Alnwick Castle

Drama, glamour, history....all this could easily sum up Downton Abbey! Yes, you guessed! Our next place to visit was one of the magnificent location of Downton Abbey! Who could say pass to Alnwick Castle and oh, boy! we had fun! :)

Not only it was a beautiful sunny day but the place had plenty of entertainment for all ages! The lost cellars with their frightening stories, the historical tour, the crafts (a pretty accurate depiction of life in the 1900s), the film tour - showing the Downton Abbey cast and the places where they filmed inside the castle. The ballroom scene in the movie and the dinning room were spectacular! The elegance, the size, the history were breathtakingly beautiful! They made the whole experience interesting for the little ones as well. In each room they hid in plane sight a lion toy to capture the children's interest in finding it while browsing the glamorous rooms!

One of my favourite activities was the 'have a go archery' which is so much fun, even more if you discover this is one of your hidden talents and you are better at it than your partner and he, being jealous of your new found skills, accuses you of secretly being a hunter. :) Oh yes, that really happened!

Needless to say, we tried their cafe and because it was such a warm sunny day we decided to sit at a table outside for a change. We had a beans jacket potato and a burger, both really tasty. We couldn't help trying a scone with cream and jam. Must say, that wasn't the best decision ever. Although looking tempting, the taste was disappointing, dry and very hard!  We'll know better next time :)

Won't say anything else but there are still plenty things to discover there, the Alnwick Gardens being one of them! Bye-bye now!

My perfect person

Considering I don't have many followers I wouldn't expect many complaints about my very sporadic posts. Wrong! Apparently someone is missing my jibber jabber. So I decided to keep blabbering one more time for him :) Hope that'll make him happy!

A lot of things happened since last time I posted. Many places were visited, more coffee shops tried and lot's of thoughts were exchanged on the matter.

From Portobello to city centre, from Alnwick Castle to Ireland we enjoyed them all and that only enhanced our appetite for eating our way around Scotland and further away! What could possible make this even better if not doing it all alongside your perfect person?

In good company the grass looks greener, the sky bluer, the rain less sharper and the wind less biting...yes, even in Scotland! But someone as amazing and funny as my sweet cheeky darlingo has the power to make all this real! The power of love ? (...now that song's stuck in my head!!)

There are more adventurous times ahead of us I'm sure! Let's enjoy them all! :)

Day dreaming

Another good thing about Edinburgh is that I get to enjoy it with my darlingo :) He decided to surprise me today by coming and meeting me on my lunch break!...so now I'm just counting the minutes while day dreaming about our picnic :)

It's a nice, crisp autumn day. The sun is shining, not sending too much warmth though, the sky is bright blue, the clouds white and fluffy and the colours of the trees...like fairytales :)

I can already picture us sitting on the grass enjoying the day...well, the hour, but we take what we can and say thank you...hope he'll bring 'Claire' along ;) as my sweet tooth troubled me these last few days...who am I kidding, it was there my entire life. I just love sweets!! Can't resist them, not for too long anyway! Confused? Let me bring some light into this...'Claire' is our code for eclair! Cheesy, I know!

Bye bye, going to see his cheeky face now!

More places to try...

We continued our quest of discovering the best coffee shop in Edinburgh by checking out 3 new places in one weekend! Quite an achievement I would say :)

The first place is The Square. Lovely, friendly staff, creative interior, delicious food (we tried the all day breakfast and we recommend it)! Lucky you if you are an early bird as the place gets busy really fast! And as we always say, this is a healthy sign for a good place :)

Fortitude was the next lucky place to try....or were we the lucky ones to have found it? Great coffee, really tasty cakes, the inside is nicely decorated. Central location, as the above one
hence, no need to say, seats go fast!

My darlingo was flagging a bit after 6 hours of shopping so I thought he could do with the energy boost that good caffeine intake gives you. That's how we ended up at Hendersons! Although we got there quite late and they sold out on scones and other cakes, they had a large variety of high quality chocolate and coffee! Exactly what we needed to recharge our batteries. :) 

Bundle of joy

My family is scattered all over the world, 4 corners more precisely. Although I love living in Edinburgh, I sometimes can't stop wondering how would it be for all of us to live in the same place again! We all have our lives now but some day dreaming from now and then never hurt anyone :)

The very exciting news is that we have a new addition to the family: my one and only niece! She is just a bundle of joy, fluffy cheeks, blue eyes and with every day that goes by her energy goes through the roof!! Exhausting for my sister but there is a silver lining: she has her dream body weight now :)

Although she is only 7 months old she knows what she wants and knows how to get it :) She makes the sweetest face to make it clear to you that she doesn't like something!



And if that's the case you better comply if you don't want to be on her bad books as this could mean you will have to go on the treadmill holding her! Yes, you heard me, that's what calms her down.

And you have to appreciate that she's a girl who started her exercising in early stages ;)    

Welcome to the family! :)            





Bon appetite!

Bonjour mes amis! :)

Fancy something French? I've got just the perfect thing! A new cafe opened up on Victoria Street. When you first step into this place, two nice girls welcome you with a lovely French accent. And they are actually French!!

Fantastic macaroons display, creative walls with engraved real sea shells, appetising cakes and all sorts of pastries, delicious coffees. The cafe is quite small and the decor is very pleasant. I would say these small, cozy places are becoming more and more fashionable and why not considering they offer an intimate, romantic atmosphere?

The location is also good as there are many restaurants and pubs around, also if you are in the mood for shopping there are some great shops that you shouldn't miss (at least for window shopping as they are quite pricey).

Au revoir et bon appetite!

Go exploring...!

I love days when I just wake up with nothing planned and wonder where will the day take me. Last weekend was amazing, Indian summer, off work, no plans. And where did I end up? In Falkirk :)

I know some may say 'Why Falkirk? What is there??' Something called The Kelpies. These are 2 huge (30m) £5m horse sculptures, a cafe, nice park, boat trips. And an ice cream van :) Also, again, very good company offered by a witty, crazy man. In my world, this goes down as a pretty good day.

And as a bonus, there was a car boot sale near by and I found a really cute broche! Old fashion, I agree, but it reminded me of the hummingbird broche from The Hunger Games. :)

Let all days be good days! And all of them are good for exploring!