My August in Instagram squares

August was a super busy month, as you can tell from my lack of blog posts (again). How is it September already?! However, all is not lost. As my Instagram feed has been kept faithfully up to date, I thought I'd write another monthly update using my Instagram photos as it's such a good way of summarising in squares. It turns out that I did (and ate) quite a lot in August... 

1. We went to Bar 44 in Penarth for the first time. As we went on a Sunday, we decided to go for the Sunday roast sharing platter. It was spectacular, as was my Nutty Brazilian cocktail and my cheesecake. It most definitely needs to become one of our regular haunts.  

2. I went away to North Wales to work at the Eisteddfod for six days. I was surrounded by beautiful views! It unfortunately rained nearly every afternoon while I was there, but the evenings were gloriously sunny. 

3. We did lots of painting in our house... we now have four freshly painted rooms. I love my pink living room wall the most!

4. I went for a lovely walk on one of my days off when we had a rare day of sunshine. I took about 40 photos but I think this one is my favourite...

5. I finished off my holiday shopping in trusty New Look and Primark. So many bargains in this photograph!

6. We visited Clarks Village for the first time and I loved it. I saved £54 on the goodies below which was actually more than I spent, so I definitely can't argue with that.

7. We went for a meal at my favourite curry house... Balti Cuisine! They love us there because we just keep coming back... and back... and back.

8. We went for a long walk to a very cloudy Cardiff Bay Beach... it was pretty cold and my short dress and flip flops certainly weren't appropriate for the occasion. 

9. We spent a less cloudy day in Cardiff city centre and I bought myself a new Pandora charm! It's becoming an expensive obsession and probably deserves its very own blog post at some point.

10. I went home to my parents' house for a few days. I spent hours chatting and laughing with my parents,  spent time in their beautiful garden, and met up with my best friend from school and her handsome little boy.

11. I went out for my friend from work's leaving do... I was driving so had lots of fruity (and sugary) mocktails! I used the occasion to wear one of my favourite dresses.

12. Neil and I had a little treat in Costa... sometimes I just can't say no to their tiffin.

13. I had a lovely date night with Sarah which consisted of food, an epic catch up, and Trainwreck at the cinema. We go to Bellini's every time!

14. Neil and I went to Nando's for the first time since our wedding. It's more expensive there than we remembered, or perhaps we're just more tight these days. A mortgage will do that to you.

15. I went to London for the day to visit Ice Bar and to see the Alice's Adventures Underground show. I absolutely loved every minute of it (apart from the tedious bus journey there and back), and I won a £40 gift voucher from Ice Bar as a result of my photos and enthusiastic captions! 

16. We hosted our first ever dinner party at our house which meant I got to use my beautiful heart shaped dipping bowls. They're possibly the most Instagrammable pieces of crockery I own.

17. We finished off our freshly painted bathroom with this pretty set of canvases. Very calming and bathroom-y!

18. Lastly, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary at the end of August... that deserves a post all to itself so I'll blog about it when we get back from holiday at the end of September (if I ever have some free time!). 

What did everyone else get up to in August? Did you also write a blog post which summarised your month into Instagram squares? Send me your links if so :) 

Restaurant wishlist - the Cardiff edition

I love food... I don't think this will surprise anyone. A lot of my blog posts are either about my baking adventures, food I've eaten on holiday, or restaurant reviews. I don't usually eat out during the week as I'm always trying to be healthy as well as thrifty, but my fiancé and I tend to go out for dinner on Saturday evenings. We go to a lot of chain restaurants such as Pizza Express and Nando's, but we also love some independent restaurants like Balti Cuisine and Tenkaichi.

We've got a long list of restaurants we want to visit in Cardiff in the next few months which I've posted below. We're obviously happy to add to this list if anyone has any good recommendations.

1. Viva Brazil
2. The Purple Poppadum
3. Juboraj (I've eaten here before but Neil hasn't... best chutney tray ever)
4. Toby Carvery (can't believe I've never been!)
5. Gourmet Burger Kitchen
6. Giovanni's
7. Mission Burrito
8. Cafe Citta
9. Mint and Mustard
10. Thai House


I'll post a restaurant review for each venue when we start ticking these restaurants off our list. Get ready for lots of gushing and photos of food!

Weekend in London

Don't be too shocked, but I've decided to take a break from blogging about Florida and present you with a blog post on the weekend I spent in London recently. I went to visit my best friends from university - Liz, Fee, Kirsty and Jenna. We hadn't all been together since our Fake Christmas back in January so it was definitely an eagerly anticipated weekend. It was also the first time I'd seen everyone since getting engaged so we had lots to talk about!

I got the bus from Cardiff to London Victoria on Friday evening after work and arrived in London at 8:50pm. I managed to read for two hours on the bus... I'm totally engrossed in Cross and Burn by Val McDermid. After Liz met me at the coach station, we went to Subway while we waited for Kirsty to arrive. Any excuse! We both had the Spicy Italian, which has to be my favourite Subway option of all time. It's also the most calorific, but calories don't count when you're on holiday. Calories definitely don't count when the five of us get together... we love food.

On Saturday morning, we headed to the V&A Museum in Kensington to meet Fee and Jenna. I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I had a hot chocolate and a scone with clotted cream and jam before 10:30am in the museum cafe. The scones were just too tempting (and massive). After our rather large morning snack, we wandered around the museum for a few hours while catching up on each other's news. The V&A is chock full of pretty things... I especially liked the jewellery section as I'm a fan of anything that sparkles. And it's free!

We went to London Bridge in the afternoon as Kirsty had some vouchers for the London Dungeons so we thought we'd see what the queues were like. After half an hour or so of rain just after lunchtime, the rest of the afternoon was surprisingly sunny. We had a lovely walk along the river with some beautiful views of the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye. There was also lots of wedding talk, obviously... I think I've now chosen my wedding colour after gathering opinions over the weekend. All will be revealed in a future post.

The queue for the London Dungeons was too long so we decided to stop for a coffee break instead. We went to the Eat coffee shop, and I had the most amazing 'Chocolate Chiller' drink. I know I'm easily pleased, but it really was that good. We also sang 'happy birthday' to Fee as it was her birthday in a few days and gave her all her birthday presents. All Fee's birthday presents from me were purchased from New York and Florida... well travelled gifts! 

After doing some more catching up in Eat (and setting a date for this year's Fake Christmas!), we headed across the bridge to Covent Garden. This resulted in more beautiful views...

I don't think I've ever been to Covent Garden before... I've been to London quite a few times and have been to the London Bridge area before, but I don't think I'd ever walked across to Covent Garden. It's a lovely area with a mixture of shops, restaurants and bars, and I think it must look absolutely beautiful when the Christmas decorations are up. It even had a Disney store! There were loads of people milling around, and it was generally a lovely atmosphere. 

After wandering around the shops, we met Liz's boyfriend and went to search for some food. We ended up in Nando's as everywhere else had a massive wait... Nando's never disappoints so it's always a good option when you're in a big group. I had my usual lemon and herb chicken wrap, chips and grilled halloumi. After eating ourselves silly, we went to the Punch and Judy for a few drinks then got the last train back to Liz's house. A lovely day was had by all! 

Sunday was always going to consist of lots of eating before going back home to the diet... I had a bacon roll in London Victoria's Wetherspoons in the morning, then we shared some nachos, then I had a Sunday roast at the Shakespeare pub. I probably didn't need to buy a big bag of Skittles for the bus home, but I still did. A bus journey isn't complete without some kind of sugary snack.

Even though I was looking forward to seeing Neil, I was quite sad when I left the pub to catch my bus back to Cardiff. The five of us aren't all together very often, so it's always a great weekend when we do all manage to meet up at the same time. We all live quite far away from each other (Cardiff, Minehead, Milton Keynes and London) so unfortunately we can't all meet up as often as we'd like. I love reminiscing about when we all used to live together, some of the strange acquaintances we had back then, the unforgettable nights out, some of the equally eventful nights in, and our questionable ex boyfriends. You can't beat a good catch up with brilliant friends.

Some photos from back in the day... I couldn't find a photo with all five of us!

After such a lovely weekend, I'm now even more excited about catching up with everyone at Fake Christmas in January!

What did everyone else get up to last weekend? Did you eat as much as I did?

Restaurant review: Nando's

Nando's is definitely a regular favourite of mine. There are two Nando's restaurants in Cardiff city centre, and one in Cardiff Bay. My favourite is the restaurant in the Brewery Quarter in town, as the other two are always so busy. The one in St Davids 2 is also full of giggling teenagers and always has a massive queue, so we try to avoid that one. It is the biggest restaurant out of the three, but definitely not the most pleasant. In my opinion, the Brewery Quarter has a much nicer atmosphere than the food court at St Davids 2 too.

Last Saturday evening, we wanted something quick to eat before heading to the cinema and decided we were in the mood for some Nando's goodness. We went to the Brewery Quarter restaurant and were seated straight away without having to wait. Quite rare for a Saturday night in Cardiff!

I don't think I've ever sat at table number 1 before...

I'm not sure why I even look at the menu any more in Nando's as I always tend to have the same thing. I love their chicken wraps, I love their chips, I love their halloumi from the 'sides' menu and I love their lemon and herb sauce. Simples!

The food came really quickly, and the chips and halloumi were amazing as always. My wrap was very spicy this time for some reason though, a bit too much chilli jam I suspect I don't mind spicy food, but when I choose the lemon and herb sauce I don't expect much spice. The salad was also quite dry, so it wasn't the best wrap I've ever had. Still, it was a lovely and filling meal as usual.

Nando's feast

I'm yet to meet anyone who doesn't like a good Nando's meal from time to time... is there anybody out there who can prove me wrong?