Things To See And Do - Arundel

A while back Chris and I started a habit of making sure we went on weekly dates. Each week we had to base the date on a letter of the alphabet. You can see our alphabet dates here. Unfortunately, we only got to D before we gave up. It turns out that theming dates on letters is actually quite tricky!  We did continue our weekly dates for a while without the letters to hold us back, but then life got in the way for a while.

But for the past month or so, we have been making a conscious effort to go out on weekly dates again. This time we have just decided to go and explore a town or village each time.  So far we have been to Winchester, Southsea, Bournemouth and The New Forest. I thought it might be nice to document the things we do and the places we see to unearth any hidden treasures, and give you some ideas if you want to visit.  Or, if you have been before and have any suggestions of places to go you can add to the conversation in the comments section!

So, on Wednesday we visited Arundel in West Sussex. Despite driving past Arundel Castle on my way to and from Sussex Uni many moons ago, I had never actually visited, so this was our first stop!

Arundel Castle has a variety of ticket choices, and so you can pick from paying £9 each for a bronze ticket, which only really includes the castle grounds and gardens, all the way up to gold for £18 which lets you get inside the whole castle including the bedrooms.  

We went for the silver ticket which meant we payed £12.10 each and could see the grounds, gardens and also inside the Castle Keep.  They also offer a Gift Aid scheme wherein if you pay a voluntary 10% gift aid then you get double that donation to spend each in the coffee shop.  We thought this was a great idea and it was nice to get an ice lolly and drink inside!

Since it was such a sunny day and we wanted to spend most of it outside, we probably could have just gone for a bronze ticket, and spent all our time looking at the beautiful gardens, and the castle from outside. But it was nice to get a glimpse inside the castle too.

My favourite bit was definitely the walled garden!  It was really pretty spectacular! It included loads of beautiful colourful flowers, and also had lots of wooden sculptures, fountains, and GOLD!

I think this fountain was the prettiest!

After we had finished wandering the grounds we popped into Arundel for a spot of lunch.  We found a nice little place called  Pappardelle Ristorante and Osteria (I think they must have had an update because the pictures on the website do not look like the same place inside). The decor was rustic and modern and I particularly liked their copper tables. I ordered a WooWoo!

The menu looked pretty delicious too, and in the end Chris and I both ordered the Duck Salad. It. Was. Yum.  

After eating we went for a look around the village. I really liked the look of their local Butchers!

We found some fantastic Antique shops. The one pictured below had some really unusual (and expensive) pieces inside. Can you see the Hippo in the window?

There were also more antique shops hidden behind this one, all selling pretty cool stuff. I liked this room pictured below in particular, it seemed to have an industrial chic theme mixed in with a bit of vintage school ware.

We also ventured in to another shop called Arundel Bridge Antiques Centre, again which had stalls from many different sellers.  My favourite was Arundel Photographica, which sold the biggest collection of vintage cameras I have ever seen!

Have you been to Arundel before? What was your favourite part?

I'm not sure where we are off to next week. Any suggestions for nice places along the South Coast?

 Laura xXx

Read More

Easter Bank Holiday Happenings

Happy Easter chaps! I hope you are all having a great bank holiday weekend!

I've been having a lovely time, with family, friends and lots of crafting!  We had a couple of our friends over on Friday night for a dinner party, and they brought us the pretty tulips in the picture above.  We ate lots and had a fun time playing Cards Against Humanity!

On Saturday I started some craft projects. I recently bought a little loom from Tiger. I think it's really meant for children, but it only cost £7 and I have wanted to give some weaving a go for a while now. I'm not sure if I like how this one is turning out yet, but we'l see how we go!

I also tried my hand at some sculpting using air dry clay. If the project turns out well I'm sure I will post a little tutorial about it. 

We spent the rest of Saturday playing the new Resident Evil game and then watching films!

Yesterday I had a nice catch up and coffee with with a friend, before heading out to have lunch with the family.  My Mother-in-Law surprised us with a build your own Sundae competition, which was great! Really we all won because we got ice cream and lots of treats!

Today I am plotting the final touches to our lounge re-decoration. As I said in this post, I was on the hunt for some botanical style pictures to hang, and now, thanks to lots of help,  I am spoilt for choice!

My friend's Mum read that last blog post, and spotted a book while she was out and about which she very kindly bought for me! It's got lots of cute little illustrations of plants, animals and trees inside with the name of each written below it.  Lots of which include the colour yellow which will fit perfectly with the yellow and grey theme we've got going on!  I love the cover of the book too! I think I'll maybe pick 4 pages and arrange them together all in one frame.

Chris also found me a book whilst visiting an antique shop which had lots of botanical pictures inside. It only cost £1 so I snapped it up and got to work ripping it (neatly) to pieces! The pictures below are just some of them, but there are a few I think would work so I might make a little picture trio to go beside our shelves.

If you remember, I also wanted some sort of botanical wall hanging/chart, and I think we may have cracked this one too! While my Mum was out shopping the other day she came across some wrapping paper with butterflies on it.  Knowing that it was the sort of thing I was after she sent me the name of the company that made it. I looked it up online and unfortunately it was an American company, but then I found a UK ebay shop which sold loads of different papers made by this company, and they were all beautiful! In the end I managed to limit myself to just buying 4 (including the one I initially wanted).

I decided that I would buy these papers and then turn them into wall hangings myself.  Whilst I was researching how I could do this, I found the most wonderful tutorial, using the very same paper no less!  What a weird coincidence! Here is the what their finished product looked like, and you can find the tutorial on the Chris Loves Julia Blog.

So it looks like a trip to B&Q is in order!

What have you been up to over the bank holiday weekend?

Laura xXx

Read More

Making Elderflower Cordial

A couple of weeks ago  I went to my parents house to help my mum make some Elderflower cordial. There is a lovely big elderflower plant in their garden, so we thought we had better make use of it! The recipe we used can be found here but we did tweak it a little bit!

Check out how much sugar goes into this! It will probably make about 3 bottles worth, so it is quite a hefty amount!

And heres 3 we made earlier... well, my mum made it earlier and we just strained and bottled it together. This stuff is yummy, I would drink it all day if I didn't now know how much sugar was in it! 

What is your favourite summer drink?

Laura xXx

Read More

Anniversaries, Unaniversaries and Flowers!

Yesterday (friday) marked exactly 1 year until Chris and I tie the knot! It was also my parents wedding anniversary. So to celebrate I went to stay with them for a couple of days to discuss weddings, while Chris set off for a fun day at Thorpe Park with his mates.

First on the wedding planning agenda was flowers! We thought we would check out which ones are in bloom at this time of year, as we will mostly be using flowers we can collect from around the village in the arrangements and bouquets.

We went to visit one of my Mum's neighbours, Susan, who knows her stuff when it comes to gardening! She let us wander around her garden taking pictures and getting inspired. Apparently this is the time of year when blue and purple flowers like to come out to play. I didn't know that the flowers bloom in groups of colour, but apparently that is a thing!

I'm not very good with flower names, although I do know the one above is lavender. The one below is technically known as "MASSIVE daisy". There's also a pansy and a lily thrown in down there somewhere I believe. Leave a comment if you know what any of the others are called, I'd love to know.

Look what else I found in Susan's garden. It's a succulent goldmine! This is definitely inspiring me to add a few of these cheeky chappies into my bouquet! However, I think this would make it very difficult to part with with it when I have to do the obligatory bouquet toss!

Anyway, the wedding planning went very well. As well as flowers we covered food, drink, timing, decoration and dresses!

I will leave you with a little froggy my Dad showed me, apparently he lives in their garden, underneath the outdoor tap. Cute!

I hope you are all having a lovely bank holiday weekend!

Laura xXx

Read More