Annual Christmas shopping trip

For the last ten years or so, my uni friends and I have organised a Christmas shopping get-together just before Christmas. We usually meet in late November or early December, but we met a little earlier this year due to my impending trip to New York.

Our first few meet ups took place in Cribbs Causeway, and we've also met in Cardiff a few times. However, in recent years, we've met in Bristol city centre as that's the most convenient meeting point for the majority of the group.

Our trip was scheduled in for last Sunday and I decided to catch the Megabus to Bristol. It only cost £10 for a return ticket and it was certainly a lot more relaxing than trying to drive my way around Bristol. I took a photo of City Hall from the bus just before I left Cardiff, purely because of the unexpected rainbow!

It was raining when I left Cardiff, but I was met with brilliant sunshine and blue skies when I arrived in Bristol. I wandered around a couple of shops and made some standard purchases from Lush before making my way to our meeting point on Park Street. I got trapped in the massive Remembrance Day crowd while I walked to Park Street, so I stopped for a while to watch some of the ceremony and to pay my respects by observing the two minute silence.

We all met just before 12 and decided to go straight for lunch. These days, there's a lot more focus on eating and talking than there is on actual shopping during our meet ups. Our go-to restaurant is Pizza Express as there's always something on the menu to suit everyone, so we made our way there immediately.

I ordered a pink gin cocktail and the ragu romana pizza. I don't think my pizza was quite as good as last year's festive beauty, but it was still pretty excellent. To be fair, I don't think I've ever been disappointed by a meal in Pizza Express.

After a long lunch with lots of catching up, we looked around a few of the pretty shops on Park Street. Although I didn't buy much as I've nearly finished my Christmas shopping, I always love looking around the beautiful independent shops and soaking in the Christmassy atmosphere.

I needed to get back to the Megabus stop by 4:30pm, so we finished off the day with a caramelised orange hot chocolate in Costa. Let's be honest, no Christmas shopping trip is complete without a Christmas hot chocolate with all the trimmings. I did accidentally ask for a caramelised onion hot chocolate which was pretty embarrassing, but let's gloss over that part.

I was completely exhausted by the time I got on the bus. I even managed to have a little nap on the journey back to Cardiff which is unheard of for me. I loved catching up with everyone and sampling Bristol's Christmassy atmosphere, and it feels pretty exciting that one of my pre-Christmas staples has already taken place. 39 days to go until the big day!

An ode to my festive pizza

I never thought I'd write a blog post about a pizza... this one really was that good.

I went to Bristol at the end of November to meet up with a few of my university friends. We did some Christmas shopping then went for lunch as soon as it was socially acceptable to do so. Food is one of our common interests as a group! 

We decided to go to Pizza Express as Amy had a few 2 for 1 vouchers, and we all love a bargain nearly as much as we love food. As soon as I glanced at the menu, the festive 'Maple-Glazed Gammon' Romana pizza caught my eye. 'How amazing does this pizza sound?' I exclaimed. I then realised that my excitement could only be shared with one member of the group as the other three are vegetarians and definitely wouldn't have fancied a maple-glazed gammon pizza. Fee and I didn't bother to look at the rest of the menu; the maple-glazed gammon pizza had to be ours! 

LOOK AT IT. 

Honestly, this is one of the best pizzas I've ever had. The big chunks of maple-glazed gammon were really tasty with just the right level of crispiness, and the goat's cheese (the only ingredient I was unsure about) was a great addition. However, the lumps of spiced apricot chutney were the best thing about this pizza. The sweet yet spicy flavour provided the perfect balance for the saltiness of the gammon and goat's cheese, and I only wish there'd been more of it! The garlic oil and Gran Milano cheese finished it off beautifully, and I was genuinely gutted when I eventually finished eating. I love Pizza Express which means I always have high expectations, but they've really outdone themselves with this beauty. 

Although this pizza was quite expensive at £14.60, it was massive and well worth every penny. If only it wasn't classed as 'festive' so that I could order it all year round! 

So there you have it... an ode to my festive pizza. Will you be rushing to Pizza Express as soon as you can to try it out? 

Easter in photos

I had a long five day weekend over Easter and took lots of photos of what I got up to, so I thought I'd publish an 'Easter in photos' post just to summarise my weekend. I'll be blogging about some of these activities in more detail over the next week or so, but here's a little taster. 'Taster' is a good choice of wording here... I ate rather a lot!

My weekend started early with a trip to Pizza Express on Thursday

with Edwina and Sarah

Options hot chocolate in my Easter mug

My Easter nails

Bit of gardening...

Carvery at Cedar Tree Farm

A wander to Cardiff Bay

Went to the pub and had a hot chocolate!

Neil cooked dinner one night.

Stuffed peppers, salad and continental meats to start...

...and bacon, leek and asparagus cheesy tagliatelle for the main course!

Toasted hot cross buns for breakfast

We spent a lot of time in IKEA

As a consequence of our visit to IKEA, we built some furniture

Reduced Easter chocolate 

Aldi's Mini Eggs are nicer than the real thing!

Lovely walk around Cosmeston Lakes

Jack Daniel's burger in T.G.I.Friday's

Went to see The Amazing Spiderman 2... it actually was amazing!

More cooking from Neil. Spanish scrambled eggs!

Easter present from Neil

Last hot chocolate of the weekend in Caffe Nero,

with a sneaky Lindt bunny!

What did you get up to over Easter? Did you take as many photos as I did?

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!

Date day :)

I love date days. I've been with my boyfriend for nearly two years and I'm a firm believer in going on frequent dates, however long you've been together for. We hadn't spent much quality time together recently due to our busy lives, so we scheduled in a date day for Easter Sunday.

All ready and smiley!

Date days always seem so much more appealing when the weather is nice. It was a bit cold which meant it was the perfect weather to wear my Ugg boots, but sunny enough for my new sunglasses from New York!

Scarf and sunglasses... that works, right?

First of all, we took a trip to Wellfield Road to the brand new Joe's Ice Cream parlour. We're big fans of Joe's and usually drive all the way to Swansea for it, so it's pretty exciting that the real thing is now being sold in Cardiff. For those of you who have never tasted Joe's Ice Cream, you really need to. As their slogan rightly states, everything else is just ice cream!

It might sound dull, but you can't beat their vanilla ice cream!

After enjoying our ice cream in the flashy new parlour, we drove into town and parked by the museum. I wish every Sunday was like Easter Sunday... it was blissfully quiet. Not many of the shops were open, but it was still nice to have a wander without being accosted by various people and/or random novelty acts every five minutes.

After buying some Haribo Jelly Babies (a cinema essential), we went to see the 3:15pm showing of The Croods in Cineworld. We're big fans of childish films, and this one was no exception. I won't write a review of it here, but it was a lovely film with some very funny moments.

We then went for a sneaky hot chocolate in Caffe Nero, then went back to the cinema to watch Trance at 6:30pm. We have Cineworld Unlimited cards, so it makes sense to see as many films as we can when we have the opportunity. It was a pretty traumatising film, but very clever. However, I did think of numerous plot holes after having some time to piece it all together. I won't mention them on here in case any of you decide to see it. I would definitely recommend it, despite the apparent plot holes, and I'd be very interested in hearing other people's views on it. Thankfully I was able to anticipate the overly gory bits and closed my eyes in time... I suggest that you do the same if you're a bit squeamish.

Our double cinema date had worked up an appetite, so we went to Pizza Express in St Davids 2 for our Easter meal. Pizza Express never disappoints! I had the Pollo ad Astra romana pizza, which was deliciously scrumptious. Garlic oil is just amazing.

Feeling very full, we drove back to my flat to watch some Outnumbered. This has to be one of my favourite sitcoms, ever.

Perfect date day :)