Aphrodites Boutique Lodge | Two Years of Love ♥

 

Hello, I'm going to try and keep this pretty short and sweet and not get too carried away in a super soppy ramble, no one wants to be feeling queasy while reading a blog post, do they!

 

Yesterday was the 'official date' marking the two year anniversary of being the luckiest girlfriend in the world. With this being so close to Christmas it seems a little bit silly to buy each other a gift so instead we made the decision to have a night away last week in a luxury, local(ish) hotel as celebration and a pre-Christmas treat. I say 'local-ish' because it's only around 20 minutes drive from where I live but people come from miles to stay here; the couple infront of us at reception had come from Essex to stay until Boxing Day. It's in Windermere, in the Lake District, and the hotel is called Aphrodites Boutique Lodge - You can find their website here: link. It's pretty pricey for just one overnight stay but everybody needs to have a splurge and indulge themselves every once in a while. We halved the cost and called it our 'gift to each other'.

 

Each of the rooms are 'themed', which some people might find tacky, but we just thought that it was a bit of a novelty and something different to your standard hotel room. There's themes such as The Flintstones, James Bond, Cleopatra, Robin Hood, Pine Cabin, etc, and even the ever so cringe 'Love Shack Suite'. Try telling your family you're staying in there ;) !! Our choice of room was the Tarzan and Jane Suite (when I say 'our'.. it was my choice really), and it included themed decor as you can see from the pictures above and had a sauna in the room (picture on the top right), along with a jacuzzi bath tub complete with a TV. I now have my heart set on my own TV in the bath! Oh and I also took pleasure in pinching the complimentary Molton Brown toiletries provided.

 

We arrived on Sunday night, relaxed, made use of the sauna and the bath and the giant TV but decided against going for a dip in the swimming pool. It was Christmas Eve Eve and we wanted to get in the Christmas spirit so watched 'Christmas With The Kranks' sprawled out on the humongous bed with a Rekorderlig in hand totally loving life! We went for our evening meal at a place called Bodgea in Bowness and went a little overboard on the tapas - they were a quite a lot bigger than we anticipated so our 7 'mini meals' was probably enough to feed four people, not two! No point in wasting it of course so we stuffed our faces and practically had to roll ourselves back to the hotel. I don't want to chatter on for too much longer, but it was absolute heaven to be able to wake up on Christmas Eve and be all cosied up in this gorgeous hotel room lying next to the person I love most the most (hehe).

 

 

 

We wanted to do something nice yesterday but both of us have come down with symptoms of the flu and I didn't feel up to doing much unfortunately :( John snuck up early and nipped out before I woke up to go and buy bacon and sausages and cooked up an absolute feast for breakfast! Hashbrowns, fried egg, bacon, beans, toast, sausage, and whatever else is part of an fry up was sitting there on a plate ready for me - I feel so bad that I was too ill to eat much more than a few mouthfuls! He also bought me a lovely bunch of flowers that you can see in the picture above. We'd had a table booked for an evening meal but gave it a miss to be able to stay warm on the sofa looking like death! It is a shame, but it's not that it matters much anyway because of course it's not about spending lots of money or going out anywhere fancy, I just think it's nice to do something special every once in a while to break the mould and what better excuse than the anniversary of two years of being together and happy?

 

We literally have no photos of us together except from hideous joking around ones, or the ones taken when we were on holiday in Marbella, so I just put together a little collage of Marbella photos to show you our happy, smiling faces! Can you tell I've just found a new collage making site that I really love? I'm not gonna be soppy, I promise, but I just want to say that it's been the best two years of my life, I've never been happier than I am right now, and I'm very loved up. :)

 

♥

Weekend in Liverpool: Michael McIntyre Live Arena Tour

I hope you all had a very good weekend and are enjoying your week - only 4 weeks til Christmas! Despite being almost 20, I am definitely still like an excited small child around the festive season with my daily countdown and extreme love for all things Christmas related! I had one of the best weekends that I've had in a reaaally long time and have decided to share it with you all, hope you enjoy..

 

For my boyfriend's 19th birthday present (in August!) I booked two tickets to see Michael McIntyre's 'Show Time' arena tour and an overnight stay in the Novotel Hotel in Liverpool city centre. We stayed in the Novotel last year and both absolutely loved it and enjoyed the luxury of a pricey 'executive' hotel room so I thought it would be a nice idea to take a trip down memory lane and stay there again, and also it's best to stick with what you know sometimes - I didn't want to risk picking a hotel that turned out not to be so great so played it safe. The hotel was just as amazing as we both remembered it and is in a prime location; one minute walk from the shopping centre and about five minutes to the Albert Docks and Echo Arena.

 

On the Friday we arrived, checked in and as it was only 4pm thought it would be the ideal time to hit Primark as maybe it would be quieter than Saturday morning and I was right, it was busy still.. but definitely bareable and gave me the chance to peacefully mooch around all three floors and spend a considerable sum of money... :D After treating ourselves to some Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a quick bite to eat we got ready and went to the Echo Arena. I was so excited for this! I tried to explain it to my friends as 'you know if you watch a comedian on telly and it's a bit like 'ha ha that was funny'.. well seeing them live definitely makes it a lot more like 'hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha I can't breathe, oh now I'm crying!' kind of funny and I can safely say that there were lots of laughs, it was a brilliant show. We planned on having a couple of drinks in Concert Square when the show finished but we were both just too tired and all I wanted was to get warm and snuggle up in bed. We wandered back across the docks and through Liverpool One having a peek at the ice skating and just taking in all of the festivity and Christmas decorations - it was a lovely romantic little walk.

Waiting To Be Picked Up | Wheel On Albert Docks | Michael McIntyre | Novotel Bed

The Lovely Lad Himself | City Centre | Christmas Tree | Christmas Lights & Decorations

 

The next day we hit the shops about midday and my bank account took a beating ..oops! I'm not sorry though because I got myself lots of lovely new things and made a start on Christmas shopping. I happily bought myself a pair of new disco pants in navy by Glamorous that I found in Bank with a little bonus of 20% off everything in store that weekend! What wasn't so great was that Tulisa's big chavvy face was slapped on the front of the shopping bag and I had to carry it around all day. Then I spotted Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant and suggested that we went there for lunch but when we went in they told us it'd be a 45 minute wait and our tummies were rumbling so unfortunately we didn't get to try it out.



 Shopping | Buying Christmas Presents | Decorations in Liverpool One | Jamie Oliver's Italian

Instead of Jamie's Italian we instead went for lunch at Las Iguanas - somewhere that I have wanted to try out for a really long time and it definitely didn't disappoint! I got a beef 'big burrito' and John's was chicken and we shared quesadillas for a starter. The food was aaaabsolutely amazing and I'd happily go again and would now choose it over a Nandos any day. Lunch was my treat so when our waitress brought over the pin/card machine to pay she passed it straight to John and I had to embarass her by taking it back out of his hands right infront of her and opened my purse to get my card out. Don't be so stereotypical - girls can pay too!



John in Las Iguanas | Las Iguanas | Beef 'Big Burrito' | Enjoying My Lunch

 

When we arrived back home on Saturday evening we were each heading off for a night out with our friends as it was the weekend of an annual festival in my home town: The Dickensian Festival, where everybody basically dresses up in old fashioned clothes, drinks mulled wine and eats roasted chestnuts while browsing our own version of Christmas markets. The evening always promises to be a great night out because it's always so busy and I had a really good time with the girls. The next day was a typical Sunday for me with a cooked breakfast.. bacon fried egg and cheese bun - thanks John! A chill out day and then a lovely homemade roast dinner with apple crumble for dessert with John's family later on, finally topped off by watching the final episode of Prison Break and ending up a sobbing mess even though I've seen it before ..but it really is just so touching and emotional!

 

If that's not a good weekend then I don't know what is!

Super loved up and happy!

♥ ♥ ♥