Our fourth wedding anniversary

It was our fourth wedding anniversary last week. I know I know, I can't believe it's been four years either. 

Our anniversary fell on a Thursday which meant we didn't do much to celebrate on the day itself. However, we still opened our cards and presents and indulged in a few cranberry and white chocolate welshcakes from Fabulous Welshcakes.

The themes for fourth wedding anniversary gifts are fruit, flowers or linen, depending on which version you read. Neil and I don't stick to the themes too rigidly, but sometimes they can provide a spark of inspiration.

I had some lovely gifts from Neil, as always!

Beautiful flowers and a Mickey and Minnie Disney Traditions figurine. We got engaged in Walt Disney World five years ago so I love the sentiment behind this figurine. 

Cute Winnie the Pooh pyjamas which I've been coveting from Asda for ages. I'm a little disappointed that it's still too hot to wear long pyjamas to bed. 

Neil also bought a little floral charm for me from Amazon which fits perfectly on my Pandora bracelets. It's very pretty but didn't photograph well, so it couldn't be featured in the blog post! 

I got home from work on the day of our anniversary to discover that Jessie had very thoughtfully bought us a card. She'd also written a lovely message in it, although her handwriting looks suspiciously similar to Neil's. I still find big events and anniversaries a little difficult after the events of two years ago, so this gesture meant the world to me. 

We wanted to make sure we celebrated our fourth anniversary in style, so we went to Llanerch Vineyard for our celebratory meal last Saturday evening. It was a beautiful day which made the tranquil surroundings even more spectacular. 

We went the whole hog and had three courses (obviously), and everything tasted just as good as it looks in the mouth-watering photos below...  

Asparagus, black garlic emulsion, and a beer and charcoal polenta coated poached egg.

Sirloin steak with confit'd banana shallot, mushroom ketchup, crispy capers, smoked pancetta and truffle salted chips. 

Strawberry and pistachio meringue with clotted cream and vanilla ice cream. 

After finishing our meal and walking back to the car via some lovely views, we went home to Jessie and shared a bottle of wine to finish off the evening. Well, Neil and I shared a bottle of wine. Jessie had a dental stick and some chicken. 

I can't quite believe that another wedding anniversary has been and gone! We're now wondering how we should celebrate our fifth anniversary next year... watch this space. 

Afternoon tea at Llanerch Vineyard

Did you know that going out for afternoon tea is one of my favourite pastimes? If your answer is 'no', you must be new here!

After visiting Llanerch Vineyard a couple of times for Sunday lunch (read my review here), I decided I really wanted to try their afternoon tea. As my friend Sarah's 30th birthday was rapidly approaching, I had a lightbulb moment and bought her a voucher for traditional afternoon tea at Llanerch Vineyard. Two objectives in one - an excellent birthday present and an opportunity to go for afternoon tea at a new venue!

We booked our afternoon tea for a couple of weeks ago, and our table was in the Cariad bistro which is a beautifully decorated room overlooking the vineyard. We were given a menu to choose our pots of loose leaf tea, but the rest of the afternoon tea was a standard fixed menu. This suited me fine as I'm not very decisive, particularly when it comes to food! I went for the delicious Strawberry and Kiwi tea and was very excited when it came with its own egg-timer to guarantee the perfect brewing time.

After sipping on our teas for a while and catching up on all the latest news, our magnificent three-tiered spectacle arrived...

Obviously there are sandwiches on the bottom tier, but I never tend to photograph those as they're my least favourite part (no offence, sandwiches of the world). The sandwich flavours were cream cheese and cucumber, chicken and tarragon, ham and mustard, and salmon and creme fraiche. They were all lovely, but let's move on to the most exciting parts... I was hugely impressed with the second tier in particular. Scones, Welsh cakes AND banana bread! The scones came with the usual clotted cream and strawberry jam and were among the best I've ever tasted, and the Welsh cakes and banana bread were amazing too. Definitely the best and most unique second tier I've ever had. 

Moving on to the cakes on the top tier... as you can see, there were four little cakes for each person rather than one big slice. The offerings on this particular day were raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake, strawberry macaron, lemon curd meringue tart, and peanut butter and chocolate brownie. They were all exquisite and I could have eaten them all twice over! The raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake was my absolute favourite, closely followed by the strawberry macaron.

The traditional afternoon tea at Llanerch Vineyard is £16.50 per person. I think this is very reasonable considering the quality and quantity of the food, along with the beautiful setting and the excellent service. You can also pay a little more to opt for the sparkling afternoon tea or the Cariad afternoon tea if you fancy a glass of Prosecco or Champagne with your food for a special occasion.

After this excellent afternoon tea experience, I can't wait to go back to Llanerch Vineyard again. Have you ever visited the vineyard for afternoon tea? What did you think?

My 30th birthday weekend

It was my birthday last weekend... I turned 30! Don't you just love it when your birthday falls on a Saturday? I enjoyed a whole weekend of lovely activities so I thought I'd blog about what I got up to.

My Friday evening started well when I got home from the gym and found Neil baking a summer fruits cake. An excellent start to every weekend! It was a total surprise so I found the whole thing very exciting.

We continued our weekend of indulgence later that evening with a couple of glasses of wine in the sunshine while we waited for dinner to cook (hence the R2D2 kitchen timer). I love sitting out in the garden on a quiet evening... it makes me feel relaxed, which is often a difficult feeling for me to achieve.

We tried Tesco Finest's 'two dine for £10' deal for the first time on Friday night and decided on potato wedges, beef and pulled pork pizza with salsa verde, and mango and passionfruit torte. All three options were amazing! 

I woke up early on Saturday morning to squeal excitedly and to open all my presents and cards. 30 or not, I'm like a child when it comes to my birthday. I'm planning to write a separate post on my fantastic presents so I'll save all those photos and descriptions for a later date. Taking the perfect photos of all my gifts before finding a home for them is definitely a #bloggerproblem and took me a good half an hour!

When I went downstairs later that morning after getting ready, Neil had a surprise waiting for me in the kitchen... our very own afternoon tea! He'd gone to loads of effort and made cheese & tomato and ham & mustard sandwiches, as well as the star feature of the homemade summer fruits cake. 

After eating the delicious sandwiches, scones and cake and drinking our fruity green tea, we hopped on a bus to Cardiff Bay for the afternoon. Cardiff Bay is one of my favourite local places to visit, particularly on a sunny day. We wandered around for a couple of hours to take in the sights, and I had a very decadent hot chocolate in Cadwaladers! 

We sat in the garden for half an hour after getting back from the bay, then I went to get ready for my surprise birthday evening meal. I decided to wear my Christmas sale dress from New Look for the first time, along with a couple of my new jewellery pieces (more on those in my upcoming 'birthday haul' post). 

I was very pleased when Neil drove me to Miller and Carter as it's one of my favourite restaurants and always feels like a special treat. We ordered the bread sharer to start then I had a tasty fillet steak with all the trimmings, washed down with a glass of Prosecco. Top marks! 

Neil had yet another surprise planned for me on Sunday afternoon... Llanerch Vineyard for Sunday lunch! The weather was beautiful so we were able to walk around the vineyard and soak up some sun after our massive meal. I had the butternut squash and ginger soup to start, roast sirloin for my main, and lemon posset for dessert. It's fair to say that the whole lot was spectacular and I can't wait until our next visit. We sat in the conservatory section of the restaurant, right next to the window, so we enjoyed a nice view with our lunch!

After we got back from Llanerch Vineyard, my in-laws came around for an hour to sit in the garden as it was such a sunny evening. It was lovely to relax in the sun and chat for a while about what we'd all been up to over the weekend. After they'd left, we finished off our day with a stunning evening walk to Penarth Pier. The beautiful views and the tranquil experience encouraged us to go for evening walks more often! 

I feel so fortunate to have had such a great birthday weekend (good planning, Neil), and I'm looking forward to going to visit my parents and friends in West Wales next week for part two of my 30th birthday celebrations. You definitely haven't seen the end of my birthday blog posts... watch this space! 

New thing every week in 2015 #1

I decided to unashamedly copy Liz at the beginning of last year by doing one new thing every week during 2015 (read Liz's first post here). There were admittedly times when I forgot to record something new for weeks on end which meant I had to rely on my Instagram updates to figure out what new things I did... this is why there are so many food entries!

I've split last year's 'new thing every week' posts into five instalments as I seem to be a big fan of splitting up my posts at the moment.

Here are the new things I did between 1 January and 11 March 2015... enjoy!

Week 1 (1-7 January) - Changed my name on my passport due to getting married in 2014.

Week 2 (8-14 January) - Fake Christmas with university friends in Milton Keynes for the first time.

Week 3 (15-21 January) - Started this challenge!

Week 4 (22-28 January) - Had a wisdom tooth out, hopefully for the first and last time. 

Week 5 (29 January - 4 February) - Bought a red bag (and a yellow purse). 

Week 6 (5-11 February) - Ate churros in this country during a visit to Chimichanga - I've only had them in Florida previously. 

Week 7 (12-18 February) - A bird did its business on my head... I didn't have much choice in this one, and I definitely haven't got a photo!

Week 8 (19-25 February) - Went to Wahaca.

Week 9 (26 February - 4 March) - Went to Llanerch Vineyard as a surprise for Neil's birthday. 

Week 10 (5-11 March) - Went to an engagement party.

So, as you can see, I ate a lot during the first quarter of 2015. The next ten weeks will follow in a few days! 

Restaurant review: Llanerch Vineyard

It was my husband's 30th birthday in March and I wanted to take him somewhere special for his birthday meal. After several hours of googling and trip-advisoring (trip-advisoring should definitely become an official verb), I decided to treat him to Sunday lunch at Llanerch Vineyard.

Llanerch Vineyard is situated in Hensol in the Vale of Glamorgan, just off junction 34 of the M4. I'd never been there myself but I'd heard colleagues raving about it, and the reviews on Trip Advisor speak for themselves. I emailed the restaurant to book a table for Sunday 1st March and to order a gift voucher for a three course Sunday lunch for two. I thought it would be nicer to pay beforehand and to give Neil a voucher rather than paying on the day, particularly as he probably wouldn't let me pay for it all myself if I paid on the day! The restaurant staff were really helpful and made the whole booking experience very easy. Now all I had to do was keep the location a secret.

On 1st March, we got into my car and I drove to Hensol. Although Neil kept trying to guess where we were going for the entire journey, I knew he hadn't heard of Llanerch Vineyard so I was pretty confident that none of his guesses would be correct. I put some effort into my appearance for the occasion... definitely the best bun I've ever achieved!

The weather was unfortunately quite dull and dreary, but this didn't dampen the appearance of Llanerch Vineyard at all. The restaurant's surrounding areas were beautiful and I could have taken photos of all the different nooks and crannies for hours. However, I only took a few as I was hungry and didn't want to annoy Neil on his birthday with my incessant photographing. Also, as the scenery outside the restaurant itself was so lovely, I couldn't wait to see what the interior was like. 

The interior of the Cariad Bistro & Restaurant didn't disappoint. It was charmingly rustic but with a modern and fresh twist, and it felt like the perfect place for a nice Sunday lunch. We were shown to our table by a friendly waitress and were greeted by a daffodil on our table to mark St David's Day. 

I ordered the soup of the day to start, then the roast sirloin of beef Sunday roast for my main. I'm a massive fan of Sunday dinner and have had some excellent examples in my time, so this meal had a lot to live up to. My soup arrived promptly with a nice bread roll... 

The soup of the day was carrot and coriander and it was very tasty. I've always liked tinned carrot and coriander soup, but obviously this was ten times better. The roll (Swansea bread, apparently) was also delicious. I usually prefer white bread with soup but this roll was the perfect accompaniment. A good start! I cleared my bowl and sat back to wait for my main course. 

Wow. Just wow. The plate looked a lot prettier before I loaded my cauliflower cheese and vegetables on to it, but still... wow! Massive yorkshire pudding, honeyed roast parsnips, roast potatoes, sprouts, carrots, green beans, cauliflower cheese and the most succulent beef I've ever had. The meal was topped with a lovely rich gravy. I ate every scrap and absolutely loved every  bit of it. Neil doesn't like cauliflower cheese so I had a double helping of that which was a bonus. I also love a good honeyed parsnip and these were roasted just the way I like them. Neil asked for lamb as his meat of choice and said it was the best lamb he's ever had. Top marks from both of us for the main course! I was far too full for dessert, but we had a voucher for a three course meal so we obviously had to finish the meal off in style. 

I ordered the white chocolate and apricot cheesecake with butterscotch cream for my dessert... possibly the most decadent dessert I've ever had. And yes, I include my Italian holidays in that statement which makes it even more impressive. I didn't even know if I liked butterscotch but the little dollop of cream with cocoa dusting was just heavenly. The base was very thick and buttery and the filling itself was so rich and indulgent with just the right amount of apricot flavouring. Absolutely beautiful. I'm also a big fan of round desserts (no idea why) so this bowled me over on all counts. 

The rain cleared up while we were eating so we went outside for a wander after finishing our food. The vineyard itself is just a few metres from the restaurant, and there's a seating area outside ready for the warmer weather. Such a pretty setting for a Sunday lunch! I definitely want to go back during the summer so that we can have a longer walk around the vineyard. 

The restaurant at Llanerch Vineyard definitely lived up to all its hype. Every aspect of our three course meal was delicious and it really felt like an indulgent treat. I paid £45 for the voucher for two which is very reasonable considering both the quality and the quantity of the food. The service was excellent and the views were beautiful, even if the weather wasn't perfect on the day we visited. 

Have you ever visited Llanerch Vineyard? What did you think? We'll definitely be back!