19.08

Cider-with-Rosie-anniversary

Five years! Five! Half a decade! That sounds pretty great, right? In the same way that saying ‘I’m in my mid-twenties’ sounds more substantial than saying ‘I’m 23′, Jason and I having been together half a decade sounds like it’s got some clout. And I like it! We celebrated our three year anniversary just a couple of months after I started writing Cider with Rosie, and if you’ve been reading my blog right from the off you might remember that I titled the blog post about our anniversary ‘We are Three’, and accidentally made everyone think that the post was going to be a pregnancy announcement! Ha!

This anniversary was probably our most low-key we’ve ever had, I think mainly because now that we’re looking ahead to our wedding next year it didn’t really seem like such a big deal as it always felt to me before! Anyhow, it was kind of nice to have a quiet day at home together since we’ve both been so very busy of late. We spent Sunday doing ‘home-y’ type things- a spot of cleaning, colossal amounts of laundry (you guys, this weekend I bought myself a new laundry basket and airer. I should probably pretend that these purchases are far too dull and insignificant to make me happy, but I just can’t manage it even if I tried…) and drinking approximately one hundred coffees each, all whilst trying to ignore the pesterings of the little dog who still isn’t allowed out on a proper walk yet.

The Sunday evening though? There was a whole lot of fancy going on on Sunday evening! We got all dressed up and headed to The Tablespoon for dinner- and even though the burger with chipotle mayo that I’d been daydreaming about all day was completely sold out (a reason to go back again, as if we needed another one!), it was still easiest the loveliest meal we’ve eaten in a long while!

Champagne-and-olives

Now, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned here before, but Jason and I have this ongoing competition over who can order the best food in every restaurant we go to. We turn pretty much everything we do into a competition (you mean you *don’t* race to see who can get into bed quickest each night, and who can hang up first at the end of a phone call?) so it’s basically just another way for us for ‘win’ at something stupid and insignificant ;) But for this meal- we declared it a draw. I was winner of the first course (which we shared anyway), Jason was the winner of the second, and there wasn’t an ounce of gloating all evening!

We started off with olives and a couple of glasses of bubbles, then shared starters of steak tartare, and burrata with roasted vegetables and chickpea puree on toasted sourdough. Both dishes were delicious, but the burrata/roasted veg/garlicky chickpea combo was outstanding. I could happily have eaten a portion of that as my main course, to be honest! For mains, we ordered spatchcock chicken, pork belly, and sides of mashed potato with tons of olive oil, chickpeas with chorizo (which was incredible!), spinach, and tenderstem broccoli. I would say it was an eyes-bigger-than-stomach situation, but if I’m being honest…we smashed it. Barely left a spoonful or two of anything behind. Amazing.

Burrata-and-roasted-vegetables Cider-with-Rosie-The-Tablespoon Steak-tartare The-Tablespoon-anniversary-meal Red-wine-The-Tablespoon-terrace

After our meal, lovely Anya (who we met last time we visited The Tablespoon) suggested we have coffees and finish our wine outside in the little garden. It’s the loveliest space- all heated and sheltered, and lined with pots full of herbs. Jason was particularly taken with the bay tree, because he’s currently trying and uhh…not succeeding…at bringing ours back to life after it turned yellow and moulted a couple of months back. Sidenote: is moulted the word you use for plants? I’m certain it’s not, but can’t think of the correct word so…

The rest of the evening was spent drinking lattes under blankets outside on that little terrace, talking about dreams (our actual most recent nighttime dreams, and also our figurative ones), when we might get another puppy (I want one right this very second!), the chances of Jason being able to revive our dying bay tree, and about how dangerous the sort of attentive service that means you never actually get to the bottom of your glass of wine can be! ;)

Thank you x100 to the charming team at The Tablespoon for taking such good care of us all evening. So glad to have such a completely amazing restaurant local to us!

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:: What I wore :: Blouse from Oasis, lace bandeau from Simone Perele, skirt c/o Boden (last season, super similar here), wedges from LK Bennett.

p.s. Jason looked super dashing, but was too hungry to want to hang about having me take his photo before we sat down to eat ;)

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20.08

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Our day in London was a little more rushed, and a little more brief than we’d previously planned! We went to bed super late the night before and didn’t think to set an alarm (duh) and so woke up hideously late. We’re kind of aiming (in the next year of our relationship) to try and get a handle on our time-keeping. We’ve accidentally become one of those couples that people *expect* to be late to events, which is bad. Maybe by the time we’re celebrating our fifth anniversary, we’ll be a little more on top of things? #idoubtit

But hey! Back to the story! After our late start, one missed train, two squiggly liquid eyeliner-lines and a hasty up-do later, we finally made it up into the city!

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Our first stop in town was Patty & Bun, just behind Oxford Street. Thank you to everyone on twitter who put up with me being a burger bore all last week, whilst I scouted for recommendations. And double thanks to everyone who steered us away from Meat Liquor, and towards P&B instead. I know I’ve said it before about a burger (hey, we were all young and naive once, right?) but this really is the best burger I’ve ever had. The squishiness! The cheese! That sauce! Those onions! Oh man. I literally did not stop talking about it all day. In fact, at one point Jase caught me staring off into the middle distance and said ‘Penny for your thoughts?’ and well, those thoughts were burger-shaped, let me tell you.

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After we’d consumed The Feast of a Lifetime (or at least the last four years) we trekked East over to the Tower of London. And man, it really is a trek! Wouldn’t it be really great if you could just shuffle London up, and put all your favourite bits together to cut down on tube journeys? I’d put the Kings Road right next to Waterloo, and pop Covent Garden at the end of it.

Anyway! The Tower of London was predictably awesome. It’s quite amazing to be standing inside a building parts of which are around 800 years old, and be able to see both the Shard and the Gherkin at the same time. The juxtaposition of ancient and modern is one of the things I love most about London.

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Below: Audio-guiding it! Cider-with-Rosie-4th-anniversary-18
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Below: Traitor’s gate. We were sad they didn’t have any pretend heads on spikes. We wanted to see some (fake) gore! Cider-with-Rosie-4th-anniversary-11

Below: Centuries old graffiti. Cider-with-Rosie-4th-anniversary-20

Below: After a day of watching the bridge like a hawk hoping that it would be raised, just before we were about to leave, up it went! I got preeeeeetty excited! Anyone else thinking about the Spice Girls Movie right now? ;) Cider-with-Rosie-4th-anniversary-10

Four years on from our first proper date, and Jason’s my best friend now more than ever. He makes my heart burst with love each and every day. Here’s to another year of crosswords, weekend trips to get our hair cut at the same time, Kevin-from-the-Office impressions, laughing until our stomachs hurt, helping each other better our businesses, leisurely weekend walks with that handsome dog of ours, and evenings on the sofa with the duvet. I’m the luckiest :)

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25.07

Coffee-and-steam ^ Image found via Pinterest, original source unknown. As always, if you know the original source of this image or own rights to it, please get in touch and I’ll credit/remove as appropriate.^

Do you know what happened yesterday? I think I *just* started to bored of summer…

It’s one of my worst habits, this ‘constantly getting bored of the season we’re in’ thing. I was browsing through my Pinterest boards and came across the photo above, and then next thing I knew I was dreaming about buying up an army of brightly coloured knitted hats to wear this winter, & taking Teddy out for walks on frosty grass, & roast dinners, & cinnamon scented candles, &…

Quick, someone talk to me about how splendid August will be to curb this ridiculousness right away!

I mustn’t wish away August just yet anyway, because Jason and I have our four year anniversary to look forward to! The last three years we’ve always splashed out on our anniversary gifts to one another, and kind of treated our anniversary as a a mini, mid-year Christmas. This year though, neither of us can think of a single thing we’d like other than to just spend the day together in London, being a bit dorky at the Tower of London and then eating ourselves silly at a nice restaurant in the evening. We must be growing up, or something…:)

Other stuff that happened yesterday?
- I listened to this song about a billion times.
- Ted needed a trip to the vet, and it cost an eye-watering 86 quid. Ouch. Why do vet bills always come in just under the excess limit on your pet insurance, hey?
- Sophie’s beautiful blog stole my heart.
- I checked the news every five minutes, because I’m obsessed with the Royal family. Anyone else?
- I ate the best goddamn egg mayo sandwich of my life.
- Then to burn it off, I did the Blogilates Arms on Fire workout, and my arms fell off.

How was your Wednesday? :)

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Posted in A SNAPSHOT, ANNIVERSARY, JASON

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17.03

yesterday afternoon, jason and i braved the rain (it was torrential!) and journeyed to guildford for lunch with my family at bill’s. we got together to celebrate the life of my beautiful grandma, since yesterday marked the one year anniversary of her passing. it’s hard to contemplate that an entire year has gone by since she left our lives. 
 during those first few awful months after we lost her, i used to feel so resentful whenever people told me that time would heal, and things would get easier. i thought ‘how can you say that? i don’t want things to get easier, i don’t want to get used to living in a world where i haven’t got a grandma, i don’t want to forget.’ but as the days and weeks and months plodded on, i realised that no matter how hard i dug my heels in and yearned for the past i was already living in a world without my grandma, and the last thing she’d want is for me to missing my present, for the sake of yesterday. 
so yesterday afternoon there were no tears, and instead, there was laughter, and food, and many a happy memory recounted :) we love you grandma. yesterday, today, and always. x


below: bill’s halloumi and houmous burger.
below: my oh so beautiful ma. 

below: we wound up comparing handwriting. why? who knows! but we learnt that my handwriting is the most childish (cool), cesca’s is the same as mum’s, and emily doesn’t like writing ‘w’s. 

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Posted in ANNIVERSARY, BURGERS, FAMILY, JASON, LOVE, MUM, WEEKEND

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