A sunny staycation

There is a lot to be said for the staycation.

Not so much the word – one of those shudder-inducing couple words like glamping or Brangelina – but for the event itself.

Ben and I have just had a week off, but we haven’t jetted anywhere spectacular, instead we organised a few little things to do in and around home. We’ve had staycations the last few times we’ve taken a week off work and they’ve been a great chance to do those local things we keep talking about but never get round to actually doing.

You tend to spend a lot less than if you were going away properly, but we still add in a few meals out and the odd cheeky cocktail so it still feels a bit like a treat.  We also both refer to being on holiday, as in ‘well I might as well have this humongous ice cream and/or another drink because I am on holiday’. It works a treat.

Cheers!

So with the return to work on the horizon, but just enough hours away that a final holiday G&T seems acceptable, I thought I’d do a little post about what we’ve been up to.

The week kicked off with a delicious birthday meal at Cote with my parents on Friday and then my birthday barbecue on Saturday. You can’t beat chilling out in the garden with good friends, a BBQ and a glass of Pimms.

Thanks to Jo for the photo, and the cupcakes!

Then Ben & I trundled down to Hampshire for two days of eating too much food, drinking Prosecco, wandering in picturesque places and a little bit of shopping at Gunwharf Quays. These photos are of the absolutely stunning Longstock Water Gardens which we visited on my birthday morning. They hold various public charity days throughout the summer and it’s so worth going if you can. They are so pretty, and there are all sorts of little walkways linking all the ponds and islands together. With all this talk of gardens you’d think I’d turned 87 not 27…

Just beautiful.

The perfect place to relax.

On Wednesday, back at home, we had a lazy chilled day before heading over to South Hill Park in the evening to see the very, very funny Katherine Ryan. She had some hilarious celebrity anecdotes from her time on panel shows and a kick-ass Beyonce impression.

Such stand-up lighting

Thursday was our day for London adventuring. We always tend to do a London day during our Staycation (one of our best was Taste of London a few years ago), and we picked the most gloriously sunny day this time. Our first stop was street food market Kerb, which was so good I’m going to save most of the belling-rumble-inducing photos for its own blog post soon.

The glorious Kerb

After some amazing food we chilled by the canal at Kings Cross on some cool grass steps, which were full of people soaking up the sun, and then went over to Finchley Road, where we were booked into the Waitrose Cookery School for a Cocktails & Party Bites class. We had a bit of time to kill so we took a walk around Finchley.

Most of it was spent pretending we were rich enough to buy a very expensive new sofa in one of the very fancy furniture shops, but we also stumbled across the awesome Camden Arts Centre. It’s very cool and contemporary and there were several galleries upstairs, as well as a room showing a bizarre video of some performance art, which was pretty much two people falling over, getting up and falling over again. (I’m far too unsophisticated for performance art!). The arts centre was such a cool, quirky little place and it reminded me how lucky we are to have our own arts centres, South Hill Park and South Street, and creative places like Jelly, on our doorstep.

After our little foray into contemporary art it was time for the cookery school. We made three party bites and three cocktails and it was such an awesome night. Everyone was so friendly, the teachers were fantastic, and we made some really delicious food & drink.

Cook by name, cook by nature

The class was really well organised too. Each course began with a demonstration in the demo theatre, and we then worked two to a bench, making our party bites as our chef repeated the instructions. We then left the food to cool while we headed over to the drinks area where our cocktail expert showed us how to shake and stir our cocktails. By the end of the evening everyone was a little boozy so there was quite a Thursday night party vibe going on!

BBQ chicken wings with blue cheese dip and a Bourbon Sour cocktail

The end of the week has been pretty chilled, and I’ve managed to actually make a dent in the mammoth book I bought back in Feburary (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell). I’ve also done a bit of sewing, hoorah, and finished a skirt I was making for Cat. Here’s a sneak peak for now, I’ll do a post when she’s tried it on and we know it fits!

Lovely cat buttons!

And that, was our staycation. Writing it all down makes me realised how we have squeezed a lot into this week! And there’s still just about enough time for that last cheeky G&T in the garden…