it through; let it soak for a minute or two, then drained it and ate it dipped in sesame oil and sea salt – a really tasty and unusual snack, that I now keep returning to.
This weekend was spent in Leeds, where my Mum and I took a visit to Leeds Art Gallery to see the Leanardo Da Vinci exhibition they had on. If you’re ever in Leeds, the art gallery really is worth a trip. It’s a free way to spend a good couple of hours, and they also have a gorgeous cafe in there too, for coffee and cake, if you fancy.
The Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit was only on temporarily, but the rest of the pieces are there permanently, and it’s a really interesting, different place to take a stroll.
After that, I headed over to Dakota to meet up with some friends that were visiting for the weekend. We enjoyed afternoon tea, and I also tried a non alcoholic espresso martini – which was just as good as the usual ones, if not better – to be honest, I only really drink alcohol for the taste anyway these days, so non alcoholic versions I’m all for. I’m going to do a full blog post on the afternoon tea experience, so for now I’ll leave you with a couple of images to enjoy.
