Weekend in North Devon

Hello! How are you all? I seem to have gone AWOL over the last week, whoops. The summer holidays got a bit on top of me - we have been busy doing lots of things, meeting up with friends etc...without a camera in sight!
I did take lots of photos last weekend though, albeit on my iphone rather than with my camera, so I thought I would share those with you to "get me back into" blogging. I went up to North Devon for my friend's birthday weekend. I got a train up early Saturday morning and came back Sunday lunchtime...while Liam stayed at home with the children, bliss!

As I said, the train was - by my standards - early on the Saturday morning, so all I had time for before leaving home was a coffee. I had a Luna bar on the train to keep me going...

I wish I'd eaten more though as we didn't end up eating lunch til gone 2pm!! When I arrived in Barnstaple I went to my friend's house to catch up with everyone. There were 9 of us in total (including my friend and her husband) for the weekend. Once we were all organised, we headed to Tesco to buy lunch and then drove to a beach called Braunton. We parked our cars there before embarking on a walk to Croyde beach, which took us about 1.5 hours. Lots of pretty views, and Go Ahead bars provided by our host to keep us all going...

When we made it to Croyde beach, we spread out our towels and sat down to eat lunch. I was so hungry by this point!! Falafel wrap (this wasn't like normal falafel wraps - it contained sweet potato falafel and mango chutney...really good), fruit and water...

plus a pack of veg crisps...love these!

Once we'd all finished eating we walked down to the sea for a paddle...

Sadly we only had about half an hour by the sea as we figured with 6 girls wanting showers we better make sure we were back at the house with plenty of time to get ready for our evening out!

We still had to walk back to the cars...

With more great views - at this point I was wishing I had brought my camera with me!

Once we got back to Sarah's house, we all took it in turns to shower and get ready. I had a berry cider whilst at the house...

I normally stick to spirits if I'm drinking, and whilst this was quite nice I think it contributed to my stomach ache/bloatedness later in the evening...too many bubbles!!

For dinner, Sarah had reserved us a table at The Bank in Barnstaple. We were seated in a room at the back, with balloons all over the table, so whilst there were a few other diners also in the room, it felt like our own private party!! Unfortunately my phone didn't deal too well with the low lighting, but these are the photos I took. Strawberry daquiri...I ended up having 2 of these...amazing!!

And for dinner, pancakes filled with a creamy mushroom and green bean mix...

This was really tasty, full of different types of mushrooms. It was also really filling - I surprised myself by turning down dessert, despite things like banoffee pie on the menu!!

We went on to a couple of bars after dinner, including a cocktail bar where I decided I was ready for "dessert" of a creamy chocolate mint cocktail...

So good, but it definitely finished me off for the night! I was in a lot of pain with a really bad tummy ache by this point so I stuck to water after this. I still did lots of dancing to "retro 80s music" (Mama Mia, Grease, Macarena, Build Me Up Buttercup etc...it was like being back at uni when that type of music used to play all the time!) when we went on to the nightclub though - at first I had to kind of force myself for my friend's sake, as I was in so much pain, but by the end I was having fun again!

We didn't go home until about 2.30am so I was hoping for a nice lie-in without children. Unfortunately my body clock had other ideas and woke me up at 7.30am. Boo. I read in bed for a few hours before heading downstairs to have breakfast. Cocoa rocks, orange juice and several mugs of tea...

We spent the rest of the morning relaxing at Sarah's house, watching DVDs and waking up properly. I got a train home just after lunch (after teaching Sarah to make omelettes, which we filled with cheese, mushrooms, peppers and onion. Photo didn't come out though) and came home to flowers...

and Liam having finally got round to putting up my graduation photo and his guitar (still need to buy a frame for his grad photo, and he has another guitar that he wants to hang on the wall too), haha, apparently he missed me!! ;-)

Such a nice weekend away - just what I needed to recharge my batteries - but it was nice to be home too. Izzy and Toby had so many things to tell me about what they'd been up to with Liam all weekend, so it sounds like a nice time was had by all! :)

Have you been away anywhere nice recently? Any summer holidays to far off places?? We aren't going abroad this year so have just done little trips. Butlins, the zoo, my weekend away etc. There's plenty to do around where we live - and with the children so young it is probably easiest to stay close by anyway - but it was lovely to sit on a sandy beach in the sunshine for half an hour...if only the weather was more consistently summery here!!

Date Night - Dinner and Cocktails

Last night, Liam and I went out on a "date". We're not a couple that normally does "date night". Indeed, with the children, we rarely get to go out together in the evenings. However, my Dad was visiting and had agreed to babysit, good times! :)

I wanted to be able to enjoy the evening without feeling bloated, so I decided to keep my food during the day fairly light. However, I know if I skimp on meals I'll end up snacking loads, so the aim was to eat decent meals to keep me going without needing to snack. It kind of worked. I started the day with a decent breakfast - pumpkin porridge topped with blueberries, coconut sugar and desiccated coconut:

This tasted great, and kept me going until about 1pm when I had lunch. A slightly random mix, but delicious nonetheless - red and white quinoa with bulgar wheat (a mix I picked up in Waitrose the other day) with a roasted pepper, peas and sesame smoked tofu, topped with a little Thai peanut sauce  that I found in Lidl...

This was really tasty but, despite being "healthy", there was too much of it. I felt uncomfortably bloated for an hour or so after this - I really must learn that I don't always need to clear my plate!

The munchies did attack late afternoon though - I had a few spoonfuls of Dark Chocolate Dreams...

and then I had a cinnamon soy latte in Costa while Izzy had her ballet lesson (no point going home between dropping her off and picking her up as the lesson is only 30 minutes).

This was at 5pm and I didn't eat again until our dinner reservation at 8pm - I wanted to make sure I was hungry :)

Dad arrived once Toby was in bed (he reluctantly agreed to put Izzy to bed but not Toby, haha, bad decision - Izzy didn't end up going to sleep til about 9pm!!), took a quick photo of us...

and then we headed into Exeter. For our meal, we went to Strada. I'd already looked at the menu online and decided what I thought I wanted - Liam thinks this is strange, but it makes me look forward to the meal even more! We both stuck to tap water during the meal, and shared a starter of mushroom risotto balls with a melting mozzarella centre, breaded and fried...

Mmm, these were delicious. They fell apart a bit too easily, but the flavour was great. Liam loved them too, although he kept forgetting what it was that he was eating!!

For my main course, I decided to have a selection of sides as I fancied those more than any of the pizza, pasta etc dishes. The waitress was really accommodating and arranged for them all to be presented on the same plate (luckily, as the table was rather small!). I chose courgette fries, butternut squash with sage butter and pine nuts, and broccoli with chilli butter...

I loved all of this course! The courgette fries were delicious - much better than my homemade attempt - they were quite clearly fried, as you would expect in a restaurant, rather than baked as mine were - and the coating was fantastic. The butternut squash was my favourite part of the meal - cooked to perfection and with a really subtle flavour from the sage butter, allowing the natural sweetness of the squash to shine through. The broccoli was cooked well, but the chilli was a bit too much for me - my lips were stinging!

Luckily, Liam and I both had room for dessert after our mains. (He had salmon with lentils and green beans for his main course - which he said was nice, but I think he missed having stodgy carbs!) Liam stuck to his usual favourite and had a chocolate fondant...

I chose the figs cooked in red wine and cinnamon with marscapone vanilla cream...

This was nice, but didn't quite live up to my expectations. I'd been expecting fresh figs (not sure why, as that would've probably been too mushy) so these were a bit chewy in comparison. The flavour was fantastic though, and the marscapone worked really well. I managed to finish it anyway, so a successful meal in my book!! :)

After our meal, Liam and I walked over to a cocktail bar - Coolings. I was saying on the way over that I felt great - not bloated, not too full, just pleasantly satisfied. I thinking having sides for my main course worked really well, as I often find the pasta or pizza dishes are too large, yet I still end up eating all of it. Plus this way I got to try out several different things which helped with my indecisiveness!

I did begin to feel a bit bloated after my first drink though - I drank it rather quickly I think! Liam had his beloved mojito, and I have an 'Exotic Passion' - vodka, passion fruit liqueur, lemon juice and cranberry juice...

This was really tasty - so fruity and way too easy to drink!

For my second drink, I had a French Martini - I love this glass with the twisty stem!

Delicious, but quite strong! I used to work in a cocktail bar and drink all the cocktails on the menu (not all at once...usually) with no problem - the children are making me get old too quickly!!

After the second round, we decided to head home. It was really nice to get out the house for a few hours and enjoy some time together. We got home to find that Izzy had been up to mischief though - apparently dad had put her to bed at 7.45pm, but then at 8.30pm he heard noises so went to investigate. She was sitting on the kitchen step, with the jar of coconut oil and a knife in her hand! I think he got there just in time, before she tried to eat any though - on quizzing her this morning, it turns out she thought she had the Dark Chocolate Dreams in her hand (both have blue lids) so she'd have been in for an unpleasant surprise!!

Well, that was my evening. I hope everyone else is having a good weekend. We've had a relaxed day today - the children had naps 10am-1.30pm - they were obviously both very tired!! Then this afternoon, Liam took Izzy swimming and I took Toby for a walk in the local park. Toby hates swimming at the moment so I am going to start taking him alone whilst Izzy's at school to get him used to it - at the moment it's frustrating taking them both together as Toby only last 5 minutes in the pool, if that. Hopefully he'll get more used to the water soon!

When you go out to a restaurant, do you look at the menu in advance or do you wait until you get there to decide what you want to have? I always like to have a look at the menu in advance, but I don't always decide exactly what I'll eat. With the Strada menu though, those sides really stood out to me, and a good decision it was! :)

Before I go, don't forget to check out Rachel's giveaway. She is walking a half marathon overnight through London on 1st October, to raise money for Cancer Research UK, and has organised a fantastic International giveaway to help raise more money. Such a great idea. Good luck Rachel! :)