Baby love

I'd like to introduce you all to my baby nephew, Tyler.  He was born on Thursday 7th February 2013 weighing 6 pounds and 11 ounces and screaming his little lungs out! I'm completely besotted and cannot get enough of this little man! Max, on the other hand, isn't particularly pleased about being overshadowed.....

As you can imagine with them living only ten minutes from us, we've spent quite a lot of time this week visiting - so far I've managed to avoid nappy changes in favour of cuddles, although I've been told they'll be coming shortly!  I don't mind though - I'm such a proud auntie that I'll do any of it at the moment! ♥

Eat in a Michelin starred restaurant: The Hand & Flowers, Marlow

Danny is really difficult to buy presents for.  He's a typical bloke in that as soon as he wants something, he buys it, despite the fact I put him on a December spending ban each year as his birthday is less than a week after Christmas.  This year I decided that rather than buy a present, I'd take him out for a meal - he loves cooking (if Masterchef, Masterchef Australia, Masterchef: The Professionals or Celebrity Masterchef aren't on TV in our house, it's Food Network!) so it seemed like a perfect idea.

One of our friends from work recommended The Hand & Flowers in Marlow.  Owned and run by Tom Kerridge and his wife, Beth, this cosy pub earned its second Michelin star last year and became the first pub to do so.

After taking our order, we were presented with an appetiser of whitebait with marie rose sauce and white and brown soda breads.

For starters, I chose the blowtorched scottish scallops with warm roast chicken bouillon, morels, nasturtium and apple.  This dish was featured on Masterchef: The Professionals last month when the contestants visited The Hand & Flowers for a masterclass with Tom Kerridge. (And I had to try not to grin knowing that we'd be going for a meal there a few weeks later!)

Danny picked moules marinières with warm stout and brown bread.  The mussels were hidden in the warm stout like delicious little treasures.

Tom Kerridge won The Great British Menu in 2010 with the next dish so I knew I had to try it.  Slow-cooked duck breast with savoy cabbage, duck fat chips and gravy.  Easily the best dish I've ever eaten.  I can't even put into words how good it was but you get the idea just by looking....

Danny plumped for fillet of Lancashire beef with Hand & Flowers chips, onion rings and béarnaise sauce.  You definitely don't get small portions at this place!

Danny couldn't face a dessert but I'm well known for having a second stomach exactly for this purpose - I went for the banana soufflé with gingerbread custard and yoghurt ice cream.

Wow.  It was incredible!

The whole meal was absolutely phenomenal.  I've been dreaming about going again ever since!  I would thoroughly recommend paying a visit - obviously Michelin stars aren't handed out lightly but the combination of wonderful food with friendly, unpretentious service and cosy surroundings really makes for a great experience.

Just make sure that if you do go, you invite me along....

The Hand and Flowers
126 West Street
Marlow SL7 2BP
www.thehandandflowers.co.uk
(01628) 482 277

Project 365: #147 Man v Food

These are no ordinary chicken wings. They're Las Iguanas' "vivo" chicken wings, cooked in a habañero sauce. Danny is a big lover of spicy food (I am not!) so when he saw these on the menu he just had to try them. I opted for much more sedate nachos - I have no desire to cry my way through dinner! I did, after persuasion from Danny, dip my finger in the sauce and try the tiniest bit. Can I just say, even a tiny bit (about the size of this → O) was more than enough and I had to have a drink! By the end, even Danny had streaming eyes and the sniffles, but he said he liked them and he'd have them again (crazy fool!) It reminded me of a Man v Food challenge, if any of you have seen that - not the usual way to spend date night!

Project 365: #139 One year anniversary

I've literally been dying to do this post!  Danny and I celebrated our year anniversary last week and to mark the occasion, we went to Donnington Valley Hotel & Spa.  Now, this place is really close to my house, but we decided that since the point of the stay wasn't to sightsee but was to relax, spend some time together, enjoy the spa and have a nice meal, it didn't really matter.

Now unfortunately I couldn't take a photo in the spa or pool (I wasn't sure that people would appreciate me standing in a corner taking photos!) so I've had to use ones from their website - much better than I'd take anyway though really!

Source for both photos

When we arrived, we headed straight to the gym for a short workout - on my part (and I'm pretty sure Danny's too) this was literally just because it was free, we were going to be spending the rest of the day relaxing and indulging and we felt we should do!  After this, we headed back to the room, showered and went to the bar for lunch.

Prices in the bar were relatively expensive, as you'd expect at a four star hotel and spa, but when the sandwiches we'd ordered arrived, the price was completely justified!  It was easily the best sandwich I've ever had (Danny said the same about his)

Bacon, lettuce, tomato and egg mayonnaise toasted sandwich
Roast beef, horseradish, tomato and rocket sandwich

After lunch, we made our way through to the Spa where we had a couple of complimentary treatments booked. Danny had decided on the Heavenly Hydration Salt Brushing Treatment and I went for the Intensive Mineralising Facial.  It was the first time I'd had a treatment at a Spa - we'd visited one in Mexico but only experienced the hydrotherapy pools and steam rooms rather than actual treatments.  It was absolute bliss and we both felt so relaxed afterwards!

In the evening, after some time relaxing in the pool, jacuzzi and sauna, we had a table booked in The WinePress Restaurant.  A three course meal was included in the spa break that we'd booked, so obviously we had to indulge in all three courses!

Scallops with black pudding, pea purée and pancetta

Sea bass, horseradish mash and ratatouille

Raspberry crème brûlée with shortbread

Chocolate torte with berry compote

I've honestly never been so full!  We'd planned to go for a drink in the bar afterwards but we were so full that neither of us could face it - clear sign of vast amounts of food!  All in all, a perfect day - here's to the next year! ♥

Project 365: #138 Happy Birthday Danny/New Year's Eve

I'm quite rubbish at wrapping presents.  I can just about cope with boxes, but anything that's a slightly odd shape gets wrapped in vast amounts of paper and Sellotape in an attempt to cover my lack of skills.  Danny's abnormally good at wrapping so I felt extra pressure to wrap his presents well and spent quite some time doing so - I think I managed!  The present on top is a belt - you wouldn't have guessed though, right?

You might've guessed from the title of this post that Danny's birthday also happens to be New Year's Eve (yes, this post is very late!)  We went to Frankie & Benny's for a late lunch with his parents, brother and brother's fiancée then headed home to get started on preparing things for the house party in the evening.  Despite the fact that his sister and brother had invited most people, we managed to get the short straw and spent a good two hours cooking up any number of party food treats - I do love mini sausage rolls and cocktail sausages though!  Yummy! :)

Project 365: #137 Birthday prep

Danny's not really a cake person but admitted to liking gingerbread the other day.  Unfortunately I didn't get around to making him a cake (which I'd been planning to do in secret!) since I spent most of the week before his birthday either with him or busy doing other things, but when I arrived home the day before his birthday, it turned out that Mum had made him a ginger cake!  I iced it (as you can see!) and presented it to him whilst carrying a lighter and singing Happy Birthday!  Unfortunately we didn't have any birthday candles so the lighter was the closest thing I could get - I think it worked quite well!

Project 364: #134 Christmas Eve

Since we spent Christmas apart, Danny and I exchanged Christmas presents on Christmas Eve this year.  Although we both knew roughly what we'd got from each other (I'd asked for a Pandora bracelet and he'd mentioned that he'd like an Xbox), the actual charms I got were a surprise and I absolutely love them!  I'd wanted a Pandora bracelet for a while and wanted the charms to mean something to me.  I pointed out the teal butterfly charm when we were in the shop, purely because I love the colour, but the heart and shoe are perfect!  The boy did good :)

2011 in photos

Top row (left to right): January - first dinner I cooked for Danny, February - pancakes at Giraffe, March - England v Ghana

Second row (left to right): April - mime fancy dress, May - Championship play-off final, June - cocktails at The Clarence Hotel, Dublin (owned by U2!)

Third row (left to right): July - 30 day shred, August - turtles in Mexico, September - back to work blues and lots and lots of rain!

Bottom row (left to right): October - a nice photo of me and Danny for a change!, November - fireworks, December - Max on Christmas morning

Well, there it is - my 2011 in twelve photos.  I'm sure that years go by faster and faster as you get older and this year has definitely been no exception to that!  I can't believe it's going to be 2012 tomorrow!

As 2011 was the year I started my blog, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading, commenting and following - it really means a lot!  And finally - happy new year!  I hope you all have a great evening welcoming in 2012!

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