The August bank holiday weekend already feels like it was years ago rather than just a few weekends back. The Friday before the bank holiday was such a great day. First off, it was payday, which is always a great start to any Friday. The forecast for the weekend was fab and it was already sunny on Friday. My work treated us to bacon sandwiches and let us go home at 4pm! To top it all I had the whole following week off work. I was practically skipping by the end of the day.

We spent the Sunday of the bank holiday visiting Old Sarum to watch the medieval joust. For those who aren't familiar with Wiltshire, Old Sarum is the earliest settlement in Salisbury and lies about 2 miles north of the current city. The site itself has been settled since prehistoric times and the fort dates from the Iron Age. 

It was later controlled by the Romans and the Saxons where it was used as a stronghold against the Vikings. The Normans built the Motte and Bailey castle and the cathedral, the remains of which can still be seen today.

When construction began for the new (and current) cathedral in Salisbury during the 13th century Old Sarum began to decline and many of the buildings were used to provide stone for the newer buildings. 

If you have any interest in history this is well worth a visit and isn't as packed as some of Wiltshire's more popular sites (and by that I mean Stonehenge). It's really cool to walk around it and imagine what it must have been like to live there. 

My parents used to take me to visit when I was little as it's a great day out for small children, plenty of room to run around safely and history that is actually tangible enough for even little kids to understand.

Jared has never been and what better day to go then when the fort is playing host to a medieval joust? The sunshine was glorious, we packed a picnic and spent a day enjoying the sunshine.

There was plenty to watch with the falconry display and the knights displaying their skill at arms.

Finally at the end of the day there was the joust itself, which was action packed and great to watch!

If you're ever in Wiltshire and you're looking for things to do that showcase the history of the area, then Old Sarum is a must see.

We have so much history right on our doorstep here in the UK, that sometimes I think we don't make enough of an effort to get out there and actually see it. 

Plus the view from the top, overlooking the modern city is pretty cool as well.

Have you ever visited? Or do you have something awesome near your home town worth seeing? Let me know! I'm always looking for new things to see and do!

Visiting Oxford

One of my goals for this year was to go and visit my best friend Ann in Exeter before she graduated. Sadly, we were both too busy to manage it and the time just flew by this year. Before I knew it, she was prancing across the stage looking fabulous in her gown so I would have to take my trip there some other time. To be honest I've been to Exeter several times, the goal was more about making time to visit Ann this year.

Luckily though another goal was to take a day trip to Oxford which happens to be pretty close to where Ann lives... So I've switched it up a bit and jumped in the car a few weeks ago to go and visit her. 

First off getting there was not straight forward as the road into her village was closed. I ended up driving around in circles for about 25 minutes trying to follow the really poorly signed diversion, which kept bringing me out at dead ends because the roads were shut. Eventually I found myself in a village I recognised and figured it out from there, but it was pretty stressful! Don't you just adore living in England with our crap tiny roads and love of shutting important things (like ROADS) on Sundays?

The village Ann lives in is lucky enough to have it's own station so we jumped straight on the train to Oxford. I've always wanted to visit and I've got no idea why I haven't already when it really isn't that far from where I live. 

We were also so lucky with the weather and had glorious sunshine for the whole day. The forecast had said it was going to rain so I was totally not dressed for the sun, but isn't that the fun of a day trip to somewhere in Britain, being unprepared for the weather?

So we spent most of our trip just wandering about and looking at all the spires and listening to the bells tolling. When I got home and looked at my phone we had walked nearly 12km! No wonder it felt like we did a fair chunk of walking. Top tip, if you're planning a trip to Oxford, where flat and comfortable shoes. The city is small and flat and every thing is in walking distance so you will do a lot of walking about.

We went to visit Brasenose College which is where one of best friends is at uni. It is quite literally a whole world away from the gross pebbledashed building (that used to be a hostel) next door to the city crematorium that I lived in when I was in halls at uni. Shout out to any Bencraft people who might read this (you know you'd rather be from Bencraft). Our halls may have been rank to look at it but the people in there made up for it <3

For real though, it actually looks like a magical place to live and study with all the amazing old buildings. With the one exception of the Earth Science building which is this horrible new modern construction, that does not jive with the rest of the city in my opinion. Thankfully I'm not clever enough to get into Oxford because imagine being SO DISAPPOINTED when you arrived and then found out your lectures were in the only ugly building in the whole damn city. 

For lunch we went to M&S and grabbed some picnic food before heading to Christ Church meadow to sit under a shady tree. We sat here for ages chatting and watching the world go by. If you take a trip here and it's a nice day I would highly recommend doing this. Heck be more organised than us and pack yourself a picnic because the meadow is gorgeous and it's a great spot to really soak up the atmosphere.

We spent most of the afternoon exploring the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. This was rather like visiting an excellent, scaled down version of the Natural History Museum, which I love but there is SO much to see, it's hard to squeeze everything in. 

My favorite part was looking at their fossil and mineral collections as it was pretty extensive and they had some really cool exhibits (geology nerd over here). The best part was that it was free as I'm really trying to watch my spending at the moment so it was kind on the wallet too. 

It was such a lovely day and so nice to just spend so many hours wandering about with one of my oldest friends and have a chance for a really great catch up.

Oxford, I love you. I'll be coming back! Let me know if you have any tips of places that I should visit or eat at on my next trip there!
 

Weekend away in Devon and visiting Beer

So a few weekends ago things were just getting a bit hectic and life was feeling a little full on so Jared and I booked Friday off work and we headed to Devon for the weekend to escape from everything for a bit.

It felt good to be just the two of us, even if it was only for a few days and to not have any sort of schedule or to do list to get through. As much as I love my family and I am grateful for my parents allowing us to share their home with them, sometimes we just need a break where we can be alone without interruptions. 

When we go away to Devon we tend to do nothing but relax, watch films and drink lots of tea as we're only there for a few days and we just love to soak up the peace and quiet. We're lucky enough to be able to stay in my Nan's holiday caravan so we don't feel pressured to do things as we're not paying for the accommodation.

This time though we made an effort to get our butts out of the door and explore a little better. We headed off to Beer which is about an hours drive from where we were staying. 

Jared and I have actually been here before during a weekend visit for a friends 21st. However we didn't really get time to look around and it was November so the weather was a bit grim. 

This time though the weather was glorious and we had a lovely time.

We ate lunch in a pub garden on the cliff top overlooking the beach before going for a walk down by the sea. As we're at the seaside we both had an icecream to finish and ate them walking along the beach looking at all the different beach huts.

We took a walk along the cliff path which we didn't notice on our first visit here and the view from the top is pretty awesome. Apparently it goes all the way to the next village but we were too short on time to walk that far. 

The best thing about Beer though it the cute little shops which line the road and these are well worth looking into as they sell a whole range of things including lots of locally made produce.

If you're ever in the area, definitely give Beer a visit!

Visiting Bath

One of my goals for the year was to take a day trip to explore Bath. While it isn't that far away from home for me it is a bit awkward to get to and takes a while to drive there, so I've never really bothered.

To celebrate our 4 year anniversary Jared and I caught the train to Bath for a day of exploring and eating.

First stop was to see the Roman Baths which is obviously the focus for most tourists who take a trip here. We weren't even there on a particularly busy weekend but it was packed and quite expensive to get into (like £15 per person!). I wouldn't mind but there was so many people I couldn't actually look at any of the artifacts and I kept getting separated from Jared by the sheer amount of people. 

That said it was really interesting and pretty incredible at how much of it has survived. I particularly enjoyed looking at the curses people had written on pieces of lead and then folded up and thrown into the spring, hoping the Goddess would bring the perpetrators to justice on their behalf. They were mostly complaints about petty crimes, such as someone stealing their cloak but its fascinating to see proof that human nature has changed very little since Roman times! 

Afterwards we went to look round Bath Abby which was pretty awe inspiring. Some of their stained glass windows were particularly interesting with one showing multiple different parts of Jesus' life. In addition the incredible ceiling with its fan patterns makes it well worth a look.

Lunch was the high point of the day and we really went to town to celebrate our anniversary with a full three course meal and multiple cocktails at Turtle Bay. One of the best things about living in Southampton was having a branch on our doorstep and I haven't been since I lived there. Turtle Bay please can we get one in Salisbury?!

Not going to lie it was a pretty extravagant meal but I adore their jerk glazed steak and I live for sweet potato fries <3

We had a look around some of Bath's lovely shops (hello Anthropologie) but I was very good and didn't buy anything so we wandered back to the station to catch the train home.

After all the food and day drinking we both fell asleep on the way home so we were lucky we didn't miss our stop to be honest! It was a lovely day out and a wonderful way to celebrate together. 

Hopefully we will be back soon!