E's Birthday Tea (with heaps of cake...)

Yesterday was the perfect excuse to have a day off the dreaded revision that A levels bring: we celebrated E's birthday!

First up, an elegant afternoon tea by the River Cam. We were brought 3 tier stands packed with goodies getting tastier and sweeter as you worked your way up & had the brilliant entertainment of watching kayakers fall in the river (this might have even been one of my favourite parts...)

The prettiest of the selection was the marzipan fruit (shame I'm not keen on marzipan) & the tastiest was definitely the bakewell slice.

After gorging on most of the treats, the staff kindly boxed up the rest for us to take home.

Afternoon tea was good, but my favourite part came later on. 

Our dinner was a selection of all the tastiest foods. We ate our favourites before settling down to a huuuge dose of Eurovision. Am I the only one who's favourite was Hungary? My winner predictions weren't quite perfected this time, but E managed to guess both who came 1st and 2nd... (I'm not jealous at all...*cough*)

To finish the whole shabang was my mother's traditional toblerone cake! I was in charge of decorations & insisted upon using the mustache sweet, hence the 'I mustache you a question' part...

Happy Birthday E!

Exams are in full flow right now, so here is a little procrastination with some tuuunes!

Needing/Getting by OK Go and The World at Large by Modest Mouse.

Country walk

A lot of the time I wish I lived in a city. But sometimes, there are moments where living in the country is just perfect. Times like this.

Myself & E ventured out of our village to celebrate the arrival of the sun (I say sun, but don't be fooled, it was still freezing cold!).

Initially our aim was to go roller skating, but the lack of smooth surface swiftly changed our plans & we began walking down our favourite hill.

Then we discovered this beauty.

If only I had a forest, I could get a pet squirrel... *swoon*

When the sun turned the hills that glorious golden colour, we decided it was time for 'that' picture, which took us a little while to perfect, but we got there in the end.

There'll always that little piece of me which loves having this all on my doorstep, even if I do love cities.

Weekend in Cambridge

This weekend was the beginning of my holiday. So it was the perfect opportunity to spend the weekend with my sister at university.

I arrived in the afternoon & we had time for a walk & cookies before we wrapped up & began the hunt for a restaurant.

After a short search, we picked out a little Mediterranean restaurant. Both our meals were lovely - I had Salmon Agora whereas E had Moroccan Style Tagine.

We then did some exploring before escaping the cold for a short supermarket trip to buy some microwave popcorn. As I don't have a microwave at home (shocking I know) this would be the first time I had it & so the prospect was very exciting.

We dashed through the cold back to my sister's room to do some sketching & watch Anna Karenina with our popcorn. I had no idea I had been missing out on something so tasty.

After a surprisingly good night considering I had to camp on the floor, we did a little more exploring. Although it was still early, the parks were filled with students playing football, rugby & a whole host of other games. We also managed to catch a snippet of a rowing race.

We then had a little meet up with a distant cousin we had never met before. This was lovely - we had heard he went to the same university but never had the actual chance to meet until then.

Our thoughts then turned to lunch.

We've always liked to experiment with recipes, so this was our chance to combine our favourite flavours into a perfect lunch. A mixture of sweet potato, greens, puff pastry, onions & haloumi cheese, it was GLORIOUS. I'm sure I'll be posting the recipe one day.

It really was one of the best lunches I've had in a while - I can't rave on about it enough, especially if you consider how speedy, easy and tasty it was.

Once our lunch was over, we had hot drinks & treated ourselves to chocolates & our mother's homemade cookies before heading out for one last exploration before I had to leave.

Cambridge is so beautiful, it's always a pleasure to go there, between the parks, rowing races, shops and university events, there is always something going on.

A perfect start to my little holiday.

Bill's

Yesterday I travelled to Cambridge to visit my sister for the day, & we had the pleasure of stumbling upon this little gem for lunch. Bill's.

Judging by the queue we found as we arrived, this place was clearly worth listening to our grumbling tummies for that little bit longer.

And oh my it was.

I ordered the home-made cod fish finger sandwich, whereas my sister ventured into the unknown, choosing moules frites for the first time in her life.

We were not disappointed.

The portions were perfectly sized & each dish had a cleverly chosen mix of flavours to keep your taste buds tip top.

The place had a glorious mish mash of details & had shelves filled to the ceiling with foodsy items you could buy. 

Not to mention the impressive decoration, I had a bunch of chillies suspended above my head!

It was a lovely lunch, with a good atmosphere, the place was busy, but calm enough to have a good conversation.

Inspired by the culinary success, we trekked down to Heffers, the book store, & I nosed around the cookery books.

I also had to get several bits and pieces so we went shopping for a while, before going on a walk around the (admittedly freezing) parks.

If you want to find out more about Bill's, go to the website here. It's a great place to meet with friends I definitely recommend checking it out.