Blogmas Day Two is here, December is under way! So let’s talk Advent Calendars.
Mines varies from year to year and I am a bit partial to a regular chocolate calendar – that scrunchy metal sound as you pop through the foil to get to the chocolatey goodness is just nostalgic happiness.
As a younger child I did also have a Material Santa Advent Calendar with pockets that my Mum would fill and those kinds are super cute too and perfect for picking exactly what you want in it.
Last year I picked up my own Material Advent Calendar… and its not just any Calendar, no! It’s a Harry Potter one – Amazing.
Epic!
I love the little Hogwarts Letter Pouches with Hedwig at the top, it’s like he is delivering me a little festive treat everyday!
My husband very kindly bought me some Dairy Milk (the elite chocolate) Heroes (the elite tubs of chocolate) to go inside it, so it was nice to come home to see it filled with treats.
And now we have 25 days of waking up and eating chocolate firsr things- what a dream!
Italy is our favourite country to visit and out of all of the places in Italy that we have been, Venice is my favourite.
If I could recommend one place for people to go – it would be Venice. It’s beautiful and so unique.
Shall we take a look at what we got up to!?
Day One
22.07.22
Being up for over 24 hours wasn’t the most fun 🙃 but it was worth it to really make the most of the first of our four/five day trip.
We arrived in Venice at about 10/10.30am and I was honestly in a bit of shock, my eyes genuinely couldn’t believe that I was actually there again.
Last time we visited Venice was for our first wedding anniversary!! in 2016.
And of course, a lot has happened since, including a two year long global pandemic (who the hell would have ever guessed that would be around the corner) so consequently we hadn’t been on a plane since 2019 when we visited Rome (another MUST SEE city for its Italian awesomeness, food and history.)
My brain couldn’t comprehend that we were actually there, in the beautiful city of Venice – Honestly, at the real height of the pandemic I really did have those thoughts of ‘What if this is it? What if we can never leave this country again? Was our last holiday our LAST holiday for the foreseeable future?’
It really was a crazy time wasn’t it!!?
So to actually be back on Italian soil, in my most favourite country was so special and I am so very grateful that we got to visit it again.
We wandered around before checking into our lovely hotel (we always stay at the same one) and freshened up. We basically did lots of exploring and wandering around (to find pizza).
On our second day in Venice we did a walking food tour. We have done one of these before so, being seasoned visitors to Venice, this time my Husband created his own walking food tour (with the assistance of Trip Advisor).
It was really fun and nice to try out some different spots. We visited the most amazing Gelato shop. The flavours were insane. Our particular favourites included the ‘Opera’ which was hazelnut and chocolate, the Strawberry Cheesecake and the Pistachio and Amaretto Cherry.
We visited our favourite place for dinner ‘Al Bari’ which is situated just behind our hotel. I have SO missed the food here. It was amazing.
Absolutely INSANE 😍
Day Three
24.07.22
Having wandered around many times over the last few days we discovered that Venice has a Natural History Museum which we hadn’t visited before.
With the addition of a English Speaking Audio Guide we really enjoyed all of the different exhibits. It was cool to find something we hadn’t done before.
We decided to get some food from some of the little eateries that we had passed on our walk, on day one, on the opposite side of the canal to our hotel. There were lots of yummy things to try and it was cool to have a bit more of a look that side of the canal.
In the evening we played some games and went on a nice little stroll around the canals, it was fun to just wander and see what we would find around the corner. I then did my usual early evening routine of sitting outside the hotel, right on the Grand Canal and reading my book as the sun set. Heaven.
Day Four
25.07.22
Our final full day saw us take a lite adventure down the canal to one of the furthest points, St Marks Square! (Via Rialto) so that we could enjoy the amazing view from the bridge properly.
It was cool to go to St Marks again, we enjoyed a nice stroll around the whole square, in the hot sunshine.
The weather has been amazing.
Day Five
26.07.22
This was our final ‘day’. We had our flight to catch at around 2pm so we only really had until midday to spend in Venice.
We decided to head to Academia Bridge as we hadn’t been for a while, maybe even missing it out on our previous trip a few years back.
As we wandered around we discovered a little ferry that will take you across the canal, which is cool. So we have managed a ‘Gondola’ ride every time we have been now 🤣 I mean, it was a less fancy one and was definitely less than 5 minutes but, we’ll count it haha.
We had a great time in Venice, and as I said it is my most favourite place to be. A great start to the summer of 2022 ☀️
Have you been to Venice? Where is your favourite holiday destination?
Happy Platty Joobs day everyone! I hope you are having fun celebrating this special occasion in British History!
Friday3rd June 2022
(& if you aren’t – I hope you are having a great Friday anyways)
I love the Queen so I thought it would be fun to have a little afternoon party to celebrate on the Official Platinum Jubilee day.
So, I organised an Afternoon Tea Garden party at my parents house, for all our immediate fambizzle to attend.
And it was great fun!
There was lots of decorations!
There was lots of food!
I even made the Official Platinum Jubilee dessert – Lemon & Amaretto Trifle. Pretty chuffed with how it turned out to be honest!! & we had a laugh ceremoniously bringing it to the table with the National Anthem haha 🤣
And lots of fun! Hanging out, enjoying the treats, listening to music and making crafts and playing games with the kids.
So, here is another blog post, and this time I thought I would do a lil baking- it’s been too long.
These no bake Biscoff bars and super easy, super quick and partly inspired by loads of random videos that I have seen on Tik Tok… so there is no real ‘recipe’ as such.
Here is what you’ll need:
•Rice Crispies
•Smooth Biscoff/Biscuit spread
•Dark Chocolate
Recipe:
1. Slowly melt the biscoff spread jn a bowl, in the microwave – this took about 45 seconds.
2. Mix in the Rice Crispies until they are fully covered and start to combine.
3. Push the mixture into a tin and make sure it is all compact.
4. Freeze for at least 30/45 minutes.
5. Slowly melt your dark chocolate. I do this in the microwave at 30 second increments.
4. Allow the chocolate to cool.
5. Take the crispy block out of the freezer and slice into finger sized pieces. Be quick or it will warm up too much. Place back in the freezer whilst you prep the chocolate.
6. Carefully pour/spoon the chocolate over the crispy fingers.
7. Place on some non stick baking parchment to cool.
8. Bon apeiti!
These were a big hit with my husband, he really enjoyed them.
Anyway, here is our Christmas eve fun/day of madness 🤣
Christmas Eve Boxes 🎅🏻 & Presents with my Niece & Nephews
Christmas Craft – after the present opening they did some colouring, and then later on in the afternoon me and the boys made our own Snowmen and watched ‘Elf’
My favourite tradition of all is going for a drive to look at the Christmas lights around town.
And then we of course headed home for some yummy food, games and of course ‘The Grinch’
And now my stocking is out and ready for the big man, Santa C to come 😁
I love a bit of festive baking – and its super fun when you get the kiddies involved. Me and my Nephews made some festive chocolate chip cookies – heres how it went.
What do you need:
Cadbury cookie pack
Oil
Milk
Baking tray
Baking parchment
Mixing bowl
Spoon
Festive sprinkles
Icing sugar
What do you need to do:
Follow the box instructions – pre heat the oven accordingly.
Empty the packet mix into a bowl and combine with the oil and milk.
Roll out into 10 equal balls and place evenly on the tray.
Press down a little.
Bake.
Add Sprinkles on top with a little icing so that they stick (or you could bake them with the sprinkles on top but they do melt a little)
Roseanne Byford 