An absolutely unbelievable weekend, one we’ll never forget.
I can’t wait for the football season to start up again!
Our Birthday!
We had a fun birthday weekend celebrating together. We grabbed lunch and spent the day hanging out together on Saturday. Delicious picky bits at Revs in the sunshine, mini golf, cocktails, and the cinema.
On our birthday, on the Sunday we had a delicious brunch together, exchanged our presents, spent time with family and had a birthday meal with cake to round off the weekend.
Oh… and we may have got a matching tattoo on our birthday as well 👀
We enjoyed a bottomless brunch in the sunshine 🌞 followed by some fun and games at a local bar, including interactive darts & karaoke.
A lovely family holiday to Norfolk.
We stayed in a lovely air bnb cottage in Norfolk. We went along with my mother in law, brother in law, my husbands Auntie, Cousin, and Grandad. We had a lovely time chilling out, cooking together, exploring nearby towns and Norwich City, walks (weather permitting), and we even hired a boat, which was a highlight!
& I saw some bats, which was epic.
Going to see Take That live!
I will always love seeing Take That live! No one does it better. I can’t believe that this was the 7th time I’ve seen them love!!
Another fun month! And we are almost halfway through the year!!! Madness.
I thought I would share some cool little bookish things that I recently bought.
They are just some fun, useful little bits that are perfect if you are a bookworm like me!
Let’s take a look!
A cute ‘Welcome to the library’ sign to go by the reading corner.A reading light that sits across the page of your book.Fun little reading lists to keep a track of the books you’ve read and your rating for each one.A coin that says ‘One more chapter’ on one side and ‘Go to bed’ on the otherside. I’m pretty sure it’s weightless to the ‘One more chapter side’ 🤣Some cute little book inspired stickers.
I met up with some friends from work/who I used to work with. We had a delicious Wagamamas.
I met up with another work friend for a delicious ‘Savoury Tea’, a Savoury version of a cream tea, a cheese scone, grated cheese, chutney & tea!
Fun on the farm with my two favourite boys and mum for their ‘Spring Carnival’ 🐮
A lovely meet-up with my bestie to meet her little one 💙
A fun family day out for my brother in laws birthday. We had a lovely lunch followed by a 5 mile walk along the coast.Lots of reading & some new books!
A fun board game day with my husband, Auntie & Cousin.
A fun afternoon at the ‘Murder trial: Live’ this was such an interesting experience being on a jury and deliberating over a case, making a verdict and seeing the outcome. There was a majority of 54% ‘Not Guilty’ but she was Guilty 😬 I went with my twin sister, and we had a great time.We celebrated my friends’ 30th birthday at work! We decorated, had a picky sharing lunch, and I made a yummy cake!
I took my nephew to the cinema a couple of times in March. They are my little cinema buddies after all. We watched Migration & Kung Fu Panda 4.I went to the football a few times this month. We go with my Dad and I share a season ticket with my sister. The bottom photo is from the women’s match, this was the first time they had played at the stadium, and it was a great game 5-0We celebrated ‘World Book Day’ at work – I dressed up as Harry Potter ⚡️We celebrated ‘Mothers Day’ with our traditional homemade afternoon tea. I made a Victoria Sponge, topped with buttercream and a Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake! Me & Mum also went out for a nice lunch at a nearby cafe/garden centre.We celebrated my Uni friends’ baby shower this month, too!! It was lovely to celebrate and catch up.WE FINALLY HAVE NEW FLOORING AND WERE ABLE TO MOVE BACK INTO OUR HOME !!We enjoyed a fun (& delicious) Easter Sunday! With our traditional Chinese for dinner.
& finally,
We watched Mark Watson, the comedian in our hometown. I bought these tickets for my husband, for Christmas! He has seen Mark Watson a few times and really enjoys his comedy. I myself hadn’t seen him live before but he was very funny and I would definitely watch him live again. We got to meet him afterwards, too, and get a signed copy of his book.
I’ve always enjoyed doing a few ‘baking’ recipes on here, every now and then, particularly at Easter time.
All that delicious Easter chocolate in the shops or that you may receive can be put to good use by yourself or your small people – it’s super easy and great fun too!
So what is Easter Bark you say?
Well it’s shards of decorated chocolate.
And here’s how it’s done (by us anyway)
Ingredients
X2 large bars of Milk Chocolate
X2 large bars of white chocolate
Sprinkles
A selection of your favourite Easter chocolates to adorn
Recipe
Prep a baking tray with a lining of baking parchment, make sure it covers the sides of your baking tray a little too, not just the bottom.
Melt your different chocolates (we went for milk and white for the kids – dark would also be delicious) in separate bowls over water (or in the microwave)
When the chocolate that you wish to have as your base is ready (ours was milk), pour that into the baking sheet and spread out so it covers the bottom in an even layer. Don’t spread it too thin.
Drizzle over the other chocolate/s that you’ve melted (our white chocolate) either yourself or the children need a cocktail skewer to swirl the chocolate carefully to create the marbled effect.
Adorn with your sprinkles and chosen Easter Chocolate, trying to evenly distribute it throughout.
Pop into the fridge (or freezer if you are impatient like us!! 😂)
Once it is fully solidified, break it up into shards and ENJOY!
Super easy, fun & delicious! Perfect for occupying the kids this Easter hols – my nephews and niece loved it (especially the eating part!)
If like me, you can’t walk past a bookshop (or supermarket) without buying new books, or if you need some inspiration for what to read next, then this post is for you!
Here are some of the books that I’ve bought recently, from a variety of places!
Let’s take a look!
✨️
Title: ‘No one saw a thing’
Author: Andrea Mars
Genre: Crime Thriller
Why I chose it: I love thrillers and the blurb sounded very intriguing.
Title: ‘None of this is true’
Author: Lisa Jewell
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Why I chose it: I am a big fan of Lisa Jewells thrillers!!
Title: ‘The Sisters’
Author: Claire Douglas
Genre: Thriller
Why I chose it: I live a thriller, and it mentioned twins (which I am), so my interest was piqued.
Title: Tale of Magic series
Author: Chris Colfer
Genre: Fantasy
Why I chose it: Chris Colfer writes truly magical fiction. His previous series,’The Land Of Stories’ was fantastic, so I had to get this one too.
Title: ‘The Wake Up Call’
Author: Beth O’Leary
Genre: Romance/Rom Com Fiction
Why I chose it: I am a fan of her other books and have read them all, plus they are very easy to read.
Title: ‘The Air Raid Book Club’
Author: Annie Lyons
Genre: Historical fiction
Why I chose it: Because it had ‘Book Club’ in the title and the blurb gave me ‘Goodnight Mr Tom’ vibes.
We started back doing our Parkruns this month! Happy with my time of 34.01 – here’s to getting back to it again 👟
Me and my twin sister Sarah organised our bestfriends baby shower. It went really well and everyone had a great time! Lots of delicious food, fun games, presents and laughs 👶
Pancake day! One of the best days in Feb 🥞 I managed to have two pancake meals, haha.
We celebrated Valentines Day this year with our traditional meal to a local Turkish restaurant. It was delicious as always.
As you may have see from my previous holiblog post, we went to Northern Italy for the Feb half term. It was brilliant. We did Verona, Lake Garda, Milan & Venice (again!)
We had a brilliant time, there was so much to see and it was beautiful. We were also mostly, pretty lucky with the weather.
This Feb Half Term, we embarked on our latest Italian adventure, this time in Northern Italy. This trip was sort of inspired by our 2020 Italy trip that never was (thanks, Covid!)
We changed the plans a little from the original idea, as we only had a week half term instead of the Summer Hols, but we knew we wanted to travel around more of Northern Italy. I found some cheap flights to and from Verona, and we went from there.
Let’s see what we got up to!
Day 1 – Travelling to Italy
Sat 17th – Today was mainly spent travelling to Italy. It was pretty uneventful (and actually an ok flight, and that’s coming from someone who isn’t very fond of flying)
We arrived in Verona at 7 pm and after a short bus ride and a check-in at our hotel we went in search of food.
The little Pizzeria (Rio’s) that we found nearest to our hotel did not disappoint. It was one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had in Italy.
Day 2 – Verona
Sun 18th – Today, we spent the day in Verona, exploring the town.
We did lots of walking.
We had a short tour of the Verona Arena, which was really cool!
It’s the best preserved Arena in Italy!
The Arena was probably my favourite ‘sight’ of the trip.
In the early evening, we travelled to Lake Garda, the next destination of our trip.
Day 3 – Lake Garda
Mon 19th – Today, was we visited Salo in Lake Garda.
It is home to the longest promenade in Italy.
& it is very beautiful.
They also do a bangin’ sandwich. This was an insanely good lunch. That bread 🤤
We had a lovely time walking up and down the promenade as well as looking through the city streets.
We rounded off the day with a delicious dinner, Caprese, Rosemary Foccacia, Risotto, and Tiramsu – so good.
Day 4 – Lake Garda
Tues 20th – We started off Day 4 with another yummy breakfast at our lovely B&B before we headed off to get our bus tickets for the day.
We didn’t realise a market was on, and it was quite extensive. There were some amazing food stalls, including fruit, veg, soooo much cheese and meats.
We decided to pick up some bits and create our own lunch. We chose a delicious fresh tomato, a fresh ball of Mozzarella, a fresh Foccacia, and some amazing strawberries. Delicious.
These made a yummy picnic.
In the afternoon, we headed off to explore another part of Lake Garda – Sirmione.
They are known for their delicious gelato, so we had some in the sunshine when we arrived!
We then had a walk through the castle and town on our way to the ruins of a Roman villa. There was a museum and the ruins itself so that was really interesting to see.
The ruins were so vast.
Once again, the weather was amazing.
We went back to freshen up before having a delicious dinner and a chilled evening in our room.
Day 5 – Milan
Wed 21st – Today we travelled to Milan! We were sad to leave our lovely accommodation in Garda.
Milan Centrale Station is massive! It gives Grand Central Station NYC Vibes for sure.
We spent the day doing LOTS of walking around Milan, seeing the city on foot, there is some cool architecture and graffiti. We picked up some more delicious ice cream, and we went to the Leonardo Di Vinic museum to round off the day.
We had these incredible crepes for dessert from those amazing Gelatoria that we discovered first in Verona.
Day 6 – Milan/Verona
Thurs 22nd – Today, we travelled back to our starting point, Verona, for our final leg of the trip!
Once we made it back Verona (after a 40 min delay at Milan) we freshened up and spent some time just chilling/reading in our hotel room.
It rained in the evening, so we just ventured out nearby to get some food. We didn’t stay out for long before heading back and watching a film in bed.
Day 7 – Verona
Fri 23rd – Today was the only day it rained pretty much all day. We had been so lucky with the weather so far. Typically, we had our Verona Walking Tour.
We didn’t let the rain dampen our spirits and we both thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the city. It was so interesting and Verona is such a beautiful place.
Booking a tour is well worth it!
We grabbed a spot of lunch from a place near the end of the tour, as recommended by our tour guide. The fresh pasta was delicious, and the tiramisu was insannnne.
We were very glad to have such a lovely shower in our hotel room because we were freeeeeezing 🥶 after walking back in the rain.
And of course, we had another delicious dinner to round off the day!
Day 8 – Verona
Sat 24th – Today was our last full day 🥲
The weather was beautiful, which was great for our final day. We headed over to a cafe that we heard was really nice. We had yet another delicious coffee and pastry.
We spent the rest of the morning/early afternoon looking around the castles museum – it was really interesting with our audio guide, and at the top, you get soke beautiful views of Verona.
After all that exploring and walking around, we enjoyed a lazy afternoon in the hotel.
In the evening…
WE WENT TO VENICE!!! My favourite 😍
It was beautiful as always ❤️
We had a delicious pasta dinner when we arrived…
… before heading to our favourite gelatoria!! 🍨 Su So is incredible. We had to squeeze some in for dessert.
It was buzzing in Venice as it was the Venice Carnival that weekend.
Venice is truly unique.
I love sitting by the Grand Canal. It’s so peaceful.
💗
Day 9 – Home time
Sun 25th – Today, it was time to go home!
We enjoyed a nice walk into the city centre of Verona to find a nice cafe for breakfast again. We really enjoyed doing this the day before.
We had a final delicious coffee, pastry (and Lasagne for Tim 🤣)
We then had a walk around a bit more, including the arena before heading back to make our way to the airport.
We had such a brilliant trip and it was great to see so many new parts of our favourite country.
I thought I would (try) doing a post a month called my monthly highlights. I thought this would be a good way to share what I’ve been up to. A little diary of sorts.
So, without further ado – here are my January highlights.
Our first film of the year, Disney’s Wish 🎥
Back to running on the track, at our running group! 🏃♀️
Testing out my new headphones that Tim got me. We’ve been doing lots of gaming this month!
🍫Fun in London watching Stranger Things: The First Shadow. A brilliant show.A fun afternoon playing a murder mystery for my besties birthday, with my husband and her family. Great fun, and Granny did it!!!An evening in London, on a weekday (oooh ah!) To see ABBA Voyage. Absolutely fantastic.
Roseanne Byford 