Hello! Hope you had a great weekend. We had a day of beautiful weather and then a day of freezing temperatures. But it was a really good weekend nonetheless.
On Saturday I ran my last long run before the half marathon next Sunday. It was a good run helped by the fact that it was a beautifully mild day and I went down a route that I really love. Isn’t that weird when you have a route that you get good vibes from? There are definitely certain routes I avoid purely because I don’t get good feelings about.
I like routes that head back home sooner in the run even though they might loop about before I’m actually home. It just psychologically feels like the run is almost at the end, you know?
Then after the run, I showered and had breakfast (usual oatmeal) and did some housework. Then I dared to enter the jaws of hell Marks and Spencer’s. On a Saturday. The day before Mother’s Day. Am I crazy??? And yes, it was MANIC. Dad’s and their kids racing about trying to get presents and flowers everywhere.
OK it doesn’t look so bad in the photo, but literally it was heaving.
I was only in there (thankfully) to pick up some nice flowers as I had everything else I needed for the mums. I wanted the flowers to be fresh for the next day, hence why I dared to go to M&S the day before.
Then I escaped got home and did some housework and had some lunch with Ben. I had my favourite butternut squash soup again.
I’m just so addicted at the moment. I should make big batches of it but I can never be bothered and I know I’d probably eat stupid amounts in one sitting that way rather than putting it in the freezer…Plus I quite enjoy making the soup rather than defrosting it and reheating, you know?
After lunch and walking Alfie, we finally got our act together and saw our wedding photographer to get our photos. How terrible is that considering we got married last September?? Oh well! I might upload some of the photos on the blog as a little memoir to wedding…watch this space.
And because we don’t have a Waitrose near where we live I forced Ben to go to the Waitrose near the photographer’s office so I could stock up on tinned pumpkin. Waitrose is the only place I’ve found stocks it!
I restrained myself in to buying only four. The lady behind the till thought I was mad. Hey, I don’t care!
Then we got ready to take both the mums for a nice meal out. We went to a lovely little pub/restaurant near us called the Jolly Sailor.
We chauffeured the mums so they could drink and relax.
It’s so lovely because Ben’s mum and my mum are friends and go out together anyway so it wasn’t odd having them both there for a Mother’s Day meal. it was just nice to spend the quality time with both of them simultaneously.
Both Ben and me get on really well with our own mum’s and mother-in-laws so it was such a good night out. We are so lucky to have such lovely family surrounding us!
For starters Ben and me went for a sharing platter. Well, what happened was I saw a vegetarian sharing platter that literally had everything I could dream on it and I really wanted to try it but Ben was convinced it wouldn’t come with bread and didn’t want to be overcome by so much veggie-ness so wanted to order a bread basket with it to ‘balance it out’. Fair enough. Until we saw this beast arrive:
Enough to feed an army! There were different cheeses, a falafel, a potato cake thing, hummus, guacamole, grilled vegetables, tzatziki, cauliflower salad, regular salad…and bread. And then our bread basket. Whoops.
Needless to say we were quite full after this. However, on days where I run a long run I’m always more hungry that normal (obviously, I guess) so this was a welcome dinner I have to say!
For my main I went for poussin and fries. This is an unusual choice for me as I’m not a big ‘fries’ fan. I prefer chunky chips or sweet potato fries
But you know what, this pretty much hit the spot. The fries with ketchup went down like a treat. Really yummy and exactly what I was craving. And I might have helped out Ben with his fries too. Hey, I need the carbs what can I say!
No pudding as seriously, no room at the inn. Such a good evening with the mums. I hope they enjoyed it; they definitely deserved to be treated. Speaking for myself, I am so grateful to my mum and everything she’s done for me. She’s a hardworking lady and juggled a lot of things when my sister and I were growing up to make sure we had happy, healthy childhoods so I’m very thankful for that. And I know Ben appreciates his mum just as much. Like I said, we’re both extremely lucky.
On Sunday I didn’t do a whole lot if I’m honest. My mum and dad popped round in the morning and we had coffee and I gave my mum her flowers and card. Once again, a lovely time with my family. Then in the afternoon, Ben’s mum dropped round with a little, delayed surprise for Ben… His birthday cake! As a surprise Ben’s mum and me decided to treat him to an amazing birthday cake from the same lady that made our wedding cake and Ben’s mum’s birthday cake.
It has a little Xbox on it!
How cool is that? Ben loves playing on his Xbox so this seemed like the perfect thing to put on the cake. He was very chuffed.
And it tasted so good
Lemon sponge and buttercream…ahh heaven.
Ben’s mum had to take quite a bit of the cake home with her to put in her freezer unfortunately as our freezer is just bursting with cake (as I might have mentioned before). There’s no way we could eat it all before it goes stale – I mean it’s a BEAST.
So lots of good food, great family time, and cake. That my friends is a damn good weekend in my books.
What did you do this weekend?
If you’re from the UK, what did you do for Mother’s Day?
If you could have any cake in the world for your birthday, what flavour would it be? I think mine would be fruit cake with marzipan and royal icing…or maybe just regular birthday cake style with jam and buttercream…
I would have a gooey rasperry-chocolate cake with chocolate almond butter in the middle 🙂 mmmmmmm. Your weekend sounded heavenly Anna!
Oh wow that sounds like a brilliant choice of cake!
Sounds like such a nice mother’s day!! It’s so awesome that your mom and Ben’s mom get along so well and you could celebrate together 🙂 What a nice way to spend the weekend!
Yeah it’s so nice because it’s not awkward or anything. Bless them, go to church together, go shopping…it’s lovely.
awwww that’s such a cute cake with the controller on it!! haha
Haha I know, so diddy and cute!
Cute pictures! I love the xbox on the cake, my boyfriend would love that. I might steal this idea!
Definitely a boy thing I think! 🙂
That cake is amazing! I need to think of something to put on Andy’s birthday cake but I don’t think I could manage that!
I am loving lemon cake right now, but fruit cake+ marzipan is always a classic first.
Well after seeing what you’ve done in the past I don’t think it’s too far away from what you can do!
Happy birthday to Ben! And good luck on your marathon- can’t wait to here about it!
*hear 🙂
Thanks, I’m so excited!
Oh I know what you mean with Waitrose, I went last night and bought a squash, two tins of tahini and a bag of red rice – sure the check out guy thought I was crazy!
Haha! Well I do love Waitrose but it’s just too expensive and too far away for an every week shop. I was devastated to not find any squash though!
Such a cute celebration with both your mom’s! It’s great how close you guys are. That cake looks incredible and is making me hungry! Snack time for me I guess. And great job on that run!! Super speedy and awesome as usual 🙂
Aww thanks Meghan! Honestly, I had to delete those cake photos from my phone. I kept looking at them and going “I need cake..” Hehe.