Barry Island!

This weekend was my mum's birthday and we wanted to do something special. We're both complete obsessives when it comes to the TV show Gavin & Stacey, we've been wanting to visit the place since it was made - Barry Island - for about two years so we thought this was the perfect excuse.

I'm going to say sorry in advance, again this is going to contain an obscene amount of photos so I'm just going to put them on in mass, a lot of if you probably won't get it if you don't know the show but they're still lovely photos! We love all of the typical English seaside tourist towns so this hit the spot perfectly, not to be mention how beautiful the whole place was.

We arrived on friday night and went straight down to Barry Island for a look around and for dinner at a local pub, scoping out the shops we wanted to check out the next day. A lot of the show was filmed along the beach front so we were stupidly excited walking around all the bits we recognised. Bless the hotel, first they didn't have our booking, then our internet was messed up so got another lot for free and then out TV wasn't working and got the whole of the hotel that were sitting in the bar to watch Benidorm as that's what we were trying to see and a free drink - cringe.

 

Saturday was my mum's birthday, I woke her with her present and card like a 5 year old jumping on her bed. After stuffing ourselves with croissants for breakfast we went back to Barry Island to stock up on tacky aprons/tea towels/keyrings from the show. I may be 24 but I still love wasting some money on the penny falls at amusement arcades, especially by the seaside! I feel bad for not having time to make my mum a proper birthday cake so I bought her a giant cupcake at the ice cream parlour (such a cute place). We then headed to the train station to get on the tour - yes there is a tour with the original Dave's Coaches, we had on shame and loved every obsessive tourist moment. We went everywhere, the caravan park, the church of Nessa and Dave's near-wedding, their pubs, bingo hall, Stacey's house (which was like a live-in museum of the show with so many photos and memorabilia you couldn't even imagine) which looked across to Uncle Bryn's, then the pleasure park, Marco's Cafe and of course the amusement arcade that Nessa worked in. I have to say going on the actual bus that featured so much on the show was the best bit, we did actually wonder if we were going to make it up the insanely steep hills after a hand-break start at one point! But it all added to the experience so it was great.

In the evening we went into Cardiff Bay for mum's birthday dinner. After a recommendation from Susie @ Fold in the Flour I booked a table at Woods Brasserie, I will be doing a special blog review for this evening which I don't normally do. But it was so AMAZING that I can't not - so I won't spoil it too much now, tune in tomorrow! I absolutely fell in love with Cardiff, the bay was gorgeous and wish we had more time there. We did want to check out the Norwegian Church too that was on the other side but we just didn't have enough time, next time!!

Today we spent the morning/afternoon shopping in Cardiff (by the way be careful where you park....£18!!!), the city is gorgeous and was very restrained in my purchases. The one shop I really wanted to go to 'Kitchens' is shut on sundays, but it's just as well, I would have spent a fortune! I have to say it's the best weekend we've had away in a long time and we completely fell in love with Wales, I've never been before and would go back in a heartbeat. The scenery driving in was stunning particularly around Monmouth, Wales now holds a special place in my heart and hope it won't be too long before I visit again...lush!

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Brighton Weekend

This post is about a week late, I've had so much on this week I've just not been able to do any real posting. It was my brother's birthday two days before mine and he really wanted to go to Brighton, so invited us along too which is great as the last time I went I was about 10, so didn't really appreciate where I was.

We stayed about 2 minutes walk, if that from the lanes shopping area. Brimming with independent shops and incredible eating places. I'm pretty sure I've put on a good few pounds from that weekend but it was worth it, we eat somewhere amazing at every meal time which isn't something you can always say when you go away.

One of the main reasons we went was because he has a serious BBQ obsession, and there was a great place there to get it called the 'BBQ Shack' part of the World End's Pub on London Road. The first night we got there we tried to go in...if you've ever seen Man Vs Food then you can imagine what it looked like, quite rocky, packed out and with a band on. There was no chance of getting a table, which while annoying showed it was worth it so we agreed to come back the next day. Which we did and thankfully a lot less busy so got a good big table, the bad news, THEY RAN OUT OF RIBS! The main reason we went! But we thought OK, solider on, it will still be amazing. And it was. I had a huuuuuge brisket sandwich which was massive, spicy and a good splodge of sauce on it. Stupidly ordered it as a meal deal so came with a mammoth amount of fried and coleslaw, it defeated me I am ashamed to say.

My brother however upped the game with the same sandwich and also a half BBQ chicken. Even the waiter was a bit like..."They're both for you??" and I have to say the chicken looked immense. Sexy chicken, that was the word for how it looked. Suddenly you could easily have been in a bar in Tennessee. 

The first night however we did worry we would have to aimlessly walk around until we found somewhere that we liked. We had earlier eaten at Mange Tout which was incredible, I thought I took some picture but it doesn't look like I did, they served amazing garlic sourdough bread I have to say that. We ended up at Breeze, which was actually a lucky last minute choice, it was really laid back, soft lighting and it was one of those places that you just knew would be seriously yummy, and we were right.

Even the starter, bruschetta, which could very well be my favourite dish in the world, looked stunning. I had to take a picture like a crazy person. What I really liked was that when my brother ordered a steak, it came with only a few huge chunky chips placed artily on the plate with the sauce. Not just heaps of oily fries. Everyone loved their meal here which is another rarity!

We ate so much we kept putting off the cake! I had one for him at home, but as it needed some construction I left it until we came home. His father in law brought with him a cake for us to eat there, a monster of a cake! This was a coffee and walnut cake from Nuts Bistro in St Ives. It was absolutely gigantic! We couldn't face any until the last day as we were just constantly full!

We were all sad to come back, and wanted to go straight back! We couldn't though, as we all had to come back to our house to eat MORE cake, the bleeding heart one I made. We also needed to be able to light the candles properly as in the picture above they had to remain unlit as were in a hotel room. I have to say, even now I've still not recovered from all the food to look forward to a big dinner yet.!

We did manage to do some sightseeing too, the pier of course where we watched some fireworks, spent ages in quirky homeware shops and just looking at all of the other shops you just don't find in normal towns. You can also spend hours just people watching, there are some really interesting people there and it's constantly changing.

I did also get to take a visit to Choccywoccydoodah, I took so many photos though that I will have to dedicate a whole post to it alone and show you the goodies I picked up as early birthday treats!

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