So last Sunday was Bonfire Night, which is personally one of my favourite things about the nights drawing in.

My family live on the outskirts of our village so we don’t have close neighbours so we had our own Bonfire Party.

My Dad built the bonfire and one of my sisters made our Guy Fawkes (complete with very historical curly wig and baseball cap).

One of my other sisters made us homemade hot chocolate with whipped cream, marshmallows, chocolate flakes and hot salted caramel. This was quite possibly one of the best things I’ve ever had and it doesn’t matter what Costa or Starbucks have got on their Christmas menu, they won’t be able to make something as good as that.

Standing around in the freezing cold, wrapped up in warm hats and gloves while sipping a cup of this magical hot chocolate is what Bonfire Night is all about.

We lit the bonfire at 6pm and watched our Guy Fawkes go up in flames before having some fireworks.

Mum, Jared and I had been hard at work preparing Bonfire Party food to warm us up. We had baked potatoes with mango chutney curry, butternut squash and chorizo pizza, vegetable crisps, honey mustard sausage rolls and cheese straws. We made mulled cider to drink along with plenty of wine and beer. For pudding we made toffee apple crumble with salted caramel sauce and chocolate and marshmallow roasted bananas. 

I sadly didn't get a chance to take any pictures of the food as everyone was too busy scoffing it, but I'm sure you can imagine it.  

Some of the recipes we just made up, such as the crumble which I never use a recipe for and just do it by eye (and taste). However I've linked any recipes that I did use, or was inspired by in case you fancy making some of them yourself.

Everything was quick, easy and filling and crucially we prepped almost all of it the day before to make life easier.

It was a great evening spent with family, enjoying each others company and tasty food.

Did you celebrate Bonfire Night? Or make yourself some seasonal treats? Let me know!

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!

Trip to Mangoes for Cordelias birthday

A massive happy birthday to my flatmate Cordelia! Feel like I'm posting about birthdays a lot but apparently all my friends have theirs close together.

She started her birthday in style with a trip to Sobar which was great fun. Sobar if you could play good music like that all the time I would go every week like I used to. I had to leave earlier than I would have liked as I had a massive load of work and errands to do the following day. 

We started the day off with everyone nursing hangovers and blowing out the candles on the delicious carrot cake baked by my flatmate Nicola. Then after a frantic day of scurrying around getting stuff done we went for a lovely trip to the Thai restaurant mangoes. 

Despite living just down the road from this little place for over two years I had never managed to actually go, even though many people have recommended it to me.  I think I've always been a bit put off by how busy it is (always a good sign with a restaurant) and felt like I would never get a table. 

The decor is lovely and I like the cosy intimate feel of the place. It's actually much bigger than I had realised as it has an upstairs and substantial area behind the restaurant you can see from the street. 

The food was sublime and I had deep fried beef. Enjoyed every bite! I hope to go back in the new year, I feel like it would make a really fun date night. 

Feeling Happy

One of the few things I've learnt since being at uni is the importance of doing what makes you happy.

I have had an exceptionally stressful week due to personal stuff and having a large deadline due.

However it is important to have faith because a lot of the time stuff works itself out. A lot of the things I've been worrying about have resolved themselves in the past few days which is a huge relief.

Sometimes you just gotta have a carb filled meal and just allow yourself to chill out. 

I've spent the weekend chilling with a good book (Make my wish come true by Fiona Harper, free to download from iTunes right now) and just letting myself be happy. 

Sure I've got so much work to do that whenever I think about it I want to cry. But sometimes you've just got to take a break and be nice to yourself. 

Today I'm going to try and make a start on the mountain of work. Do what makes you happy. I really wish I could back out of this degree because I hate it but there's bits I enjoy and I've already invested so much time and energy into it that I can't quit now. To help me cope I try to do other things to counter balance the shitty degree. Like going to restaurants with my friends and relaxing with a glass of wine with my mum. Life's small pleasures are often overlooked but in my opinion they can make or break your week. 

Trip to Beer in Devon for Hannahs 21st

With the birthday girl

Spent this weekend on an amazing trip to Beer in Devon for my friends 21st.

Her extremely generous parents hired out a Youth Hostel for Hannah and her twin Abi's 21st party.

Set off on the train down there and after a bit of a struggle to find a taxi that ended up with Hannahs mum having to come and rescue us, we arrived!

At the beach

First things first, the town is actually called Beer. Makes me giggle just thinking about it. Also the youth hostel looks like a bloody manor house. Ive stayed in some pretty crappy youth hostels on geology field trips but this one was lovely.

Her parents cooked us delicious food, provided us with plenty of booze and left us to it. I had such a great time and after a night of heavy drinking and (sweaty) dancing her parents treated us to a hangover curing fry up. I have never been so happy to see bacon. After stuffing ourselves we headed down to the beach for some Geology nerding and to clear our heads before setting off home.

Massive thanks to Hannah and family for such a fabulous weekend. If you ever get the chance, check out Beer, it is the cutest little place.

Enjoy the pictures!

Its literally bloody Hogwarts

Doing some geology. LOL it looked pretty so I took a picture.

Such a cute little place!

I just wanted to go in all the little shops

If I had a beach hut I would want it to look like that

Halloween Madness!

Ok first of all, massive apoliges for neglecting this. But hey, I'm a new blogger, its allowed. I've been really busy but I thought I would do a quick series of posts for you on the main things I've been up over the past few weeks.

First of all lets start from where I left off: Halloween!

My flatmates and I hosted a witches tea party with spooky snacks and we had a few friends over before heading out for the night. Beforehand my flatmate Nicola took her turn to cook for us and made us a yummy spinach and ricotta cheesy pasta bake.

Nicola and I spent the night before tidying the house and making the snacks (mostly Nicola, I 'helped'). There was an unfortunate incident with the jelly when Nicola opened the fridge and the unset jelly fell out and went EVERYWHERE. Really gross and sticky but we managed to clean it up eventually.

Was such a fun night with everyone dressing up. I was a witch although my hat kept falling off my head and I lost it when we went out...

Had to get up horribly early the next morning to catch my train home as I needed to get my passport before my trip to Tenerife.

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Picture kindly provided by Nicola :)