Wow! What a lucky girl I am, and what a fabby weekend we've just had. For those of you who know me personally you'll know I love to enter competitions - I'm a real day dreamer, so seeing the possibilities of winning lovely things and then imagining it is always great fun for me - I've done it my whole life - when I will little I'd sit with the Argos catalogue for HOURS imagining all the things I'd buy if I had X amount of money.
So you can imagine how excited I've been to have an amazing winning streak recently - I've won a whole host of things from a Hotel Chocolat Dream Hamper, to an inflatable toddler bed! I also won two of Thistle hotels recent competitions - and we claimed our first prize at the weekend. We were entitled to a one night stay at their Thistle Kensington Gardens hotel in a superior suite with view of the park, a bottle of prosecco in our room, breakfast and a £50 voucher for Westfield Shopping centre just down the road! :-)
After we checked into the hotel room and jumped on the enormous bed…
… we headed to Selfridges on Oxford Street as hubby had never been there before, and we're both a big fan of Mr Selfridge on a Sunday night - so we thought it would be cool to have a wander round. I forgot how much I love it in there - I was like a kid in a sweet shop - soooooo many pretty things I wanted to buy!
look at these stunning Kitchen Aid Artisan mixers - I feel so lucky to already own one of these in cream - beautiful - look at all the pretty colours - I especially loved the copper ones right at the top!
Oooooh how I ooed and ahhed at these copper pans! They were like £200-£400 per pan!!!!
As per usual and in true magpie style I'm drawn to anything that sparkles - so pretty!
I cannot explain to you how much I want this bed - it's neat, it's timeless, it's comfortable - it would mean I could snuggle up with hubby and watch Breaking Bad in bed, without craning my neck to see the TV! AND its a neat/tidy/organisational freaks dream - press a button and the TV disappears. No dusty screen or unsightly wires! Woop woop... (one day!)
Then I squealed when I saw this amazing kids bed! Uncle Rob or Cosham if you're reading this…I'd love you to build one for Bert ;-)
And how fun are these cupcake and ice-cream beanbags in the kids section? Adorbs!
I love a bit of knitting/crotchet work - and I though all of these were super cute in the toys department!
Then I went to the opticians dept and fell in love with these Polo by Ralph Lauren frames - you'll have to excuse the wonky eye and stupid pout - can I pull off these glasses? Or are they too cool for school??
Cupcake heaven in the Selfridges Food Hall
Peony heaven at the Selfridges Flower Market - stunning stunning blooms!
After going back to the hotel to get ready - drinking Prosecco in the bath, and eating half a box of GuyLian chocolates with hubby we set off for dinner at The Rib Room in Knightsbridge. I cannot recommend this restaurant enough - the food was exquisite, and service second-to-none. We felt thoroughly spoiled and munched our way through….
Homemade bread and salted butter with a beautiful Peach Bellini cocktail, followed by…
MY MEAL
Starter
Orkney Scallops with lightly spiced butternut squash compote, chargrilled spring onions and lime caramel
Main
Roasted loin of monkfish with cheek & octopus curry, spiced cauliflower puree and toasted almond sauce
Dessert
Banana soufflé with banana and caramel ice cream, and a banana caramel crisp.
LIAM'S MEAL
Starter
Pheasant and celeriac veloute with a game sausage roll and bread sauce
Main
Free range Cotswold chicken with a smoked chicken leg, celeriac ravioli, baby artichokes and truffle sauce
Dessert
Manjari Chocolate moelleux with a Dulcey chocolate centre, salted caramel with milk ice cream.
After devouring all that we were sent some amazing chocolate truffles with our coffees….
And some to take home as a gift!
WOW - What a meal - hubby and I both agreed that it would rank in our top 5 meals ever eaten (and we've been lucky enough to eat at a couple of Heston Bluemthal and Gordon Ramsay's restaurants in the past) - if you can get there you won't be disappointed.
Following our meal we met my lovely cousin for a quick drink in Soho before heading back to the hotel room…
Sunday morning was greeted with the most amazing sunny weather - this is the view I woke up to - just wow!
Kensington Gardens from our hotel window on Sunday morning…stunning!
Instead of going for a run around Kensington Gardens I decided to eat this …
Hahahahahahahaha - I'm not even remotely sorry - it was worth every single calorie!
Breakfast was followed by a lovely long walk around all the shops at Westfield Shopping Centre at Shepherd's Bush - what a lovely place to go shopping! If only we had thousands of pounds to spend on all the glorious things we saw (Michael Kors, Kate Spade, Anthropologie, Laura Ashley, Cath Kidston..I was in HEAVEN)
The main items I had my eyes on were …
This quirky little teapot jumper from Cath Kidston £65
This stunning Rose Gold Michael Kors watch £229
These quilted riding boots from Monsoon £65
Unfortuntely we don't have a spare £360 lying around, so instead we headed to our favourite Mexican restaurant Wahaca and used our voucher to buy lunch - which ended in me devouring these beauties…
Mexican Churros and Chocolate! Yum!
And hubby with his ice cream and beer…
Wow-wee we could barely walk after all that eating etc! We headed home soon after and I couldn't wait to cuddle my little monkey Bert as I'd missed him so much leaving him over night with my mum (thanks mum!) - luckily he was a really good boy, and so I feel really happy and proud of myself for leaving him for a bit - it definitely was amazing to have some grown up time with the hubster all to myself!
Silliness with the hubby on the way home!
So silly, so much fun! Love him!
And I got throughly spoiled with a gorgeous surprise gift from him on Valentines Day itself - this stunning Spineless Classics print of Beauty & The Beast, my favourite ever Disney movie! Every word of the original text is printed behind a gorgeous image of the Beast holding the rose from the story. Gorgeous! And I got a box of my favourite ever chocolates (GuyLian seashells, for those who are wondering, hehe) - the boy did good!
This is the gift I made for hubby using Hama beads….Tetris inspired fridge magnets - haha - he loved them! Just something silly for him.
So, the moral of the story is…enter competitions guys! People do win all the time, and we've had a FABULOUS weekend away which cost us hardly anything.
I'm off to enter some more competitions!
Hope you all had an amazing Valentines!
Mmmmwah!
Mrs B
xxx
