Museum of Norwich at the Bridewell

I had an hour or two to kill in the city last week before meeting a friend and couldn't think what to do until I remembered passing a small museum I had said to myself I'd visit some time. Luckily I got to the Museum of Norwich at the Bridewell an hour before closing time so it only cost £1 for the admission (score). 

There was a lot of random stuff in there.

And to be fair for a £1 it definitely amused me for an hour. 

 There was a few activities for kids too like dress up and crafts and games.

One side of my family is from Norfolk so I was trying to spot my last name on all the records.

And finally I did in the old apothecary section (hurrah!). 

Either way, it was a nice way to pass an hour. 

Fireworks in the City

It was a clear night for fire works for a change! They were held for free in the city from the Castle so a group of friends and I went to go watch them. 

The area in front of City Hall was packed! We got drinks and hot dogs and then it was go time. 

The music choice was a little odd... very Pitbull heavy... 

It lasted about 15/20 minutes and then it was off on a bizarre pub crawl where we didn't go into any of the pubs, the city was so busy the pubs were rammed full of people 3 deep at the bar so I remembered a random little pub round the corner and off we went for a chat and a white wine spritzer. Fun!

Two For Tea

My dear pal Crissy is visiting from Australia to get married and have a catch up with everyone so we met up the other day, look what she brought me... chicken flavoured salt... how clement. 

As you know I love afternoon tea and we took a little trip out to Biddy's Tea Room in Norwich. 

It was really sweet in there, I loved the décor. 

Foolishly, they seated us next to the cakes. We were tempted to pick berries off of the cakes secretly but we resisted. 

I got a lavender scone with lemond curd and stilton and apple sandwiches which were so good but Crissy opted for a cheese scone and smoked salmon sandwiches. 

They were so goooooood. And it only cost £18.95 for both of us, bargain!

Boxing Day

Well Christmas is over for another year and I got spoilt - just look at all my lovely gifts from my friends and family!

Pussycat enjoyed his gifts too, he sat happily in this little bandanna bib and then spent a good 30 minutes having an epic battle against a catnip fish that my sister sent him (we had to confiscate the fish and put it in the airing cupboard because it was wet where he'd been drooling over it!). He also ate a good deal of dreamies treats. 

The boyfriend and I spent the morning at our house opening our stockings and gifts under the tree, then we made our way over to the boyfriend's mum where we got waited on and had tasty dinner and games in the evening. 

Today we went to shop the sales and hardly got anything, we were only in the city for about an hour and hardly anyone else was, it was dead! And it wasn't surprising, the shops didn't seem to have anything actually on sale!

El Taco Loco

Thursday I had a very rare day - a day off with no classes and no shifts to work. So I decided to go and have a little shop and I needed to get a poster printed for assignment and I went to the Chapelfield Mall here in Norwich. I decided to grab some lunch so I took a stroll up to the food court and discovered El Taco Loco!!

And it was empty?? How! Mexican food people, you'd choose boring McDonalds or KFC over some Mexican food? The problem is a lack of Taco Bells in England. 

I had a tasty tasty burrito with a strawberry water and piri piri chips and oh my god, so so good. 

If you haven't been to El Taco Loco - go!!! 

Jamie's Italian - Norwich

The boyfriend and I took a trip for my birthday into Norwich to go to Jamie's Italian, one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants that's recently opened. 

The restaurant is in the old Waterstone's shop in the Royal Arcade for those of you from Norwich and it was really very large upstairs and down. The menu had a lot to choose from, the only drawback was that a lot of it was in Italian.... which neither I or my boyfriend speak so a few things we had to guess on what they were which was a bit of a shame because we didn't want to keep asking the waitress what 'porcino' etc was (mushrooms - bleurgh). 

The place was rather dimly lit so I apologise for the dark photos! I got san pellegrino lemonade - it always reminds me of my old boss Nick who used to buy it for lunch and play with the foil on top. 

The boyfriend got the bread basket to start

And I got an antipasti, and we both shared some and some. 

Then the boyfriend had tuna pasta

And I had a small portion of sausage pasta in red wine sauce, I had a small portion (you can choose to have some pasta dishes as starter sized) especially so I could fit in dessert. And when I got to dessert they were out of the three best desserts (out of about 6 and ice cream!)... so we just didn't bother. That was really disappointing, especially as it wasn't ridiculously busy. 

So all in all, ok but not anywhere near as good as Delia's, the dessert situation really let them down. Work harder Jamie!

Cath Kidston - Finally

Yay! Finally!!

Even the window display was exciting

But you'll be proud to hear I didn't buy anything, even though I wanted to buy everything. I found myself looking lovingly at buttons? I knew then that I'd been in the shop too long and had to escape.

Until pay day lovely Cath Kidston shop of Norwich, I shall return!

An Autumnal Walk

I had a day off this week with no uni and no work so I decided to go for a walk

All the leaves were changing

I visited the horsies and took them snacks and found a new foal friend who I think looks like a little buffalo

It does look a bit like a buffalo doesn't it? For a horse I mean. The horsies had brambles stuck in their manes so we had a little hair care session where I detangled a few and they stood quite patiently, they're ever so tame. 

I saw a lot of nature

Although the weather wasn't so great but it didn't matter. One part of the walk led off into overgrown forest so I had an investigate... and found an old Honda motorbike randomly? Probably can't ride it anymore...

At one gate the mud was so thick I had to find an alternate route and climbed this fence, in a skirt I might add. I hope you're all impressed!

There was lots of willow wood about because they were pruning them or something... pollarding? I don't know the official term but it made me think back to the days of when I lived in an old pokey house with a wood fire and somehow it always seemed to be my turn to make the damn thing up and light it... I would not have fared well in cave man days because I was rather rubbish at it and always ended up cross and covered in coal. 

It was a bit misty out but the route was fairly quiet

And that was my lovely nature walk. 

The Farm Shop

The boyfriend and I went to Notcutts on Saturday and I discovered the Farm Shop. Outside they had a rather hefty pumpkin all ready for Halloween. 

I'm in love with the Farm Shop because all of their frozen stuff is loose and you just scoop up what you like. 

It wasn't just fruit or veg either, you could buy loose portions of roast potatoes, chicken kievs, yorkshire puddings etc. 

And I adored the little loose frozen pastries!

They made a tasty breakfast. 

AND - totally amazing (ok amazing by my standards) double yolked eggs! How cool!

Delia's Restaurant

A few of us went to Delia's restaurant Friday night, it was so nice there. They had two jazz guitar people playing, the restaurant was fairly quiet because it wasn't a match day so that was nice. 

We sat down and got some table snacks - I adore sweet potato crisps!

Then we all picked out some bread, I had tasty olive bread. 

This was my starter Thai fish cakes

Max had a manly chalice of soup!

Then for my main I had Thai green curry which was really nice, I hadn't tried it before

Then I had lemon cheesecake and completely forgot to take a photo of it (my friends and the boyfriend are used to be being weird and taking photos of food) and so here's a photo of Kiran's creme caramel 

After our meal with had tea/coffee and these mini choc ices, inside was Ronaldo's ice cream (remember Ronaldo's?)

It was really nice there and I'd definitely go again, if any of you fancy a visit all the details and the weekly menu is here http://www.canarycatering.co.uk/restaurant.php