The theme for this week’s Gallery is GREEN. We went down to Wales for the day on Monday and I did try to take some pics of the rolling green hills in from the window if the car as we were travelling home but needless to say they all came out blurry! However, I had taken this pic of a pretty walled garden, and it’s pretty green so I thought this would do lol..

I made some chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting (recipe from Hummingbird Bakery Book) and added some mini eggs & crumbled flake on top. Yum

And of course I had to make my fav red velvet cupcakes too. Iced by myself & Bec after a few glasses of Pimm’s lol..

There are lots of cupcakes left, which I will regrettably be throwing in the bin today as I am back to trying to eat healthy lol..!

Happy Easter everyone! Hope you all have a lovely long weekend, whatever you get up to. We are having a BBQ tonight so hopefully the weather will be good…!

We had a massive thunder & lightening storm last night – did anyone else? I was more scared than the animals lol..!

I thought I would share some pics of all our animals enjoying the sunshine:

Chester caught relaxing on the sun lounger!

Chester & Holly chill out

Holly enjoying her bone

Pretty Meg

Jess enjoying the sun

Jinxy Boy!

Happy Easter from Holly & Chester!

So on Saturday I took a flying visit over to N.Ireland to collect my mum and bring her back on the plane on Sunday (she hates flying).

Welcome to Belfast (Hmmm)!

We went out for dinner on the Sat night to Coyle’s in Bangor. It had just been included in the Michelin restaurant guide but I was really disappointed with my vegetarian option. I have never, ever seen veggie meals in a restaurant using Quorn – but there were 2 dishes on the menu using it here. Random! I ordered the sausage tagliatelle. What do you think of it?

Random or what?! All I could taste was the sausages. And they weren’t Quorn sausages, they were Linda McCartney ones lol.. There was meant to be a lovely pesto sauce with it but I couldn’t taste it at all as the sausages were so strong!

Anyway, I couldn’t wait to leave as I wanted to get Maud’s ice cream for dessert. Anyone from N.Ireland will know that Maud’s is the best ice cream ever – I have never found anything that comes close to it in England. Their best & most popular flavour is “Pooh Bear” which is vanilla ice cream with big gooey chunks of honeycomb and caramel sauce. Yummy …

Guess what? They had NO Pooh Bear left – that’s right, none. I was gutted . They have started doing a flavour called Nutella Bear (swirls of Nutella as well as honeycomb chunks), so I tried that instead and it was pretty good! I so wish Maud’s would open up in England… it is pretty much the only thing I miss about N.Ireland!

The weather was cool & cloudy when I was over, while it was hot & sunny in England. The weather is so much better over here!  I took some pics of Ballyholme Beach, which is just at the end of the street where my house  is. Chester enjoyed running on this beach when we were over at Christmas, & I bet Holly would love it too!

And straight across the bay, just to the left of the lampost is where Gary comes from:

And this is good old Charkey,  my mum’s Jack Russell. He is 17 & a half now & is deaf and nearly blind (he has had one eye removed). We had to leave him at the kennels while my mum is away – I hope he is still alive when she comes back. He really is in a pretty bad way .

On Saturday we headed to Delamere Forest to meet up with some other sprigner spaniel owners for a nice walk. Unfortunately most of the people who said they would turn up didn’t (bah) – but nevertheless we had a good time.

There were 6 springers and 1 honoury springer (a jack russell)!

They really are such lovely dogs and it was so nice to see a whole lot of them having fun together!

Here are some pics:

After my first experience of a red velvet cupcake at the famous Hummingbird Bakery in London I have been wanting to try to make them myself.

Lucky then that Gary got me a copy of The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook for Christmas! I made the red velvet cupcakes a couple of weeks ago, and boy where they good! Almost as good as the ones from the actual bakery (obviously I’m not as skilled as their bakers!).

I was quite concerned about using so much red food colouring, especially when the lady in the cake decorating shop gave me such a lecture about how many E numbers were in it and she doesn’t understand why people want to make red velvet cupcakes anyway..blah blah blah…! The recipe called for 20ml of Dr Oetker red food colouring (which I couldn’t find anywhere), so I substituted it for 1 teaspoon of a good quality red food paste.

I ate 2 cupcakes in a row and they didn’t make me too hyper so I reckon that I might risk them again lol..

Here are some pics, excuse how messily they are decorated – I was so desperate to try one I just dolloped the cream cheese frosting on top. Mmmm, that frosting is the best thing in the world (well, maybe not – but it is soo lovely!)

I have always had really vivid dreams. I love going to sleep as, (as well as being tired) I know I can always look forward to some entertainment in my sleep. I sometimes wake myself up by laughing or crying! I just wish I could remember more of my dreams when I wake up in the morning, they seem so real & vivid at the time.

Last night (well actually, about 2 hours ago since I’m writing this at 2.49am!) I don’t know what I was dreaming about but I half-woke up (you know that lovely semi kind of consciousness) and I could smell this intense aroma. I instinctively knew that it was my late Nana, although I never actually remember her wearing a particular perfume etc. Maybe it was her favourite flowers, I don’t know. I was just certain that I could smell her. It was quite comforting in a strange way. We have all heard talk of guardian angels etc, maybe I have my very own? I was always very close to my Nana, we were best buddies and I reckon my depression started when she died. I never have grieved properly for her. My mum had a very bad breakdown after her death and my own relationship with my mum started to deteriorate then (the very time we should have been able to be there for each other).

I then had a dream that I was baking loaf after loaf of lovely bread (after watching River Cottage Everyday, the bread episode before I went to bed lol!). Again, I semi-woke up and could actually smell bread baking! In fact, it was so real I thought Gary had been making himself some late night toast as he sometimes does! But I asked him when he came to bed, and he said no he hadn’t! Interesting…

…But then again, I may just have been hallucinating after a massive sugar & caffeine overload when I had a lovely afternoon tea with Bec, from Feet In The River…?!

Ahhhh I can’t believe it is 2 weeks since we headed off for The Barn. Gary booked it as a surprise trip away for my birthday and I only found out on the Tuesday morning that we would be leaving that afternoon…. panic! I usually don’t like doing things on the spur of the moment, I like to have everyt hing planned. But after getting the cat-sitter sorted to come round and look after the cats and some quick packing, we set off on our 3 and a half hour journey with the 2 pups in the boot to West Wales!

The Barn was absolutely stunning! We couldn’t quite find it as it had gotten dark by the time we arrived, but we stopped at a nearby house and they gave us directions lol..! It is nestled in the beautiful Cothi Valley. The Barn is specifically dog friendly, that is the main reason Gary chose it. The 2 pups certainly wasted no time in making themselves at home!

Jane, the owner lived in a farmhouse just beside The Barn and she was lovely and made us feel very welcome. She was also a doggy person so we had a good few chats with her about our dogs etc! There was tea, coffee, milk etc left for us as well as all the necessary cleaning products (washing up liquid etc)..

Oh, and wine and Welsh cakes too. I had never tried Welsh cakes before, they were rather nice!

There was a fantastic wood burning stove which was lovely to curl up in front of.

The interior was all open plan with a double bedroom on a mezzanine level. It was just fab. It had lovely skylights throughout which made it so bright & airy.

The Barn was full of beautiful antique and vintage furniture. I loved this dresser:

There was tons of local info and maps provided which was great as we had left in such a hurry we didn’t have time to research the area properly.

I was so impressed with the cupboard full of books, DVD’s and games that we could use (not that we had time!)

And there were country home magazines too…. *sigh* I love reading these mags!

I enjoyed reading them in the sunshine outside on my deckchair while the 2 pups played around me!

Oooooh there was also tons of doggy magazines & books – I was in heaven !

Outisde, there was an enclosed patio area to one side and a lovely enclosed garden to the other side. It was just perfect for the dogs. Just behind the Barn was Brechfa forest. Gary wished he had brought his mountain bike to go biking!

Straight across the road from The Barn was 22 acres of land which we were free to use! Numerous paddocks and our very own woodland area.

And best of all – the river! We spent hours down there playing with the dogs. Chester really got to love the water (he was scared of it previously) and loved having a big swim. I even paddled my feet in the river as it looked so nice – but boy it was sooo cold! My feet were aching! You can also fish in the river (from April 1st only when the season starts). Gary wants to come again and bring all his fishing gear.

The weather was perfect too – we had 3 days of sunshine and temperatures up to 18 degrees. Just beautiful. We absolutely loved this area of Wales, we want to move there one day!

The pups were shattered every day after spending most of their time outdoors!

Chester was so tired he couldn’t eat his dinenr!

We were so sad to leave. Holly & Chester helped me clean up before we left (ahem!).

We stopped for a nice pub lunch on the way home to break up the long journey. I actually cried when we got home. Yes really. It was just so perfect when we were away and I was so depressed to be back to normality… *sigh*.

You can find more details about The Barn HERE. We will definitely be coming back, it was the nicest self-catering accomodation that we have ever stayed in and certainly the nicest that we saw that accepts doggies!

Chester & Holly give The Barn 5 Bones out of 5!!

View of The Barn & the farmhouse from Brechfa forest.