A recap of this year's blog posts

I've had a busy few weeks which means I haven't had time to come up with any new content for a little while. So, rather than leaving the blog blank for a week, I thought I'd put together a recap of this year's posts instead.

My blog stats have been quite disappointing for the last few months and I'm not too sure why. Hopefully this summary will remind my readers about posts they might have missed, giving my stats a much-needed boost at the same time!


Christmas and new year 

My first few posts of 2019 were all about Christmas and the new year, as you'd expect. I blogged about our Christmas and new year celebrations and my Christmas sale bargains, as well as my annual 'best of 2018' blog post which summarised all my highlights from last year.

New York 

I went to New York in December which meant some of my blog posts from that holiday spilt over into 2019. I posted a mouth-watering summary of what we ate in New York, and I also blogged about what I wore in New York.

Lifestyle 

I've written one very personal post this year about remembering what makes me 'me'. This post has had three times as many views as my other recent posts! People are nosey and we all love scrolling through a good personal post. I've also blogged about rediscovering my reading mojo, as well as blogging about why I love having a dog last week.

Venice 

Lastly, we went to Venice at the beginning of March and I managed to get three blog posts out of our lovely trip. One was a photographic summary, and I also blogged about what I ate in Venice and what I wore in Venice.

Hopefully there'll be some brand new content on the blog next week. In the meantime, feel free to catch up on any posts you've missed! 

What I wore in Venice

I've blogged about what I ate in Venice and posted a photographic summary of our trip, so now it's time to blog about what I wore in Venice. I really love the steady stream of content that presents itself after I've been on holiday.

I checked the weather forecast religiously for about 6 weeks before we went away to make sure I packed appropriately. As the weather was set to be a few degrees warmer than back home, I took a couple of denim jackets to wear over my day dresses rather than taking any big coats. I also packed some nice dresses for the evenings along with my new favourite baby pink jacket. I took a raincoat just in case, but we didn't see a drop of rain for the whole holiday so it stayed safely inside my suitcase.

Once I'd made a final decision on all the clothes I was taking, I decided which bags and shoes to pack. Are you starting to realise why it takes me so long to pack for a holiday? I took far too many pairs of shoes considering we only went for 5 days, but I did wear them all at least once so I don't feel too silly.

I've linked to the items photographed below wherever possible, but most of them are either years old or out of stock by now. During the writing of this post, I realised that only one of the items below was bought at full price which made my thrifty heart very happy.

Day outfits 

Every item that made up this outfit was massively discounted... 

the dress and boots cost £15 in total! 

Denim jacket, dress and boots from New Look, and bag from Kate Spade New York. 

Denim jacket and ankle boots from New Look, 

dress from ASOS, and bag from Kate Spade New York. 

Denim jacket, ankle boots and dress from New Look, 

and bag from Kate Spade New York (bought with my Ebay profits!).
I used this bag as my hand luggage bag to save space in my case. 

Denim jacket, dress and boots from New Look, bag from Kate Spade New York. 

Evening outfits 

 

Jacket and dress from New Look, bag from Ted Baker
(one of last year's Christmas sale bargains).

Dress and shoes from New Look. 

The dress was a massive bargain a couple of months ago at £10.  

Dress and shoes from ASOS, bag from Kate Spade New York. 

I've got the same dress in white because I like it so much!  

Dress from New Look. You can't see it clearly in the picture, 

but it's delicately glittery and I love it.  

I think I've finally run out of holiday content, so there might be something completely different on the blog next week... 

What I ate in Venice

It already feels as if our trip to Venice was about two years ago after a crazy busy couple of weeks. One way of keeping the memories alive is to blog about them, so here's another holiday blog post!

I posted a photographic summary last week, so this week I've decided to focus on what we ate (and drank) during our time in Venice.

We ate breakfast at the hotel every morning as this was included in the price of our room. I've loved the breakfasts we've experienced at every Italian hotel we've ever stayed in, and Hotel Savoia & Jolanda is no exception. They offer a huge buffet breakfast with loads of choice, and you can be as light and healthy or as deliciously indulgent as you like. I had a hot chocolate every morning along with various combinations of fresh bread rolls, meats, cheeses, pastries, yoghurt, granola, and lots of other sugary beauties. Don't be fooled by the photo below... this isn't an accurate representation of the size of my breakfast!

Breakfast kept us going until late morning which conveniently meant we were hungry again just in time for lunch. We usually had something quick from a little side street, such as a pizza slice or a filled wrap, which we took away to eat as we walked. These lunches were really cheap but so fresh and tasty.

We decided to have a sit-down lunch one afternoon at Hotel Londra Palace's Bistrot 4172 which was spectacular. We sat outside in the sunshine with a glass of Prosecco and a Mojito, and we were given a massive bread basket to start. I ordered the Ravioli dell'alto Veneto and I could honestly have eaten it three times over because it was so perfect.

As if that wasn't enough food to be getting on with, we also went out for a nice dinner every evening while we were in Venice. Due to the great location of our hotel, we didn't have to stray very far to find amazing and varied restaurants. On two evenings, we simply walked downstairs to eat in our hotel's Ristorante Principessa. The other restaurants we tried (Conca d'Oro and Trovatore) were only a short walk away.

Do you know what I really love about Italian restaurants? It's perfectly acceptable to order pasta for your first course and steak for your main, and you can still order a starter and/or dessert if you fancy it. SO MUCH FOOD.

You might think we had more than enough food between our breakfast, lunch and dinner, but you'd be wrong. We also needed to make sure we kept ourselves going with little (and large) snacks throughout the day. We had a scoop or two of gelato most days, and we also had a lovely pastry and hot chocolate in a little cafe one afternoon. I also treated myself to a rum hot chocolate from Venchi which I had to eat with a spoon because it was so thick. Yes, really.

As you can see, we ate rather a lot of food during our holiday. We also made sure we sampled several cocktails along the way, and we had some lovely Prosecco and wine with our dinners.

We stopped off at the hotel bar for a happy hour cocktail nearly every afternoon, and we had some amazing after-dinner cocktails at the LondraBar. 'Amazing' doesn't actually feel like a powerful enough superlative to describe them... they were definitely up there with the best cocktails I've ever had. Cocktails in Italy tend to be served with a selection of snacks, so our constant stream of eating was never interrupted.

I think this blog post proves that our food and drink escapades in Venice get an eleven out of ten (at least). 

Have you visited any of these restaurants, or have I convinced you to try them on your next trip to Venice? 

Venice in 15 photos

We spent an amazing 5 days in Venice at the beginning of March.

As this was our second visit to Venice, we took things at a more relaxed pace and didn't worry too much about blitzing all the big landmarks as we'd already done them first time around. Our first visit to Venice was the last leg of our Italian honeymoon four and a half years ago, so we thought it was about time we returned to this beautiful and unique city.

I always find it difficult to blog about holidays in their entirety because there's so much to cover and I end up running out of superlatives, so my first post-holiday blog post is usually a photographic summary. Looking back over my recent holiday blog posts, I seem to favour sharing 15 photos so that's what I've done here. As always, the most difficult part was narrowing it down to 15 from over 400 photos.

As I did with my 'New York in 15 photos' post, I've tried to summarise all the main things we saw and did with a photo and a title to give you some context. There are some beautiful buildings missing from this list and I could comfortably have featured double the amount of photos, but I wanted to make sure I kept it to 15. Some might say I'm a little obsessed with following a specific formula.

So, moving swiftly on from words to photographs, here's our trip to Venice in 15 photos!

Piazza San Marco

Palazzo Ducale

Basilica di San Marco

Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs) 

View of the Venetian lagoon from our hotel

Rooftop terrace at T Fondaco dei Tedeschi

Ponte di Rialto

View from Ponte dell'Accademia

Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute

Burano

Campanile di San Giorgio dei Greci (one of Venice's three leaning towers)

San Giorgio Maggiore

Scuola Grande di San Marco (this is a hospital, believe it or not)

Grand Canal

View from a random bridge, just because...

Look out for more blog posts about Venice over the next few weeks! 

Our travel adventures as husband and wife

We're off to New York in just over three weeks! We haven't had more than a couple of days off work since our last big holiday in May, so we're very excited about our pre-Christmas getaway.

We travelled to New York together for the first time in February 2013. It was one of our first holidays together as a couple and, in some ways, it feels as if it happened a whole lifetime ago. This got me thinking about all the places we've travelled to together since then... cue blogging inspiration alert.

I decided to focus on the holidays we've been on since we got married in August 2014. We didn't get photos of the two of us on every occasion, but I'm quite impressed that we managed as many as we did considering we don't particularly like having our photos taken.

Please excuse the inconsistent photo sizes... we've both had lots of different cameras and phones over the last four years! 



Rome, September 2014

We went to Rome for the first leg of our honeymoon. Rome is an amazing place and we loved the four days we spent there, apart from the stress of trying to cross their hectic roads.

Lake Garda, September 2014

The second leg of our honeymoon was spent in beautiful Malcesine. A completely different pace to Rome with breathtaking beauty at every turn.

Venice, September 2014

The last leg of our honeymoon was spent in Venice. More beautiful views, architecture and food... it's safe to say that we were well and truly in love with Italy by the time we left.

Disneyland Paris, December 2014

We went to Disneyland Paris for the first time in December 2014. We couldn't afford to go to Walt Disney World in 2014 due to our wedding and honeymoon but we still wanted our Disney fix. Disney + Christmas = perfection!

Amalfi, April 2015

We decided we wanted to see a different part of Italy in 2015, so we went to Amalfi on the Amalfi Coast.  Definitely one of the most beautiful coastlines I've ever seen in my life.

Walt Disney World, September 2015

It was finally time to go back to our favourite place in the world in September 2015. This was our first trip back to Florida since we got engaged there in 2013, so it was an extra special holiday for us.

Toronto, March 2016

We spent a week in Toronto in March 2016. Toronto is an incredible city with loads to see, and we also went on a day trip to Niagara Falls while we were there.

Walt Disney World, September 2016

Surprise surprise, we ended up back in Walt Disney World in September 2016. Although this trip was overshadowed by my cancer diagnosis, escaping to the most magical place on earth for two weeks was the ideal distraction.

London, October 2016

We went on an overnight theatre break to London in October 2016 to see Aladdin at the West End. I was still recovering from my operation so we had a slow couple of days, and it was lovely to get away for a night.

London, March 2017

We booked another theatre break in March 2017 as we loved the first one so much. This time we went to see The Lion King and it was absolutely amazing.

Walt Disney World, April 2017

I know I know, we can't keep away. This trip was only eight months after the last one which meant we didn't have to wait quite so long for it to arrive!

Wizarding World of Harry Potter, August 2017

I bought tickets for us to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Watford for Neil's birthday back in March. We booked our trip in August to coincide with our anniversary, and we had a brilliant time.

Florence, October 2017

It was time for us to try yet another part of Italy in October 2017. We loved Florence and I'd highly recommend it if you're looking for the perfect mix of culture, city life and relaxation.

Walt Disney World, May 2018

Back again... yes, we do enjoy going back to Walt Disney World every year. We just love it that much!

Llangennith, October 2018

We went on our first holiday with Jessie in October. It was so lovely to be able to take Jessie with us and we'll definitely be planning more dog-friendly weekends away in the near future.

Next stop... New York!