I survived!

I survived my first proper spin class last night, whoop!

I did end up going into Exeter during the day yesterday, and bought lots of new sports clothes from Sports Direct - 3 tops, 2 sports bras, a pair of padded cycle shorts and some trainer socks for less than £50 thanks to them having a sale on. I also need to buy another pair of capri pants but I didn't like any of the ones in Sports Direct and Debenhams didn't have any of the ones I usually buy in my size so I'll have to order online. Now I'm doing 3/4 classes a week (ha, go me!!) my one pair of decent trousers plus one pair I don't really like isn't enough!

After shopping we went for lunch at Herbies - a vegetarian restaurant in Exeter. The food is delicious but the portion sizes are huge! Each main course comes with either a trio of salads or potato wedges, so we got one of each but then took all the potato wedges home for Liam to take into work today...too much food. The trio of salads were delicious though - they are specials that change regularly and yesterday the salads were raw root salad, potato salad with cashews (which was much lighter than regular potato salad - loved it!) and green salad which had some kind of tasty dressing on it:

That's just half the salad - Mum had more on her plate too!

For my main, I had a filo pastry parcel with roasted veg, some kind of tomato sauce and feta cheese...

I also had some of Mum's spinach and mushroom lasagne but that has come out even more blurry than these ones! I took the photos on my phone and they did not come out well, but I wanted to share as the food was so delicious! Luckily the most important photo came out slightly better - even though Mum and I were both full, we really wanted to have a pudding. Something we've never managed to do before as the portion sizes are so huge. We decided to push are tummies to the limit though and get one dessert to share, and I'm so glad we did!

This was a ginger biscuit base topped with lemon and lime curd, served with natural yoghurt, but you could have also had clotted cream, ice cream or non-dairy yoghurt. This was one of the best desserts I've ever had in a restaurant. The base was divine but it was the topping that was really special - citrussy and sweet at the same time and super sticky...yum!!

After this we were more than full, so after a couple more shops we headed home to pick up Izzy from school. I then had a spin class at 7pm and, as usual, was worrying about if/what to eat. I wasn't hungry, indeed I was still full from lunch, but I seem to have this paranoia that I'm going to suddenly get overcome whilst exercising and not be able to continue! A little bit ridiculous considering the fact that I eat plenty every day, but still, I ended up having half a banana (leftover from Toby eating half that morning) smeared with some honey peanut butter at 5pm.

I chickened out of wearing just padded shorts to spin...sorry Lara! ;) I did wear them, but under my usual capris. Luckily they didn't show too much unless you were looking for them. I was walking to the gym so just felt more comfortable like this, plus being my first class I didn't know what to expect. There were a couple of people wearing just the padded shorts though so maybe next week. Either way I'm very glad I was wearing them - at one point we did some kind of pyramid sequence where we'd do 2 counts hovering then 2 counts seated, 4 hovering, 4 seated etc and at the end we just repeated lots of 2s so we were constantly bouncing on and off the seat again! The class went ok though. I didn't love it in the same way I do Body Pump, but as far as cardio goes it was alright - the class went relatively quickly which was a good thing in my book! My legs were super sore immediately afterwards, but are fine today, although I may not be saying that by the time I finish boot camp tonight!

I have woken up feeling really really tired today. I suppose, even though by most people's standards I'm not exercising a huge amount, I have gone from just Body Pump on Mondays (and not last week because of the bank holiday) and occasionally Boot Camp on Thursdays (but this will be my first class in about 3-4 weeks) to this week doing:

Monday: Taster Spin, then Body Pump
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: Spin (45 mins)
Thursday: Boot Camp

After tonight I haven't got any more exercise planned until next Monday Body Pump though so I'll be glad of the rest! I might fit in a daytime exercise into my week next week as I want to take Toby back to creche again, but that will either be swimming or possibly Body Balance if my friend wants to go, so it won't be as tiring as spin hopefully. I like not exercising at the weekends as we always have so much on anyway, but it does mean that I do end up doing quite a lot of classes during the week if I want to make the most of my membership. I don't know how some of you manage exercising most days, I'm exhausted!!

Today has been a nice easy day though - lots of coffee including a trip to Costa with my friend for lattes and toasted teacakes. We also went to the toy shop that has a ball pool in the back. Toby has been wanting to go there all week and dived straight in!!

I've also had another of the bars that Maria sent me...

It tasted like a sticky, slightly less sweet, Bounty bar. I really enjoyed it, will keep a look out to buy one of these again!

On the school run this afternoon it was slightly drizzling, so Izzy requested hot chocolates. Oh go on then...! ;)

Using the hot chocolate powder from my foodie penpal parcel, delicious. And of course the whipped cream on top is very important. I always eat it first with a spoon, but I resisted adding a 2nd helping of it today!

Despite eating the hot chocolate plus a handful of dried apricots at 4pm, my "I'm going to get hungry during exercise" paranoia kicked in just now so, just before my 5pm "deadline", I had a peach (my 2nd of the day, love them!) with some cashew butter...

Could not get a decent photo of these, ha, took photos in about 5 different areas of the kitchen!!

I love the combo of fresh fruit with nut butter, so tasty and it seems like the perfect, not too heavy but still slightly substantial, pre-exercise snack. Although, deep down I do know that the hot chocolate and apricots would have been enough "fuel", I guess I just like the extra excuse to eat! ;)

How many times do you exercise a week? And what is your favourite pre-exercise snack/meal? Part of me thinks I should be eating more of a meal before exercise, as when I come home I tend to eat something quick and easy for "dinner" (scrambled eggs on toast last night for example). I definitely need to add in some more vegetables - dinner on non-exercise tends to be when I eat most of my veg so I have definitely been lacking in greens this week.

WIAW - Liam's Last Day Before New Job

Evening everyone! Sorry I've been absent the last few days - Liam started his new job yesterday and so has out the house for about 12 hours each day. Toby has also decided to wake up at 4.30am the last two days...suffice to say that the last few days have consisted of lots of this...

Coffee + ice + almond milk + vanilla stevia drops. Despite Toby's wishes, I don't let him have any! You wouldn't think that would need stating, but on Saturday I went shopping at Waitrose (last shop with staff discount!) and Liam left the kids at his Mum's house to come and pick me up. When we went back to get them, Liam's Mum commented "Oh, Toby keeps looking at my mug of tea, I was just about to go and make him one." Shudder. I quickly said that he still only drinks water or milk and juice when he steals Izzy's drink at the moment!!

 Anyway, mini-rant over, today is, of course, Wednesday, so it's What I Ate Wednesday time! Thanks, as always, to Jenn for organising the party :)

These photos are actually from Monday as the last couple of days I've only managed to photograph about half of what I've eaten - I need to get back into some sort of routine rather than constantly snacking! Monday though - Liam had his last shift at Waitrose on Sunday, so had Monday off before starting his new job. Once we'd dropped Izzy at school, Liam, Toby and I headed into Exeter. First stop, breakfast at Starbucks.

I still haven't managed to try the mini "Magic Bar" (some kind of coconutty thing apparently?) but that didn't feel very breakfasty, so I went with the fruit loaf, and a caramel latte. The fruit loaf was amazing! It was thick and doughy in some places, and thin and caramelised in others, with sultanas and dried cherries (from what I can remember) in it, yum!

We then did some shopping. We first took Toby to get his feet measured, but as his feet haven't grown at all over the summer, I declined the shop assistant's offer to buy a pair of £32 shoes in half a size up "just in case"! I'll take him back to be measured in a few weeks instead! We did find him a nice rain jacket though - we looked in a few places first before eventually getting one in BHS. All the other stores seemed to just have navy or black coats for boys, which seemed to grown up for our little baby (!!), the bright red one we got in the end suits him much better :)

It wasn't long before my stomach started rumbling for lunch. I really wanted to go back to the vegetarian restaurant we went to before, but as it was "Liam's day" I gave him the choice and he wasn't feeling hungry enough to cope with their huge portion sizes! We went to Wagamama instead. We shared a vegetable summer roll from the specials menu to start...

This had raw veggies and noodles inside. I'd never had a rice paper roll before - I wasn't expecting it to be gummy!! The flavours were good though, apart from the coriander - I'm really not a fan of coriander :(

For my main, I went for my favourite - yasai yaki soba...

Delicious as always - you can't go wrong with noodles, egg and veggies in my opinion, especially when someone else is cooking it for you! I love stir fries but hardly ever cook them at home - partly due to all the veg chopping that's required, but also because they never seem to taste as nice coming out of my kitchen!

Toby was really good at lunchtime - we're always a bit nervous taking him out to restaurants, but he sat really well in a highchair eating bits of our food and drinking milk.

I think having a straw to himself was a bit of a novelty - normally he just tries to steal Izzy's!

Once we got home and had picked Izzy up, I had a snack of apple and peanut butter (which Liam randomly made into a "flower"!) as...wait for it...I was planning to do exercise that evening!

Yep, for the first time in 2.5 months - since the Monday before our wedding - I went to Circuits! I actually wasn't feeling great - my stomach started killing me in the afternoon - so I nearly didn't go, but one of my Mum's friends was staying with her for a couple of days and was also planning to go to circuits, so I felt I needed to go to show her the way, as Mum was meeting us there straight from a meeting. So I went. It was a much harder set-up than the last time we went, with a few killer ab exercises which I am still feeling today! It didn't make my tummy any worse at least, so I came home and ate my planned meal - leftovers. The original meal on Sunday night looked like this...

Paneer and pea curry, quinoa and naan bread. Monday's leftovers didn't look quite so appealing though, especially with the poor late night lighting - just a big bowl of curry with a couple of unpictured slices of bread to mop up the sauce...

Still delicious! I love homemade curries so much more than takeaway...I just sometimes struggle to find the energy to make it! Paneer makes for a much quicker curry than vegetables though, and everyone else loves it too - Izzy calls it "squeaky curry"!

After I'd eaten, it was time to relax - a couple of chocolates from the box I'd given Liam to say 'good luck' were consumed...

Liam and Izzy had been at them while I was exercising!

and my new hot water bottle was filled to try to soothe my tummy...

Haha, I love this. I'd had my old hot water bottle for 10 years, and it was actually recalled by the shop a year or so after I was given it! It still worked fine, but it was beginning to smell quite rubbery, so I decided it was time to treat myself to a new one :)

Oooh, not related to today's post but I've been meaning to ask you all:

Do you have any suggestions for packed lunches please?? With Izzy I have a little 'formula' that may be slightly boring, but is nice and easy - sandwiches/leftovers + fruit + veg + yoghurt + cheesestring. But with Liam, a) he needs more food than that as he takes breakfast and lunch, and b) he gets bored of having the same thing each day. I made a batch of cheese and chive muffins on Monday, so he has been taking two of those for his breakfast, then two rounds of sandwiches, banana, apple, juice carton, iced gems and biscuits for lunch - as I tweeted on Tuesday, he eats way more food, and especially sugar, than Izzy does!! I need more ideas though! I made a frittata earlier which Izzy is going to take cold for lunch tomorrow, but he's not keen on the idea of that. His work has a fridge and a kettle, but he's pretty sure no microwave or toaster. So what can he take each day that is filling but isn't just sandwiches? He struggles to think of food he wants to eat until he's actually hungry, which is obviously no good with packed lunches, so I'm on a mission to think of lots of ideas that he finds appetising!! :)

Eating Out Gluten-Free

I've eaten out quite a lot the last two days...by my standards anyway! Since I started trying to avoid eating gluten I've been a bit worried about eating out, but I've been pleasantly surprised that I've at least managed to find something to eat!

Yesterday morning, Liam and I had to go see the registrar to discuss the final details of our wedding ceremony - what readings we will have, songs that will be played, order of ceremony etc. We arrived half an hour early so decided to go for a coffee first. I hadn't had breakfast so was pleased to see they had a couple of gluten-free options on the cake counter. I went with orange and almond cake, as well as my usual skinny latte.

This was delicious! They also did gluten-free chocolate brownie, but even I couldn't justify that as breakfast! I normally enjoy non-chocolate cake more anyway, and this orange and almond cake was no exception - lovely and dense with a marmalade layer on top, yum!

The rest of yesterday's food was eaten at home - a massive green smoothie at lunchtime.

This contained a banana, spinach, frozen pineapple, frozen mango and milk. It was so filling, almost uncomfortably so - I felt bloated for a good few hours after this, whoops!

Mid-afternoon, I had a pre-workout snack of medjool dates stuffed with homemade chocolate-coconut-brazil nut butter before going to circuits. Circuits was tough last night! It was the first time I'd been to the new set-up. Previously it was set-up as a clock face, working in groups of 3 and doing each exercise for 30 seconds before moving on. Now it was set up in 5 identical lines of 6 exercises each. We were in teams of 5 and had to work our way up the lines, first doing 10 reps of each exercise, then 15, then 20 before the exercises change. We did 3 different groups of exercises, including step work, free weights, ab exercises, weights using a bench and cardio including burpees (I'd only ever seen these talked about on blogs before so a new experience!), jumping jacks etc. I was exhausted by the end of it!!

Luckily the lovely Liam (!) agreed to make me dinner when I got home - I was too tired to move and probably wouldn't have eaten else. Gluten free pasta with leftover sauce from the lentil cottage pie, topped with grated cheddar.

Mmmm. I do love a big bowl of pasta when I'm exhausted/in need of comfort!

*******

This morning, Liam and I headed to Taunton to see his final exhibition - where his and all the other 3rd years' work was displayed. The end of his degree if you like!

We stopped at a petrol station first for him to top up and check the oil. I grabbed a coffee while I waited...

I'm glad I did as we ended up having a longer wait than anticipated! We had to scrap a car a few months ago as the engine ran out of oil without Liam realising (I don't drive - I'm not completely being a feeble woman by naming him!!) and so the engine burned out. Therefore today, when the engine was almost out of oil, Liam was perhaps a little over eager and put the whole 5 litre bottle in. Turns out you're only meant to put 2 litres max in at a time, as we learnt when Liam pulled out and smoke started pouring out of the back!! Luckily, there was a garage attached to this particular petrol station, so they drained the excess oil and 15 minutes later we were back on the road. An expensive lesson learnt, but at least it wasn't worse - when Liam saw all the smoke he initially thought it was going to be another write off, eeek!!

Anyway, we did eventually make it to Liam's exhibition. Here are a couple of the photos he took...

There were lots of computer screens, each displaying 2 students' work, with their portfolios alongside. As well as examples of their best 3D pieces. A lot of work went into the seemingly simple exhibition but I think it did a good job of displaying as much work as possible whilst still allowing people to easily move around the small room. It was just a shame that it didn't look like people had been looking through the portfolios - they still looked pristine!

We also looked around the exhibitions done by the fashion and fine art students while we were there, but photos weren't allowed to be taken in those rooms.

It was then time to head into town to pick up my engagement and eternity rings! After a week & a half without them, I'm so happy to have them back - my finger has felt like it was missing something the whole time!! 2.5 sizes smaller, they now fit perfectly so aren't constantly swivelling on my finger, and have come back all clean and sparkly too, yey!

My Mum was looking after baby today and said there was no rush to get home as he was being good as gold (thanks Mum!) so we went in search of somewhere to have lunch. We decided to go to Brazz as the menu looked good, and it had gluten-free options clearly marked. So far so good. Except that the only gluten-free mains were steak or mussels. Yuck. Those are two of the few foods I wouldn't have eaten even when I did eat meat! Luckily I liked the sound of the gluten-free starter - "Goat's cheese mousse, beetroot, apple, celery salad and candied walnuts". I also ordered a side of buttered new potatoes, which I was very glad of when the food arrived! Pretty, but tiny!!

I loved the flavour of the goat's cheese mousse, and those little spheres on the top are made of apple.

Surprisingly, once teamed with the potatoes, this did actually fill me up. I always have room for a sweet treat though. Especially when it comes in the form of a Starbucks skinny vanilla iced chai latte!

Please excuse the food baby going on in my tummy!! More importantly, I ended up with a 'venti' sized latte for the price of a 'grande' as they'd run out of 'grande' sized cups...success, although I could barely walk back to the car after drinking all that - my tummy was so sore!

I managed to think about eating again 5 hours later though...even after the biggest of meals, I never go too long without thinking about food! I finally got round to cooking my first ever kabocha squash!

I asked on Twitter for advice as to whether or not to eat the skin, but received mixed opinions...

I decided to go without skin today as the squash had been hanging around my kitchen a while and was looking a bit old. Next time I will give the skin a try though!

Liam kindly volunteered to chop it all (and remove the skin after my gentle reminding!!) as he was worried I'd chop my finger off - me and big knives don't get along well!!

I roasted it for 20 minutes in some coconut oil, and then ate the whole squash with goat's cheese on the side.

I thought there would be some leftovers for tomorrow, but nope, I ate it all!

This was really tasty, but it wasn't quite the earth shattering "I must go out and buy another one right this minute" experience I'd built myself to expect! Am I missing something?? I only cooked it in coconut oil - any recommendations for spices/flavourings to cook it in, or things to eat it with?? I will definitely be buying another one to try again, but at the moment I cant see that it's much different than butternut squash (gasp! I know, sorry!) but I'm eager to learn!!!

As I said earlier, I was pleasantly surprised that, even down here in Devon, there were gluten-free options available to me when eating out. Although they are obviously limited - I didn't see any gluten-free options available that would also have been vegan, for example. Where I live, the restaurants often only have one vegetarian option at all, usually cheese based, so again no good for people following a vegan lifestyle. I haven't eaten out in my town since stopping eating gluten...I'm still not convinced that will be possible except for relying on sides of vegetables, but at least I know I can find something to eat in the bigger towns/cities. How do you deal with eating out if you have different eating habits/requirements to those normally catered for? Do you take your own food with you or do you usually find that restaurants are pretty accommodating? I normally have a snack bar or two in my bag, but today I didn't as I knew that if necessary I could just have an iced chai latte in Starbucks and then have lunch at home, so it was a pleasant surprise to be able to eat lunch out relatively easily!

Oooh, before I go, don't forget to enter my giveaway - you have until tomorrow to be in with a chance of winning some of my favourite treats!!

Choco-Coco-Brazil Nut Butter...

...is as amazing as it sounds!

So simple to make too!

Chocolate-Coconut-Brazil Nut Butter

• 200g desiccated coconut
• 75g brazil nuts
• 50g dark chocolate, melted

I first blitzed the coconut in my food processor until liquidy. This did take quite a long time - half an hour in my food processor, with stops to stir after 15, 20 and 25 minutes. I then added the brazil nuts and processed for another 10 minutes until it was a liquid consistency, albeit not quite smooth due to the coconut. Mine looked like this...

I finally added the melted chocolate and quickly processed to combine, before pouring into jars. It filled the jar below, plus a little bit extra and a few spoonfuls along the way!

Yum! I put the jars in the fridge overnight and it has set super hard! It is still absolutely delicious, I love the solid chocolate with flecks of coconut through it. I think I might leave it at room-temperature now so that I can eat it by the spoonful use it to dip apples into!

Right, must go. Off to circuits now. Not before having the perfect pre-exercise snack though - medjool dates stuffed with home made choco-coco-brazil nut butter? Don't mind if I do!

Smoothies vs. Common Cold

Today I woke up feeling awful. I am full of cold. Whenever I'm not 100% I try to avoid dairy, luckily I had lots of non-dairy milks lurking in my cupboard to choose from...

I decided to use Kara coconut milk today, and have got through about half a carton! It's really shown me how much of my protein comes from dairy normally - cows' milk, Greek yoghurt etc - I like using non-dairy milks, but I do miss the protein content.

Anyway, I'd been really looking forward to a smoothie this morning, and despite the cold, I stuck with my plan.

Cold Fighting Pineapple-Berry Smoothie

• 1 medium banana
• 40g spinach
• 75g frozen raspberries
• 150g pineapple (I buy fresh, then freeze in portions once chopped up)
• 100ml Kara milk
• 25g raw honey (I figure raw honey is good for you right?!)

Topping:

• a few fresh strawberries, sliced

I'm sure this would taste good. My taste buds aren't really up to scratch today so I couldn't really pick out any distinct flavours, for me it was mainly cold and refreshing. I liked the sweetness of the fresh strawberries though, I could taste them :)

I need to make this again soon once my taste buds have recovered. I deliberately made my quite liquidy/soupy, but you could reduce the liquid and/or add some xanthan gum if you want a thicker smoothie.

Most of the morning was spent wallowing in illness (baby decided to have a 2.5 hour morning nap so at least I could relax a bit) and before I knew it, it was lunchtime. So weird not having an appetite - not like me at all - normally I'm counting down the minutes until 12 o'clock whereas I didn't end up eating until almost 2pm! I still didn't really fancy solid food, so had another smoothie. Same base, different frozen fruits.

Cold Fighting Smoothie #2 - Mango-Blueberry

• 1 medium banana
• 40g spinach
• 100g frozen mango
• 80g frozen blueberries
• 125ml Kara milk
• 20g raw honey

I'm glad I stocked up on the 3 for £5 frozen fruits in Tesco last week!

I was getting my taste buds slightly with this smoothie, although the main taste I got was the banana. Odd. I'm still blaming the cold!

Despite not feeling 100%, I decided I would still go to circuits this evening. Neither my Mum nor the other woman we normally go with were able to make it, but another of my Mum's friends was going for the first time, so I didn't want her to have to go alone and have no one to work with.

So about 4.30pm, I had a mini-meal. The rest of the sesame smoked tofu needed eating, plus I wanted to up my protein intake a bit. Half a pack of tofu fried in coconut oil, with some fresh strawberries on the side. (I was feeling too sluggish to cook the planned quinoa to go with it!!)

This was really good. I love the sweet juiciness of the strawberries, and it went really well with the crispy crunchy tofu. I ate a bit of each on each forkful, yum.

I also had a cold latte sweetened with a bit of agave nectar...

I normally make my (hot) lattes by heating a mug of milk in the microwave and then adding coffee and agave, but I wasn't sure how well the Kara milk would heat. Have any of you tried heating Kara milk before?? Success or not so much? The cold latte was good anyway, I quite often have cold ones when I'm more thirsty, but hot lattes are nice for comfort sometimes.

Before heading out to circuits, I grabbed a small handful of almonds/apricots to keep me going...

and then it was time to exercise! I found today much tougher than the previous weeks. I think because I now know what I'm doing with the routines, I was able to push myself more. My arms and legs were really aching by the second time round the circuit! Annoyingly next week there is no class as it's a Bank Holiday, and then the week after there will be a new routine to learn. Ah well, I quite enjoy this class regardless...never thought I'd say that about exercise!!!

Once home, I wasn't overly hungry so, as I'd had a "proper" (by today's standards!) meal at 4.30pm, I just had what I really fancied...

Medjool dates stuffed with peanut butter. Yum. My taste buds seem to be coming back! Fingers crossed I'll be able to eat slightly more normally tomorrow, I think I'll be avoiding dairy for another day though - my head is still all foggy/blocked up. Yuck.

What do you do to prevent/fight a cold? Any tips for me?? I've inadvertently upped my fruit intake through my smoothies, and I've avoided dairy. Would appreciate any other things to try though, if only to keep my mind busy/feel like I'm doing something to help myself!

Shopping on Saturday

I am hating not having a laptop! :( I don't like not being able to blog whenever I want!! However, no time to moan...Liam has let me use his laptop for half an hour, so must get on to write as much as I possibly can!! I think the last proper post I wrote - apart from my quick, but delicious Dark Chocolate Dreams post on Saturday - was on Friday! I have obviously eaten a lot of food since then!! :)
* back track - time is up and I've only covered Saturday - hence the post title!

On Saturday, my Mum, little sister and I went shopping. We were aiming to buy wedding shoes for me, bridesmaid shoes for my sister, hair accessories and a flower girl/bridesmaid dress for daughter. But first, M&S cafe for breakfast!

Mine was the skinny latte and a yoghurt pot with berry compote and granola...

the yoghurt was really tasty :) My Mum also had a pot, although bless her, she had misread and thought the calories per 100g was the amount for the whole pot so was a bit horrified by how much she was eating so early in the day!! Total coffee + yoghurt only came in at 400 cals though so not too bad I think. Yummy energy needed for all the walking around the shops anyway!

After this it was time to hit the shops! I wasn't particularly looking forward to it as clothes shopping isn't really my thing, but we were actually quite successful! Didn't manage shoes for little sister, but have since ordered some potentials online. Everything else we managed to get though - not so attractive but comfy shoes for me (we were desperate by that point!), lots of hair accessories to try out tomorrow, and bridesmaid dress, shoes and headband for daughter. She looks so cute in it all!

Couldn't resist showing a photo! Liam has seen her so all good, just my dress that will be a surprise until the big day! I think we're going to do her a mini flower bouquet to match mine, so that will get some purple in there, but apart from that she'll be ivory. Her first dress had lots of purple details in it, but was completely the wrong shade of 'ivory' unfortunately (it was basically white) so no good. I like this one though, and she's happy which is the main thing!

We also ordered page boy outfit which arrived, he hasn't tried it on yet but we're pleased with how it looks - more purple detail than I'd imagined from the website which is good :)

Think we might have to shorten the trousers - he's currently in 18-24 months clothes, whereas this skipped from 12-18 months to 2 years, silly. He'll look cute whatever, but don't want him to trip up while he's walking down the aisle holding the ring cushion!!

After shopping, it was time for lunch. We met my other sister in Cafe Rouge. I ordered one of the new dishes - a salad with roasted peppers, roasted butternut squash and grilled courgettes.

This was quite disappointing to be honest. There was too much lettuce and not enough veg, but more than that; the butternut squash was severely undercooked so it was still quite hard rather than soft & caramelised, and the pepper slices seemed to be from a jar. The courgette was ok I guess. I didn't even bother to try one of the flat breads, but Mum did & said they tasted like they were from a packet - not what we were expecting.

Luckily I was able to also eat some of my Mum's lunch - twice baked cheese souffle with a melting brie middle...

This was really nice, but considering for pretty much the same price, I recently had a twice baked cheese souffle which came with polenta chips and slow roast beetroot at a local restaurant, this just coming with a side salad wasn't great value for money. Meh.

After a quick stop at M&S food (I bought a few salad pots and one box of biscuits, pretty restrained!) it was time to head home. Despite my good intentions, I did eat one of the biscuits when I got home. Four in a box isn't many!

Please excuse my podgy hand...cringe!!

This was really tasty, a recommendation from my sister and she was right! I loved the contrast of crunchy biscuit with creamy lemon filling and sweet white chocolate. Yum!

After this we went up to Liam's parents for more wedding talk! They haven't been hugely involved in the planning so far, so it was a good chance to bring them up to date - we were there over 2 hours! Liam's brother has agreed to be Liam's best man which is nice, I'm looking forward to hearing his speech!! & Liam's Mother has agreed to have the kids overnight on the wedding night, phew, I really didn't want to be woken up at 6am by them on our first morning as a married couple!!

As we didn't end up leaving their house until what would normally be our dinner time, we popped into Waitrose on the way home for a quick dinner. Pizzas with salad and reduced potato salad...

Liam and I chose a pizza each, but as his choice was meat-free too we all got to share everything, yey! Caramelised onion & feta is my fave - I love how the feta goes all melty mmm - but the goat's cheese, red pepper & caramelised onion pizza was really good too! My plate...

I did have some more salad as well, but as I'd loaded all my pizza slices onto the plate for the photo, I didn't want the plate to look too crowded! I was happily full after this, didn't really need anything else to eat. But the brownie tray bake I'd picked up at Olivers Bakery on Friday was calling to us!

Brownie overload anyone?!

These are just amazing! I'm quite glad the bakery is so far away from us or I'd be buying them all the time!! After this, I went over to my Mum's for yet more wedding talk. We're making great progress, but apologies if you get fed up of me keep mentioning the wedding...it'll be over in a couple of months!!

Right, my laptop time is more than up, and I've only managed to write about one of the last three days, oops! It was the most food-filled day though :) On exercise news, Mum and I went to Circuits for the first time ever tonight! It was quite fun, certainly a change from the gym, and we've been warned we'll likely ache in 2 days! Some of it was a bit slow as, as newbies, we had to wait for some of the exercises to be explained to us. But apparently for the next 2 weeks the layout, exercises etc will be the same so hopefully we'll get a bit more exercise in! My co-ordination is so hopeless that I did struggle with some of it - particularly anything involving a step and, rather embarrassingly, skipping!! I preferred the weights ones and the abs exercises, but need to work on most of the more cardio ones! Still, any exercise is better than sitting at home eating for the sake of it! :)