Monday 2 April 2012

What a Wonderful Weekend... :-)

I've had the most wonderful weekend with fab friends, lots of scrummy food, some successful shopping & gorgeous sunshine!! What more could a girl ask for? 


SATURDAY


Saturday started well, as I was in such a good mood due to the fact that it was the start of the easter holidays, and the thought of no work for two weeks is a very good one. :-) We woke up late and walked to the local M&S garage to get lunch, and we took it to our friend Rhiannon's house, and had lunch with her and her gorgeous baby daughter, Alexandra. 



Gorgeous baby Alexandra, laughing at Liam! x




On Saturday night we went to my lovely friend Kerry's house, and had dinner with her, and our equally lovely friend Josie. Kerry cooked some scrumptious food, we had baked camembert with some of Liam's homemade granary bread (which we bought with us for Josie, as she loves bread, and suggested a swap of bread for beer, which Liam most gladly obliged to!) and some yummy onion bread, then we had sausages, chicken fillets wrapped in parma ham, a gorgeous potato salad, roasted garlic baby new potatoes, and salad. It was delish!!! Then Kerry revealed her masterpiece - she'd made a ginormous Chocolate & Guinness cake, and it was seriously tasty! In fact, I've just had another rather generous slice (on Monday eve) as Kerry gave us a great big chunk of cake to take home with us too! She'd also made some homemade after dinner mints which were in the cutest little mini chocolate teacups! Soo sweet and just lovely! It was a fabulous night from beginning to end. 



My lovely Liam with Kerry on Sat night xx


Josie and George the cat playing 'who can stare at each other the longest' at Kerry's on sat night x



SUNDAY


Sunday was equally a blooming marvellous day! We met our fab friends Danni & Charlie in St Albans, and went to The Waffle House, which is opposite Verulamiun Park. If you haven't been to The Waffle House before, I would seriously recommend it. Its a beautiful old watermill which has been converted into a restaurant that serves only waffles, with a selection of sweet and savoury options. It was our first ever visit on Sunday, and I was very impressed. The food was absolutely incredible, and the atmosphere just lovely. I had the most amazing Pecan and Butterscotch waffle with vanilla ice cream, and so did my friend Danni, and then the boys had a savoury choice, of a waffle with chilli con carne, which they equally said was really tasty. Liam is Waffle King and managed both a savoury AND sweet waffle! He finished his meal with a glorious Banoffee Waffle.


(visit the waffle house website at: http://www.wafflehouse.co.uk/st-albans.html )



Liam and I, on the train to St Albans





The Waffle House, St Albans


My amazing Pecan & Butterscotch Waffle ;-)


Then the boys went on a pub crawl around St Albans, while me and Danni hit the shops! And a very successful shop it was. I bought a gorgeous dress from Fat Face for my hen-do, and managed to find two matching cardi's and a lovely pair of shoes in New Look, and got the whole outfit for £65. The two cardi's each give the dress a slightly different look; one is light and has short sleeves, so more summery, and the other is bright coral, with long sleeves, so better for a slightly cooler summer day. 



My new dress :-)


Lovely shoes from New Look (£20)


The bright coral cardigan with long sleeves


The light peachy mini-cardigan with short sleeves




I was also very excited as I managed to easily get into a size 16. :-) It was a great feeling, and was something I'd been really looking forward to achieving. I actually managed to lose 5 lbs this week, which I was so so chuffed at, as I had annoyingly stayed the same weight for 3 consecutive weeks. So a big loss this week was the boost I needed. I've done a lot of walking in the past week, and I cross trained, as well as staying well within my calorie limit each day (using MyFitnessPal) - so despite the lovely yummy decadent foods I'd managed to scoff this week, I'd done enough exercise to combat the calories. Balance balance balance. It really does work. 


So after the success of buying the lovely outfit all ready for my hen do, we had a really good girlie wander and rummage round the shops of St Albans. Shopping is probably both mine and Danni's favourite thing to do, so we were in heaven. Chatting away, looking at beautiful things and enjoying the sunshine - fab! I took some piccies of some of the lovely bits and pieces we had a good gander at....



Really stunning china collection that i fell in love with....


Beautiful vase from the same collection


The coolest birdhouses ever, from Cargo


A gorgeous glass Buddha head, which is hollow and can have a large pillar candle inside, which i absolutely loved, and would have bought (it was only £9.99 from TKMaxx) except I knew it would't be Liam's cup of tea, so i resisted temptation. 

I also found (with LOTS of help from Danni's amazing shopping ability!) a couple of really cute bits for the wedding. Firstly, we found a beautiful vintage-style hanging candle lantern made from an old milk bottle, in TKMaxx for £6.99! I'm building up quite a collection  of absolutely beautiful decorations for the barn where we're having our wedding reception now :-)


The lovely milk-bottle lantern :-)

Then when we were looking in Paperchase, Danni found this really cute mini-bunting in the sale at 1/2 price (£3) - and was sure I'd find a use for it somewhere during the wedding, and I'm sure I will - its so cute! 


What a successful day of shopping! :-) (Big thanks to Danni for all the shopping advice and encouragement, I had SUCH a fab day!)

We finished the day by retiring to a lovely pub in Hemmel for some Tapas  - which was absolutely amaze-balls! Me and Liam shared a tapas platter, and it was very yummy! Picture below...of course! (You will quickly learn that I take pictures of pretty much everything I eat out!)


TAPAS - Cajun chicken wings / gooey scotch egg / salt & pepper calamari rings with lime mayo


Bread with Hummus / mixed olives (we actually didn't have the flat bread & hummus. We had actually ordered grilled halloumi cheese with peppers instead, and they bought out the wrong dish & then rectified their mistake, but i hadn't realised at the point of taking this picture! D'oh!)

And despite all this amazing food I have still managed to stay within my calorie goals all weekend. :-) Today (Monday) I've spent quite literally all day doing a big spring clean, and feel so satisfied now that its done. All ready for the holidays! Fab! Plus the cleaning burnt lots of calories, which meant I had enough left over tonight to treat myself to a big slice of Kerry's chocolate & guinness cake - yumma! 

In walking related news, I absolutely smashed my 'most miles walked in one month' record in March - my best to date had been 87 miles walked in November, and in March I walked a record 112.76 miles! Very pleased with that! 

Onwards and Upwards!

Luce

xxxxxxxxxx