L A T E L Y

• Gorgeous view of Holy Isle taken from the beach at Lamlash. Our hotel window looked right onto this amazing view and it was a pretty special thing to wake up to in the morning.
• Gifts of beer & curry after my recent visit to Crossing the Rubicon . These guys put on quite the spread for us bloggers and I'll be filling you in on my favourite curries shortly!
• Amaaaaazing Mother's Day chocolate cake baked by Ava's very cute little hands. She even made it dairy free. God that kid's a keeper.
• Lunch of champions at The Glenisle Hotel which included some delicious smoked duck, venison, oak smoked salmon, beetroot chutney and some of my favourite Arran Blue cheese (not so dairy free).

• A medley of smoked fish, green beans, cold new potatoes & boiled egg doused in Summer Harvest Raspberry dressing. Making up for the weekend on a Monday. 
• I love me a craft beer. However I also love a peruse along the expensive aisles of Waitrose or paying over the odds for a jar of jam at a Farmer's Market. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered Home Bargains are selling bottles of Three Hop Craft Lager for only 69p a bottle.
• I'm running out of different kinds of nut butters. Like seriously. This is a real addiction.
• And speaking of tasty toast toppings, this delicious (and vegan) chocolate spread that my friend brought me back from Italy is like the poshest Nutella you ever tasted. I may have spent most of last night dunking dates into it. Who am I kidding? There were no dates.

• Posing in Soho while catching up with some very good pals. I don't think I've ever laughed so much in one afternoon in my life.
• Pints. I'm currently working my way through the entire beer list in The Doghouse. Needs must and all that.
• Delicious salmon dish cooked by a pal while we gossiped over Sunday afternoon bellinis. This was the afternoon that also saw me take my first Uber. I'm catching up kids.
• Still all about the brunch round our way come a weekend. If it doesn't contain avocado and a runny egg then I'm just not interested.

• Gorgeous views over London while breakfasting at Aqua Shard. We picked the perfect day for it.
• I finally got myself down Bramble Cafe in Giffnock for some brunch recently and it's safe to say I will be back. My green shakshuka was pretty damn tasty but my pal's amazing looking mushroom concoction had me salivating with envy.
• A very cold, very annoyed Ava at The Cloisters asking me to hurry up taking endless photos of her so we could heat our bones back up inside. Which we did whilst wandering around The Hunterian Museum on a cold, grey, drizzly day.
• Extremely cool looking paint tin cocktails at the very chilled Graphic Gin Bar. The drinks in here were so good that we may have returned for more the very next day.

• One of my favourite recipes, cooked for friends recently. If you haven't made this Roasted Butternut Squash with Quinoa recipe yet then I demand you get on it immediately!
• Cakes stops with my girl. The place may have been practically empty when we visited Villiers & Co on a recent blustery afternoon, but the Rocky Road tasted good and the coffee was hot and that was good enough for us.
• My love of a good Dirty Martini is mixed with my annoyance that it is so bloody hard to find anywhere that makes a decent one in Glasgow... First world problems. The struggle is real. Blah blah blah, etc, etc, etc.
• There is nothing that says lazy PJ day to me more than dippy eggs and soldiers. And that is exactly how I celebrated a recent afternoon spent in my most comfortable of loungewear watching movies and indulging in pick n mix for dessert.

• A very decent steak (eaten by someone who rarely orders steak) and enjoyed with good pals at The Hawksmoor in Shoreditch. Washed down with a pretty tasty bottle of red and lot of giggles.
• The gin collection is most definitely a thing these days and I'm adding bottles to it quicker than I am managing to drink them. I think this may be my favourite hobby yet.
• A very happy face celebrating the fact that the kid and I are set to become proper bona fide homeowners at the end of March. We are absolutely in love with our new pad and although it's probably considered rather modest to some, it's a very big deal to us and we can't wait till everything is signed off and we can start celebrating!
• Ava. At the Cloisters. Again. Because I didn't realise until the end of writing this that I had accidentally included the same picture twice. And I can't be bothered changing it. You can't say that I don't put my heart and soul into this blogging business, can you?

Now I'm off to dry out and eat lettuce. 

What have you lot been up to?