Sunday lunch

The Inn at Grinshill

Beautiful wedding...

Another rocking Bank Holibob

Me and Fi at the Crown Inn at Frampton Mansell. Lunch was luscious and light, just like' what we are!'
Tick, tock my dandelion clock
Here's top totty, Rob, putting a smile on Fi's face... x

A BIG Fish Fabulous day...

Is it a shopping bag, is it a dead duck... ? No... it's a dirty big fish lying on the bank. We were very puzzled as to how it got there and even though Rob has tried to convince me that it was a crocodile 'wot did it!'... it took one look to realise that it had been poached. And that's not 'poached with herbs' in a Delia Smith kinda way, I'm talking about a PPP, a pinching-poaching-person! There was a dirty big chunk cut out of this fish! It must have been a metre long. Fishes have sad faces anyway, don't you think but this one was the saddest of all!
On a brighter, less fishy note, we've all had a smashing day. I arrived back from Lancaster to find Johnny Depp had let the Palmers into my apartment. There they were perched on high stools, sitting eating a fishy supper. It's such a weird feeling coming home to find someone already here, nice though. Rob rustled me up a couple of prawns, some tuna pasta salad and new potatoes - wonderful! Then we watched the preview of 'Britain's got Talent' which includes acts that range from the most bizarre to the most brilliant.
Today we've been treated to the best weather so far this year. The sky has been the most perfect shade of blue and the sun has shone all day long. We did our stint on 'fish-watch' then decided to take advantage of the weather, packed up our picnic and sat on the side of the lake to eat our cheese and crackers, all washed down with a bottle of wine. Rob had just the one request... could I find him a pub with sky so he could watch the footie (bless!)? That left just Fi and me, free to take Ellie for a walk, an ice-cream and a girly gossip on Rodborough common. We finished the day with a stroll to the local for lots of laughs and lots of lovely chilling x it's been a fab day for anything except fishes!

Crazy but very cooooooool

Greg always takes such great photographs... here's just a small selection from our crazy, Lancashire trip.

Lancaster adventures

The Ashton

Twitterings from a cheeky bird!

I'm now officially a twitterer! It's the latest new cyber phenomenon and I'd been putting off joining because I couldn't answer the question why I'd want to twitter. In fact, I came to the conclusion last week, why not? So here I am just finding out what it's all about. On the plus side, it means I can add twitters to my blog from the end of my phone, woo hoo, that's very exciting. On the minus side, I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to twitter about but I'm sure I'll think of something. Each twitter is only 140 characters long, making it a short exchange and it's generally seen as a status report. What am I doing right now? Writing about twittering, of course!

I love revels..

But, why oh why don't the get rid of the coffee ones..?! You know when you bite into them and there's that moment of 'is it, or isn't it?' before you either smile with glee or grimace at yet another blooming coffee revel! Me and Lisa bought a big bag to eat in the cinema and 'lucky me' got at least 7 coffee revels within the first 10! I say evict the coffee ones and replace with a peanut butter one - oh, I suppose that's out of the question.. ok, coconut used to be nice, but that's nutty too! Why are all my favourite revels NUTS?!

An angel weekend..

This weekend has been an angels and demons weekend. We all had a lovely lunch at the Angel on the Bridge pub in Henley on Saturday. This evening myself and Lisa have been to see the sequel to The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons. We'd heard reports that this film was disappointing - it's not. We were both blown away by it and enjoyed it immensely. We both went to Morans then at 9pm for tapas, a glass of wine and a good old girly gossip - fab!

Fab weekend...

I've now experienced the delights of Hotel Du Vin Henley and it's another notch on my HDV tour guide. I love this hotel chain. They never fail to exceed my expectations. This time it was another girly evening with Geoff Merrill and his wonderful Australian wine adventures. The man himself was there to entertain us with some of his raw Aussie charm and wit. First we were served crisp, fresh asparagus spears with hollandaise and mini crab tarts for aperitifs with a crisp white. Then we sat down to dinner with a light fish and herb roulade, followed by a glorious caramelized small onion tart with a smidgen of goats cheese. Both served with white and a rose. The main course was very pink duck breast with courgette and glazed potato and this was accompanied by a choice or cabernet and shiraz. I loved this shiraz best of all. The last course was a selection of cheese and biscuits with the piece du resistance - a 11 year old shiraz which retailed at around £150 a bottle! I must admit I only found out that fact today and I wish I'd know earlier because I might just have taken a little more notice of this wine and appreciated it a little more. But sad to say, I didn't. It seemed like a lighter, younger wine and as such, didn't have the interest and body of the earlier, cheaper shiraz. It just goes to show how much I know about wine!

Another one for the Tour Du Vin!

Girls, girls, girls.. we love dressing up for a great night out. Tonight it was for the Geoff Merrill wine evening at the Hotel Du Vin, Henley. A fantastic location, great food and exceptional wine, lovely company and fun. Who couldn't have fun in such lovely surroundings. Guess who's in the pink? Black is safe, pink says bright and fun. We had such a lovely evening and it's another wonderful hotel to add to tour du vin x

Just ASK... !

There are the lucky people and the not so lucky ones. I consider myself one of the former. Me and Lisa went into ASK and within 5 minutes, I'd managed to get us both a complimentary glass of prosecco. Hey, you either have it, or you don't. All I asked for was something pink and bubbly ;-) Dinner was lovely too and the waiter was sooooooo very attentive and deserves my 'Best Gong' of the week award!

E is for...

easter eggs, exceptional, eccles cakes, eating, echinachea, elephant, elegant, essence, ecstatic, edam, effective, egyptian cotton, expectations, elastic, epiphany, english muffins, happy endings, eighty five, everything, eccentric, edgy, energy, exfoliate, electricity, equal, erotic, exercise, enlightening, emotional, earmuffs, entertain, eligible bachelor, easy going, eve, elderflower, exciting, exclamation marks, escape, etiquette, evergreen, early mornings, evenings & 4ureyesonly.. and of course.. excellent award!

Porto paradise

We're welcomed as friends..

Debs, Pete and our host, the lovely Patricia outside her office in Porto.

Another beautiful dinner..

Patricia chose the most beautiful place for dinner. Somewhere special where we could celebrate a fabulous day's workshops. She chose the menu beforehand and it was truly delicious.

My workshop

Happy cardmakers!

The strawberry lady!

We named her the strawberry lady because she came to the workshops bearing gifts of chocolate covered strawberries! OMG - pure heaven! x

Our visit to Croft...

It would have been a shame not to! The lovely Patricia took us to Crofts to sample the Port. By the looks of it, Pete doesn't look very enamored... but us girls are keen to try the samples of port, just because we can! x
ps I didn't see Lara anywhere. I bet those casks are just a front and she's sipping the good stuff in some nearby luxury cave and exercising by swinging from the chandeliers to the sweet sound of Opera!

Beautiful Porto!

I'm just grabbing a couple of minutes before Patricia arrives to take us to the workshops. I'm having a lovely time here in Porto - i´t's certainly a place I'd love to return to for a short break. My room is on 19th floor of a very nice hotel so I wake up to the most beautiful view over the city. The red roofs that you associate with the Mediterranian, the meandering river splitting the two halves of the city and some fabulous architecture. Yesterday was a prep day plus we had a lovely lunch then a trip to the Croft Port Cellar. I then went shopping! Well, it has to be done, doesn't it. I managed to spend two hours in a lovely underwear shop with a lovely French assistant and we managed to converse in both English and French. She has a similar passion about art so we discussed the Louvre, the Mona Lisa and Rodin. It was wonderful. And, I managed to spend some euros - fantastic!
Today is workshop day so I'll be demonstrating card making. I'm really looking forward to a bit of crafting and meeting some Portuguese crafters. Best go because my taxi is arriving in 2 minutes and the clock here on this machine is counting down.. x

Happy photos...

I met some lovely guests at the wedding! And here's a pic of Kati's stunningly beautiful garden. What a lovely day... x