As the package my sisters and elder sister's boyfriend had given us included Friday night dinner, Saturday breakfast and Saturday afternoon cream tea, I knew we were going to be eating a lot of food! Liam's Mum had also given us some money to have lunch there yesterday. So before all that, I started yesterday off with a quick green smoothie before we left...
This is my current favourite green smoothie - just spinach, banana, frozen pineapple and milk, topped with coconut. Simple, yet really tasty :)
After dropping daughter at school, and baby at my Mum's, it was time to go. We stayed at Woodbury Park which has a big golf course (we didn't use) as well as a leisure centre with gym, swimming pool, jacuzzi etc. We couldn't check into the hotel until 2pm, so when we first got there we enjoyed sitting outside with a couple of lattes (each! I've had a lot of coffee the last 2 days!!)
The view over the golf course was great...
Us relaxing...
It was really nice to get enjoy the fresh air, however grey clouds were appearing so we decided to eat lunch inside.
I chose an egg mayonnaise baguette on granary...
and we shared a small bowl of chips...
this was really good, the bread was freshly baked with a crunchy crust, good choice!
We then made use of the swimming pool and jacuzzi before it was time to check in to the hotel. There were some cute touches in the hotel room which I obviously had to photograph(!!) The "Indulge" package we'd been given included champagne and chocolates...
and I liked the little soaps in the bathroom...
plus the tea & coffee station...
little things!!
Anyway, after settling in and taking various photos, we headed to the gym for a quick workout. I just did a steady 20 minutes on cross trainer, 10 minutes rowing machine, 5 minutes cycling and some weights. Whereas Liam did 5 minutes on one thing, 10 minutes on next etc at really high intensity...he was completely out of breath by the end!! We then went back to the hotel room to drink champagne...
and get ready for dinner...
and then it was time to eat! Well, kind of...our table was booked for 7.30pm which is what time we arrived downstairs, but we ended up waiting, along with several other groups, for half an hour as the chef had changed the menu at the last minute!! Luckily I had a Pimms & lemonade to keep me going!
Once we were seated, our food arrived pretty quickly. To start, Liam had a chicken Caesar salad...
and I had leek and potato soup (it was either that or Greek salad which, as I don't like olives, I decided to avoid)...
this was ok, but very thin, which I wasn't expecting from a soup with potato in. There was also lots of yummy homemade bread to go with it though :)
Our main courses arrived very quickly after we'd finished our starters. Liam had roast chicken breast with ratatouille, and I had wild mushroom ravioli...
This was great. I was expecting lots of small ravioli, so was very pleasantly surprised by the three huge ones. They were filled with loads of little wild mushrooms...
The above photo doesn't really do them justice, but they were really good. I love having meals out that you couldn't/wouldn't make at home, and whilst I could easily make the soup (and probably make it more to my taste), I probably wouldn't go to the effort of making the ravioli. They were absolutely delicious though, so maybe I should!
Bizarrely after the quick service between starter and main, we had to wait over half an hour for dessert! Mine was worth the wait though - white chocolate trifle with sugared brazil nuts...
this wasn't really what I'd pictured as trifle, but was delicious nonetheless - a white chocolate mousse layered with sponge, yum. The "sugared brazil nuts" were more like brazil nut brittle - two whole nuts encased in hard caramel - really good, although I was a bit worried about my teeth!!
Liam had a lemon creme brulee...
this had a really nice lemony flavour but, despite being cold, the "custard" had not set at all - the consistency was more like runny yoghurt. Liam enjoyed it anyway though I think. A good meal overall, most of the food was really tasty! The service was a bit patchy, although I don't know if it was the norm - the barman, who vaguely knew Liam, apologised commenting that it was "one of those nights". At least, despite the problems, they were all cheerful and still smiling!
*******
On to today. The morning started off with clear blue sky and sunshine, so I enjoyed some time on our room's balcony...
before going down to breakfast. We started with a cup of tea each. I loved the selection of Clipper teas available!
I had a cup of Clipper Organic Wild Berry Infusion before moving on to the food! Liam is either more restrained than me or doesn't understand the idea of a buffet (he claimed he just wasn't hungry, which is another possibility I suppose!) and only had one croissant, one little custard pastry and an apple, plus 2 cups of tea and 2 glasses of juice. I on the other hand ate lots, especially as I knew we wouldn't be eating "lunch" until 2.30pm! First I had a pot of Langage Farm peach melba yoghurt with toppings...
pistachios, raisins, pecans and chopped apricot made good toppings :)
Yum. I next wanted to try one of the custard pastries, as Liam's had looked really good. So I had one of those with some grapes...
I should really have focused the camera on the pastry rather than the grapes, oops! Both were really tasty though. Finally I had a bowl of muesli with some extra flaked almonds, pistachios and chopped apricots as toppings...
and I couldn't resist another custard pastry - so good!
I was pleasantly full after all that! :) There was also cooked breakfast, but I didn't fancy it and Liam wasn't even hungry enough to force down a bacon sandwich!!
After breakfast, we went back to our room to pack up and relax a bit before check-out time...
and then enjoyed a couple of hours swimming/relaxing on loungers/going in jacuzzi...bliss!
Before going home, we enjoyed the last part of our "Indulge" package - a cream tea...
The scones were huge - I had to give Liam my final half! - and full of sultanas and cherries, yum!
A good end to a great stay :)
We then went home to pick up the children and get back to normality. The children had woken up at 6am today so my poor sister was exhausted!! The break was a really good idea of theirs though - nice to have a bit of child-free time in the run up to the wedding...thanks guys if you're reading! :)
Well, this post took longer to write than I expected! Glad to have lots of photos and reminders to look back on though :) Off to put daughter to bed. Only one more sleep til my birthday, exciting!! :) Hope you're all having great weekends too, any fun plans??
Yay have a happy birthday! Glad you had a lovely time- the cream tea looks amazing :)
ReplyDeleteThat place looks gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely birthday and it looks like you both had a well deserved break!
ReplyDelete