Sunday, October 19, 2014

Kibou Sushi, Cheltenham

I tend to be quite boring with food - never one to take a risk. Last year I decided I wanted to try new stuff and my friend Anthony took me to a sushi place. Yeah I know, it's not that brave, but it was for me!!

I now love the stuff - still taking baby steps as not all sashimi is for me, but when I heard Cheltenham had a fab little sushi restaurant I wanted to go.

It took a while to persuade Nick to come with me as he doesn't eat fish - I had to tell him there was more to Japanese food than raw fish and eventually he agreed to go!

(Given this was my 'celebration' meal after winning award he couldn't really argue!)

Kibou Sushi is  a fab restaurant hidden down Regent St in Cheltenham. It's one of the basement places along that road and... well... it was great! There is a chain sushi place in Cheltenham that I won't mention, that always looks packed, and I was really pleased to see a constant stream of people in Kibou too.

And it's much better than the chain as well.

We were seated at the bar as they were busy which was fine with us. The waiter explained the specials and took drinks orders and we were left to make our decision.

Nick obviously went for a chicken katsu curry as his safe option, although he did say he wished he'd been brave and tried the pork yakisoba on the specials menu!

I went for prawn tempura followed by salmon zukushi. The prawns were fab although I was worried there wouldn't be room for my main after that!

But the zukushi was lovely - a mix of salmon iso, nigiri and sashimi. It was all incredibly fresh and just so pretty!

And then we got given a free pudding which is always a bonus! They'd made it in error for another table and we were the lucky ones they decided to give it to! It was a Japanese sweet - made of rice, with ice cream in the middle. It was a very odd texture but nice, and really good after the sushi.

Definitely planning on going again for dinner, and using their takeaway option!!




Saturday, October 18, 2014

What have I been up to?

Oh one day I'll have the time to blog more often!

But what have I been up to recently?

A development course at work that was just incredible...
Don't want to say too much but it was about equine-led leadership. Life-changing.






Visiting Cheltenham Literature Festival. 
In the rain, obvs. 






Crossing the bridge to sunny Wales





More from this dress later...

And I will buy this snowman at some point...


Done a bit of colouring... 

Visiting Devon...
Umm these photos are not in any order - this was back in September!




 The Invictus Games
Awesome and inspiring.




Got my new phone... 


Visiting North Yorkshire... 
Helping Baby Ella develop her selfie face!


See, she's got it!



And a bit of wandering around London...


And spending a bit too much here...


It's been busy!!

Friday, September 5, 2014

Bonny Scotland

My dad was born in Huntly, Aberdeenshire. It's way up north, about 9.5 hours from Cheltenham - I know that because we DROVE up there last weekend to visit the family.

The drive is worth it, especially once you get past Manchester and get to the Lake District where the scenery is beautiful.

The journey up was wet... as soon as we crossed that Scottish border it absolutely chucked it down! So we didn't really get to see any scenery until we got near Aberdeen.

We spent the weekend catching up with family and visiting various sites - Huntly Castle, Deans' Shortbread factory (the ONLY shortbread worth eating people!) and of course... the biggest gathering of bagpipers for YEARS. I know it's not to everyone's taste, but when the collective pipers marched through Huntly it was awesome.

A lovely weekend, it rained A LOT during the Red Hot Chilli Pipers set but we stuck with it, and it was fantastic to see everyone. We're going back soon!

And here are the photos...























My most fashionable look...







Just SOME of the family...
 






Crathes Castle...
 














Brothers...
 

28 family members gathered for dinner...