Pumpkin carving

I learnt to carve pumpkins with a clay loop (a tool normally used in clay sculpture) when I was at Uni. It may only come up once a year, but it’s probably one of the most frequently used skills I learnt in my degree! This year I’ve done a skull pumpkin, with Frankenstein, vampire, Voldemort, bat, Regan (exorcist) and Jack Skellington pumpkins in previous years

I always carve them sitting on the loo, as this bathroom has no window so you can carve with a candle inside and the lights off!

I roasted the pumpkin seeds, but accidentally used a pretty salty spice blend on them. They’re not great for snacking but I think they’ll be a lovely addition to salads or soups.

Date night 18.10.18

Last Thursday we went to Cocina, a chain of Mexican restaurants. We’d never been to the one in Norwich (or any other) before, and we’d always planned that date nights would be about trying new places, not just going to pizza express every fortnight!

A drink before our meal, at chambers cocktail bar. I’m in love with their “fig time” cocktail

We used a groupon voucher at Cocina, which included a couple of cocktails

So much food! Did you know that Cocina means kitchen, but the Americanised spelling (Cochina) is slang for dirty/slutty!

No picture of me-I actually managed to do my back in shuffling into the bench seat, which didn’t really help me enjoy the evening!

I can’t believe how much of it we managed to eat! The food was yummy, but the atmosphere was a bit lacking. I didn’t expect it to be romantic, but I feel it could benefit from some fun OTT decor like Turtle Bay has.

Date night 04.10.2018

As we ate out every night on holiday we’d not really had a date night for a while. However, my lovely team at work had got me a voucher for the Ivy brasserie for my birthday, so we had our second trip in just over a month!

Holiday in Zakynthos

Last month we had a week away in zakynthos, a Greek island next to kefalonia, where we’d been in 2016. The island is lovely and we spent lots of time bobbing around in the warm, clear sea.

I’d always thought that swallowtail butterflies were really special, as in the UK they’re unique to the Norfolk Broads, but in zakynthos they’re everywhere! turtle nests marked out on the beachChris loves the calamari! mats to help the turtles find their way to the seawe went on a “Jeep Safari” of the island. I never thought you could get 11 people in a land rover but it turns out you can! monastery tower the monastery

Date night 05.09.2018

Tonight we went to Farmyard. I think it’s been on St Benedict’s road for around 18 months, but it was the first time we’d been. We arrived at 6pm, so chose the set menu, which is £19 for three courses, with a carafe of wine for £13. The food was beautiful and the industrial décor is lovely.a lovely mural Chris admiring the white Subway tiles. He loves a good bit of tilingthose tilesmackerel with radish, gooseberry and yogurt, yummy!chicken and ham crubeans with cabbage and walnuthake with dashi stock, noodles and mushroomspork collar with cabbage and burnt applebrownie with milk sorbet and ganachechilled rice pudding with candied almonds and plum granita

We bought a flat

So, the husband and I have always had it on our “bucket list” to become landlords at some point. We had some pretty rubbish/neglectful landlords when we rented, and although we couldn’t afford anything fancy, we thought that maybe we could have somewhere nice for someone to live, if they knew we would care for it as well as we could, and fix anything that goes wrong.

With Brexit looming, and horror stories of tenants from hell it could all go horribly wrong, but fingers crossed, it could be a good adventure!

We’ve had it two weeks today, and now it’s being advertised, although it’s not ready to go yet, but we’ve done everything visible in photos! Frustratingly, you can’ see how awful it was before, as it had some really awful paint jobs, and the bathroom reeked of cat piss. It makes me sad that someone would have a cat in a tiny second story flat.

Before

Little kitchen-it only had room for a 3kg washer, and the dark paint is a bit grim

You don’t have a lime green radiator in your bathroom?

There was two layers of carpet in the bedroom. No underlay, no grips…

After (ish)

Luckily the flat has large windows so it’s pretty bright

A lick of paint, new flooring, and a rejig of the cupboards allowed room for a full washing machine

A very thorough clean, new flooring, paint and new shower curtain etc have revitalised the bathroom – I still need to reseal the bath though, it was like this…

And that’s over half cleaned up! I spent hours in that tub! It’s actually a full size bath, the room is “L” shaped, taking up the  space missing from the right of the kitchen

And the bedroom has a new carpet, with underlay, and not even the £2.99 stuff! It’s all freshly painted, with new curtains and pole. We’re still working on fixing the trillion layers of cracked paint on the window sill.

Today is only the second day in two weeks we’ve not been there, and I’m so proud of what we’ve done in the time. We even had an unexpected hour long search for our water meter, which was ultimately found (mislabeled) under about 6″ of gravel.

And then there was the time that I thought I could stand on the loo seat to cut in round the bathroom ceiling, and ended up with my foot in the toilet bowl, lucky to still have my foot intact.

So yah, it’s been really glamorous

Date night 23.08.2018

Tonight we tried out a new restaurant, the ivy brasserie, a distant relative of the ivy in London. I love the opulent art deco style, which reminded me of a meal I had at brasserie Zédel in London, a wonderful event for a friend’s hen do. The cocktails, food and wine were really lovely, but I have to admit it wasn’t a million miles from the décor and food at côte brasserie, where the three course set menu is barely more than a cocktail at the ivy

salted caramel espresso martinifelbrigg gardens-I had to as I love Felbrigg hall!bang bang chickenmackerel pâtéstubby little wine glassesPork bellySteakI wonder if thousands of these will get knicked-Jamie’s Italians have had 30,000 of theirs stolen in a month

Date night 09.08.2018

The Grosvenor fish bar has started doing “high sea” – their version of a fish and chips high tea. We’d hoped to get a table in the birdcage opposite so we could have a drink, but sadly there was no room. The Grosvenor’s food is always fantastic but it’s far too much for two! Maybe right for four with an extra portion of chips.

Afterwards we grabbed a glass of wine at the Wallow before taxiing home to watch outlander in our cinema room. We hadnt eaten everything but we definitely needed a lie down!

Morston Quay samphire

After being away this weekend I had today off work. I decided to get up super early, to make the most of it, and I arrived at morston quay for a walk before 7am. It was the beginning of a beautiful day and I had a lovely stroll around the marshes, thankfully the hot weather meant it wasn’t too muddy. I came across lots of samphire, so I took a few bunches home, stopping off for a pastry in holt and a walk in Blickling along the way.

Brimham Rocks

We went to Brimham rocks yesterday, on the way back from a trip to York. It’s basically a site with some really unusual rock formations, some of which are around 30 feet tall. They have amazing shapes which you wouldn’t really expect in Yorkshire! They were formed during the last ice age, with the shapes caused by layers of silt eroded by water, wind and glacial activity. I really love the fact that you’re actually allowed to climb on them and enjoy the views!