A Summer Roadtrip!

Last month, with money being tight, me and my best friend, Sarah, decided that a roadtrip was our best bet at being able to take a week out from our home town and all the drama that comes with it! 

It didn't take us long before we were set on the idea and had started planning where we were going, when we were going and what we were going to do each day. Unfortunately Sarah couldn't get any time off work so I took Monday - Friday off and we had a 5 day holiday rather than the desired 7! Nonetheless it was an absolutely brilliant break and one we will definitely look to do again in the future. 

Typically a road trip holiday involves a group of people but with it only being the 2 of us and with us having so much in common there were very few disagreements. (In fact the only disagreement i remember having was over which biscuits to buy!) It was absolutely brilliant and i would thoroughly recommend the route we took to anyone looking to go on a road trip in the UK.

Taking a risk with a holiday in the UK we were incredibly lucky with the weather and had 26 degrees or higher all holiday, resulting in a lot of sunburn but a brilliant, beachy break.

The typical 'Holiday Selfie'

A 10 o'clock start for us on Monday morning marked the beginning of our trip, we stuffed everything in the car, literally stuffed everything in the car. (The back seats even came down for the first leg of the journey) Turns out i'd badly packed my stuff in the car meaning that Sarah's didn't fit. To say we were only gone for 4 nights, we both took a pretty decent sized suitcase. 

That's definitely something i need to work on, packing light! Any top tips, leave a comment below!

We headed down to Brighton to start and spent the day there, went on the Brighton Wheel, played with the pebbles (we actually spent most of holiday throwing pebbles, who knew they could provide hours of fun for two 19 year olds!) and had a lovely walk down the pier. Staying the night in Brighton would have been expensive so we opted to stay a little outside of Brighton, about a 15 minute drive, thats a holiday on a budget for you!! 

Tuesday meant the next drive to Portsmouth where we stayed in Sarahs brothers uni house whilst he was home for summer. On the way to Portsmouth we stopped at Bognor Regis and spent most of the day there, which we both absolutely loved! It's a little town with a beautiful pebble beach and really small pier, definitely one we both want to return to at some point, it was so cute! We decided not to spend the day in Portsmouth as we'd visited for a night the year before so wanted to try somewhere new.

Bognor Regis - Our favourite stop!

The night we spent in Portsmouth was great fun, it was the only night we had a kitchen so took the opportunity to cook dinner for ourselves. We spent the night having a laugh and doing the puzzles in the puzzle book we'd bought, believe it or not a crossword can bring a night of laughter and fun! 

Wednesday morning was a right palava. As we were packing the car back up there was a slight issue with the house door. I'd left the key on the inside of the door and Sarah, being the last one out, shut the door without realizing meaning that the tenants of the wouldn't be able to get back in when they came back! Big woops! We rang a lock smith and the people that were living in the house and after about an hour of messing around with the door (including hitting the lock with a brick!) we had no choice but to leave and wait for the owner of the house to fix it and send us the bill!! So much for a free night! 

We spent Wednesday in Bournemouth where we laid on the beach all day and then went for lunch at the Slug and Lettuce before driving to Weymouth where we spent Thursday night. Thursday night we sat on the beach and watched the sunset with a bottle of wine, it was so cute and because of the great weather we had all week it wasn't too cold either! 

Friday marked the end of our road trip and to end it on a high we decided that going to Longleat Safari Park would be a great way to finish off our holiday! We'd both been looking forward to it and it didn't let us down, it was a brilliant day out. There were so many animals to see, we took the boat round the lake to see the Hippos, Gorillas and Sea Lions and also took the train round the park to see some beautiful scenery. I also took the car through the Safari (twice!!) and we both managed to get some pretty awesome pictures of the animals, i chose to avoid the monkey bit after being warned that they are notorious for chewing on your windscreen wipers! (A shame but neither of us had the money to replace any damaged car parts!)

All in all, despite the sun burn, broken lock and numerous wrong turns it was a welcome break and one we both thoroughly enjoyed. 

Penguins! - Longleat Safari Park

Saturday fun - Cookies!

Believe it or not, i love being healthy but i also love baking! Luckily for me, my dad and brother have no problem with eating anything i make so i can bake whatever sugary rubbish i want, guilt free!

I woke up this morning really wanting to bake something, i was going to make a treacle cake that i've made before which is absolutely amazing! (Another BBC GoodFood recipe) but today i decided to go simple and make some cookies and save the treacle cake for tomorrow so it's fresh for family dinner night.

I spent ages sat on the kitchen floor looking through the cookbooks trying to find something to bake, it must have looked hilarious. I found this old cookbook from when i was really little, looked through it and found some really basic chocolate chip cookies. I knew the boys would love them.

The world brightest cook book!

We didn't have all the ingredients we needed to make them so we kind of improvised. We were supposed to have used soft brown sugar but we only have Demerara so had to make do with that, we used self raising flower instead of plain flower and baking powder as well. Other than that the only other issue we had was the chocolate chips, we had about 45g of them and needed 150g odd. Luckily, found a bad of milky stars so just cut them up and made do!

They still taste pretty god anyway to be honest, nice and moist! Slightly too brown for my liking but none the less they taste good, especially with a glass of milk. (You are never too old for cookies and milk)

Cookies and milk!

Cake Club

At work, a couple of us girlies have started up a little Cake Club - it's pretty much just the 4 of us baking every now and again and bringing in a bit for the others to try. It's not an official office club or anything like that.

It's a pretty new thing and it's based on the idea that whoever wants to bake, bakes. There's no rota and no limitation to what you can bake or when! I love it.

Last week I made Brownies (for the first time ever!) and if i may say so my self, they were lush. They were just plain brownies, nothing fancy and the decor was lacking. With the baking being served at work obviously there was no additional cream and fruit compote, that's how i totally would have served it at home!

I used the BBC GoodFood recipe, worked a treat!

They're pretty basic and really easy to make, i had a lot of fun making them and would definitely do it again. Unfortunately, i didn't take a picture before they got gobbled up but they definitely looked something like this:

Source: BBC GoodFood

I'm in the middle of deciding what to bake for my next time. Obviously GBBO (Great British Bake Off for those that don't watch it) is giving plenty of inspiration but nothing has grabbed me yet, well other than the cherry cake which has been grabbed by one of the other girls. Can't wait to try that, we will all be expecting a well presented cake with cherries scattered throughout, the icing dripping just right and the sponge cooked to perfection!

If any of you guys have any suggestions for what i can bake for Cake Club next time, leave me a comment. I need something good!