Saturday Worshipping at The Church

Saturday I arranged to meet a couple of my favourite girlies (Julie, Tracey and Celyn)  for a spot of shopping, cocktails and lunch. 

With all the best intentions our tummy's were rumbling and we got distracted by the fabulous Church in Chester (www.churchchester.com).

The Church is, as the name suggests, a fairly new bar and restaurant in a converted church, located in the heart of Chester. I cannot tell you how stunning the building is, it's something you really need to check out yourself! 

 

 

 See I told you, stunning!

Settling down in a plush booth we decided cocktails were a must to aid is in our soon to be shopping trip.

 

A Pornstar Martini for me - fast replacing the Espresso Martini as my favourite. 

A Long Island Ice tea for Julie, a Mojito for Tracey and a Strawberry Mocktail for 10-year old Celyn (we didn't want to leave her out)!

 

Browsing the menu we couldn't choose just one dish so decided to share a platter - Balsamic glazed sausages, cured salmon, homemade chinese chicken goujons, tempura prawns, duck and guinea fowl terrine, goats cheese tart and a whole load of delicious freshly baked bread.

 

 

 I will definitely be visiting The Church again, it's a lovely place with a great vibe. They have bands playing regularly and with a few friends, drinks and food I think this would be a top night out.

All worship The Church.

Things that have made me smile this week!

So we're all guilty of wishing our lives away! Wishing that it was the weekend, wishing that our holiday would roll around quicker and so on and so on. I am especially guilty of this so sometimes it's nice just to stop thinking ahead and enjoy the simple things that have brought a smile to your face each day.

Here's my list for this week:

1. Taking Riley to the park on a Sunny afternoon.

2. My beautiful new pink dress that I bought off of Asos for a friends wedding in May (www.asos.com/ASOS/ASOS-Texured-Bardot-Pencil-Dress/Prod/pgeproduct.aspx?iid=3827813&cid=8799&Rf-200=9&Rf981=3679&sh=0&pge=0&pgesize=204&sort=-1&clr=Pink).

3. A Saturday afternoon cocktail in Chester with friends.

5. Listening to the new Paloma Faith album religiously!

6. M&S Dark Chocolate Jaffa Cakes - Dare I say better than the 'real' Jaffa cakes but not so good for the diet.

7. Pretty new lace underwear from Ann Summers that I simply couldn't resist.

 It's been a pretty good week all in all. What made you smile this week?

Letting Go

So this is my first post of a personal nature and while I enjoy blogging about food and fab places to visit I think it's important to discuss the slightly more serious things in life - here goes!

I think the above says it all really. At the moment I absolutely adore my life and everyone in it. Rewind back to 2011 and this really wasn't the case! 

I was stuck in a marriage that had long lost the love, had a young child that I couldn't connect with and a job in Customer Services that I hated. I was broken. I didn't like myself, in fact I loathed myself and I would wake up everyday wondering if I would ever be happy again.

In a bid to cher myself up I bought a copy of Cosmo, which was giving this book away as a promotional freebie. To say this was a turning point in my life is an understatement! I was you see very overweight and this was not doing anything to contribute to my low self-esteem.

I read this book like a bible and began the diet. Not only did it help me loose over two stone and feel and look a lot healthier, it also gave me HOPE. Hope that this wasn't how my life had to be. I could take the control back and change the way I was living.

So that's exactly what I did! I wanted out of this life I'd inadvertantly traped myself in. I left my husband, began to work on my relationship with my son and began smiling for the first time in years. (Oh and I got made redundant from my job with a nice little redundancy package). :-)

Desert Sunset in Dubai with the girls - December 2012

View from our Venice Hotel - February 2013

Bikes in Amsterdam - July 2013

Ibiza Hen Do - August 2013

 Since the day I walked out of that life I haven't looked back. The pics above are just some of the amazing places I have visited in these two years with some amazing friends.

My handsome son Riley

I've become a better person and a better mother and I've finally got my smile back! 

 

I guess the message of this post is this: If your unhappy with your life change it! I know it sounds so simple and I know it's a lot harder said then done but you deserve to LIVE and not just exist.

Everybody has the potential to make their life one they actually enjoy living and ultimately just be happy.

Lisa x 

 

 

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Beer & Belgian Chocolate

It's been a long, dark and typically miserable winter in good old Blightly and at this time of year I always feel the urge to escape the monotany and misery and head off on a city break. Trawling the internet for the best deal, my sister and I discovered a cracking deal on Travel Republic (www.travelrepublic.co.uk/holidays) for Brussels. For £110 each we stayed in a lovely 3 star hotel with return flights - what a bargain, we could hardly say no to that!

 We flew out from Manchester on a Friday evening and arrived at Charleroi Airport at 10.30pm that evening ready our 3 night city break. Now Charleroi Airport is around 40 mins away from central Brussels and taxi's are expensive so beware - take the shuttle to the midi train station to save yourself some £'s! But for around £40 for a return flight with Ryan Air we could hardly complain.

 We stayed in the NH Brussels City Centre (www.nh-hotels.nl), a lovely little hotel located just outside of the centre of Brussels in the Louise area where we found this cute little treat waiting for us (it only survived for this picture)! 

 

While the hotel is slightly out of the city centre Brussels is easy to navigate and as long as you don't mind a short stroll into the heart of the city this is no problem. The decor is very tasteful, the beds are super comfy, the staff are friendly and the breakfast was plentiful. I especially like the quirky napkins below. :-)

 

So we hit the sack early on Friday night safe in the knowledge that we would have a clear head to explore the following day. After a plentiful breakfast of fruit, pastries, eggs, bacon and a lot of coffee we pulled our best sophisticated city outfits on and hit the streets of Brussels.

 

Note: Why does no one seem to rock a hat anymore?! Anyway, Brussels is a beautiful city but while we knew there was plenty to do there wasn't so much of an abudance that we'd feel like we could never stop, like in Paris or London. Letting us sample the important things like the renowned Belgian Beer and Chocolate! 

 

 Oh and Belgian Waffles! 

So enough of the culinary delights, there is also plenty to do on the culture front. With French being the first and most often spoken language, Brussels has a chic Parisien vibe, with plenty of awe inspiring buildings to admire, squares to grab a drink in and gardens to relax in.

  

 

 The Grande Palace is particularly beautiful and well worth a visit. Brussels is also a very arty city - which I love, my sister not so much. For 13 Euro's you can visit all three sections of The Royal Museum of Fine Arts (www.fine-arts-museum.be/en/museums/musee-magritte-museum). This includes The Rene Magritte gallery, the Museum of Modern Art and Ancient Art. Unfortunatley when we visited some of the rooms on the latter two were closed so we plumped for the Magritte Exhibit.

A massive fan of the Surrealist movement I thoroughly enjoyed this three floor exhibit, chronicling Magrittes life and work. Unfortunately pictures were forbidden in the main section of the exhibit so I had to make do with a few snaps in the reception only. 

 

Check out this amazing sculpture Oscar by  British based artist Gavin Turk.

 

Art isn't just confined to the galleries though and around every corner you'll discover amazing street art (I'm yet to find a city that Space Invader hasn't tagged) and sculptures galore. Even the road signs are in on the act.

Exhausted after all the art and food we headed back to the hotel to have an hours R&R before throwing on our gladrags and hitting the town. We grabbed a taxi and headed to a bar called Scotts where I had the most amazing (if not incredibly expensive) Espresso Martini. Scotts is a lovely place to start off your night. Every Saturday they have a musician performing an accoustice session. Too many Espresso Martini's meant that I forgot to take a picture of the chap who was playing that night but trust me he was seriously good. After that we headed to an Irish bar and the camera was forgotten!

Slightly sore headed and tired, the next day was a rather more quiet affair involving a lot of relaxing, sampling more cultre and food .  . . and of course a bit more Belgian beer at Brussles best bar Delerium Cafe (http://deliriumcafe.be).

If your a beer fan you must visit this place, they have literally hundreds of types of beer. My favourite was the Mango one but theres plenty to try. All in all Brussels was a lovely city to explore for a couple of days. If you go for any longer though I would recommend visiting Bruges and/or Antwerp as I've heard both cities are beautiful. Now time to get planning my next excape!