Review, filling in the gaps and highlights of 2015!

2015: The year of weddings

I had a very busy year full of hen dos and weddings. I had 5 hen dos (3 in York, 1 in Liverpool and 1 in Newcastle). There were a variety of fun hen do activities and was lovely to spend time with old and new girl friends.

• Glamped for the first time (Jollydays) and stayed in two cottages (Pavilion Cottage & Clock Farm House)
• Attended a Styled in colour consultation & make up class, and fascinator workshop (Crafty Hen)
• Worked in a team to solve puzzles in order to escape a locked room in 60 minutes (Escape Newcastle)
• Attended a life drawing class (!)
• Explored York on a personalised Bride & Groom treasure trail
• Danced the night away on a booze cruise (along the river Ouse in York)

Of course, I had to bake something for some of the hen dos. I made coffee cupcakes and strawberry cupcakes for Gemma, scones and a blueberry & lemon cake for Debs, and a lemon cake with royal icing roses for Amy.

Hen do cakes and bakes

I attended 7 weddings from Newcastle to the Lake District at venues including Jesmond Dene House, Alnwick Garden, Wallsend Hall, Quayside Exchange and Bowburn Hall, You can read about my cousin Jo’s wedding at the Lake District here.

 

 Family holiday in York

My cousins Minda and Steve emigrated to Australia in 2010. You can see Minda’s blog of adventures in Austrailia here. 2015 was made special when they visited home in Summer 2015. Myself and other cousins went on a family holiday to York. We stayed in the wonderful self-catering accommodation of Dovecote Barns. Highly recommend it! As a family centred around food, the week was a lot of fun spent cooking, baking and eating together.
 
We also ate out at Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms, The Spice Mill and The Rythre Arms Steakhouse.

Dovecote Barns, York

Family baking and cook-ups at Dovecote Barns

Eating out on Family holiday in York

 

Our 3 year wedding anniversary: House of Tides and Scotland trip

I got to eat at House of Tides in Newcastle for our 3 year anniversary. This was an amazing meal. It was unsurprising when Kenny Atkinson got a Michelin Star shortly afterwards. You can read the full review here.

House of Tides

Tasting menu at House of Tides

We also took a road trip to Scotland. We started the week-long road trip at Leith, Edinburgh and stayed with friends. We ate out at V-Deep, a curry and craft beer house owned by comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli.

V-Deep

Of course being us, we visited some castles in Scotland – Tantallon Castle and Dirleton Castle. Leigh loves whiskey so we visited the closest distillery to our campsite - Glenkinchie Distillery. We went on a Seabird Seafari - a boat trip to the Bass Rock, Craigleith and the Lamb. This was lots of fun! We walked up the North Berwick Law – the view was amazing!

Scotland road trip

 

We tried Falko Konditormeister and Bostock Bakery. Had really high hopes for Falko but we found the bakes to be disappointing. We stumbled upon Bostock Bakery in North Berwick and were delighted at our find. We tried the sausage roll, croissant and custard doughnut – all were delicious. I wanted to try one of everything but that would have been greedy! I like my seafood so on recommendation, I got a half lobster from The Ship Inn and fish from the Lobster Shack in North Berwick. Both were average but was a nice change to usual fish and chips.

Eating out in Scotland

 

 October: The month of cakes

At the end of September, I went from doing no cake decorating to working on a cake every day for a month! I received a lot of orders for cake toppers and decorated cakes. It was a very busy time but I had a lot of fun taking on and fulfilling each new challenge.