Easter Bank Holiday fun!

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter bank holiday?! You may have realised my blog isn’t up on it’s normal Tuesday slot, this is due to the copious amounts of chocolate I’ve been consuming and all the fun I’ve been having off with Fred and the kids. So it’s not my usual style of blog this week but more of a catch up on the long weekend.

We had a pretty busy Easter by all accounts! I worked the Friday morning at QVC and then hit the motorway home to Poole with half of the country. It took me hours to get home but I didn’t mind as I knew I had lots to look forward to. We headed to friends that evening for a Pizza Birthday Party, they have a pizza oven in the garden and make the best pizzas in town. One day I would love to have the same, stone baked wood fired pizza whenever you want? That’s got to be a life goal eh?!

On Saturday we went for a good walk at Upton Country Park with the kids to get some fresh air and had a bit more of a chilled evening watching a film. We kept the kids up a bit late the night before and those of you with kids will know, you pay for that the next day when they are tired!!

Sunday morning and the Easter Bunny had visited!! Tilda had looked out of our bedroom window and spotted something at the top of the garden so we were all dragged outside in our PJs to see what he had left. Chocolate eggs, a fluffy flamingo and even their favourite toy that happens to come in a ‘nearly’ egg-shaped ball. The result was two very happy little girls.

We then packed bags for the day and headed to Paultons Park. My family were all away for Easter and Fred’s mum is over in N.Ireland and is visiting next week so we didn’t have a big Easter Sunday lunch to go to or host and we figured that might mean that the theme park might not be too busy. If you don’t know Paultons Park, it is also the home to Peppa Pig World. We have been meaning to go for years but have never made it, which is daft as it’s just down the road from us.

The whole place is pretty brilliant I have to say, Peppa Pig World is perfect for little kids as the rides are all designed with them in mind. So many parks don’t really cater for very little kids so this was perfect for Ivy. Peppa Pig becomes a massive part of most new parents lives so to see it come to life is brilliant rather than on a flat screen.

The rides are all based on things from things in the cartoon, like Mrs Rabbit’s helicopter and the entire place is like being in Peppa’s town. The kids even get to ‘meet’ Peppa and George. There is so much more to see though, The Lost World dinosaur area is amazing. The rides are bigger and definitely scarier but as long as your child is over a meter in most cases they can go on these rides. There are also giant mechanical dinosaurs all over the place which make it extra exciting.

Tilda and I went on the Flight of the Pterosaur which turned out to be just a bit scarier than we both anticipated. I had to squeeze her hand all the way round as she closed her eyes and practically shrank into her coat! It didn’t put her off going on another just as scary ride which Ivy came on too, who of course was screaming ‘Go Faster’ with the biggest grin on her face.

Critter Creek was also a favourite spot with lots of creepy crawlies to see and great rides there too. The giant water slide was a favourite for us and there’s also a beautiful walk with wonderful birds to see. It’s a really fun theme park and I’m so pleased we finally went. If you go, my only advice is bring a picnic as we made the mistake of buying a meal there and ended up spending £50 on burgers and nuggets, I nearly fell over at the price. Also you may need a change of clothes for some of the wet rides, although they do have giant human drying pods for that too! I wore my jumper from Marble and my Dennis Basso faux fur coat which kept me nice and toasty (it’s also now on Clearance price!).

On Monday it was Fred and my 7 year wedding anniversary, I honestly don’t know where the time has gone. It feels like yesterday! So much has happened since then, career changes, two children, new friends, marriages, sadly deaths too but it’s been packed with lots of great memories. So to celebrate we headed over to near where we got married making a pitstop in Swanage to have a poke about the shops and get hot chocolates and then drove on to the Scott Arms for lunch.

This is a fantastic pub which has the most incredible view over to Corfe Castle and it was where we went the night before our wedding with everyone to kick off the party weekend! We had a really good meal, as always, and then played outside with the girls. It was a perfect way to end the Bank Holiday weekend. I wore my Marla Wynne white shirt with my favourite Paul Costelloe chunky knit cardigan.

So I don’t have my usual beauty post this week or time to come up with a recipe as the kids are off school so as you can imagine I haven’t had a moment to myself. So I’m cheating a little and bringing you a recipe I posted on my old blog when I first got into blogging years ago. It’s a really good Lemon Drizzle Cake recipe, it was given to me by a women who ran a little book shop in West Cork and she wrote it on the back of an envelope for me! It’s gluten free, so obviously that means it’s good for you right?!

What you’ll need:

200g Butter
200g Demerara Sugar
90g Gluten Free Flour (Doves is good)
90g Ground Almonds
1 Lemon (Unwaxed)
3 Eggs
Level teaspoon baking powder
Icing Sugar
Sour Cream

Method:

Cream the sugar and butter together
Add eggs one by one mixing in between
Using a metal spoon fold in the flour, baking powder and ground almonds. Grate lemon zest into the bowl ( I used the zest of the whole lemon). Mix together
Pour mixture into a loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes at 160 degrees
While the cake is baking make your drizzle. I was told to use my own judgement for this bit!
Squeeze the juice from the lemon and pour into a bowl, and then simply add icing sugar. If you like it very sweet then add lots of icing sugar if you prefer a tangy hit from the lemon use a little less
Once the cake is baked and out of the oven take a skewer and jab the cake all over. Pour your icing sugar and lemon juice liquid all over it. (Cake is still in the tin)
Leave to cool before turning it out to let all the juice soak in
Serve with a dollop of sour cream, don’t leave this bit out it’s incredible!

One last thing before I go, for my fashion post this week I got to try out the Kim & Co jumpsuit that is coming your way on Friday 6th April as the Today’s Special Value. Once you get one Kim & Co jumpsuit it’s hard to stop, they are stupidly comfortable and so easy to throw on and go, whether you are chilling at home or heading out somewhere nice. Tune in on Friday to see all the colour choices and of course the price!

I hope you all had a great bank holiday, do let me know what you got up to.

As always keep up with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Love from Katy xx