April Favourites

My favourites of this month are ecletic to say the least, I guess they're actually more things I've been using or wearing a lot this month.
Not long ago my little sister went to Kenya, and brought us all back presents. Now, my mum used to live in South Africa when she was my age, we've been back several times and it has kind of become a "thing" between my mum, my sister and I that we have beaded key rings on our keys, so on my car keys I have a green rhino, my mum has a beaded SA flag but then we also have ornaments I've got a beaded lizard, mum has a beaded toad, you get the idea, we're a bit odd.
Anyway, my sister brought mum back the toad, and she brought me back some beaded bracelets made by the Masai.

Because its summer and everyone wants to look a little more "fresh faced" I've been using The Body Shop's Radiance Pearls, I use them along my brow bone and a little on top of my cheekbones.

This body butter smells so delicious, if I could send a smell from my computer to yours, I would. I think that most people know how great The Body Shop Body Butters are so I won't drone on about them, but the other fantabulous ones are Satsuma and Mango

I saw this when I was doing a food shop for my mum, I'm a big fan of the Rimmel Sun Shimmers and thought i'd try this one out, I think it's relatively new but it's basically the same as its sisters in that you really need a fake tan mitt to apply it and it works really well!

Loreal's Rouge Caresse lipsticks came out about a year ago and I found this lurking at the bottom of my make up bag, forgotten and unloved, but not anymore because it really is great. It's a combo of a lipstick, gloss and balm, so depending on how you apply it, it can come out really sheer or quite bold, it isn't unlike a Revlon Lip Butter, I have Aphrodite Scarlet (swatched below) but I'd be interested to try the coral or the red!

Are there any new things I should try out that you guys like?

Faking It

I went through a phase where my legs weren't a dissimilar colour to those belonging to Amy Childs. Thankfully that radioactive-glow look is behind me, but I like to think I've gotten better at applying it, and after trying more than a dozen fake tans I like to think I know which highstreet or drugstore fake tans are the better ones.

For a gradual glow: Johnson's Holiday Skin
Yes, it smells funny and everyone knows you've put it on but it goes on smoothly, when put on in moderation, and it comes in 2 tones, light and dark, I probably should be a light but I get dark because I usually want quick results.
I like a lot of gradual tan moisturisers, my favourites are Johnson's Holiday Skin, Garnier Summer Body, Dove Summer Glow and Palmer's Cocoa Butter Natural Bronze. The latter is probably my favourite and I keep meaning to buy it, for some reason I just prefer the smell of it.

Instant tan: Rimmel Sun Shimmer
I am a Rimmel fake tan collecter, it seems, as I have one of each sub-range. I use the basic wash off one if I quickly need a tan for school or something, the waterproof one if there is going to be water involved... Durr, and then I got their most recent "instant tan and gradual glow" a few days ago and it's great! I don't actually mind the sent of these too much, they're so easy to apply with a mitt and seeing as they're just so inexpensive and great I keep getting them, despite not using up its predecessor first! I have only ever used medium matte, but I'm curious to try the one with "shimmer" in for going out.

Proper fake tan: St. Moritz mousse
The St. Tropez rip off, but seriously, it's really good! Straight after you've put it on it shows, you'll definatley need a fake tan mitt, to put it on and you've got to work fast but the results are fab!

Le Visage: Piz Buin Summer Sensation
Probably the priceiest but this smells so nice! As you can tell, I'm a sucker for a good smell, but this works really well on my face and feels nice when you're putting it on too, it hasn't gone wrong on me.. Yet!

Summery Picnic

 

Today my lessons finished at 11.00 and to take advantage of the beautiful weather, I met J at his school and walked down to the river for a picnic in the local park.

I've mentioned the Suffolk Food Hall in a couple of posts, and I stopped off there to get our picnic.

 

Whenever I go their deli tempts me in with their tartlets, they tend to change every time I go, varying from chili beef tartlets to salmon with cream cheese and broccoli.
This time I went for spinach, nutmeg and ricotta.

And roasted vegetables with mascarpone.

Tartlets are probably one of my favourite things and both of them were delicious, the nutmeg and ricotta added an essential kick but the roasted vegetable tartlet was perfect if lacking a little seasoning.

 

 

 

I also grabbed a sausage roll, remembering how much J likes them.

 



 

 

The food hall also sell lots of unusual (unusual to me, anyway) treats, I found two "flavours" of these crisps, tangy and sweet, as you can see I went for tangy and they were really good! It isn't often that healthy treats taste great!

The obligatory dried mango.

In their bakery section not only do they have the most delicious smelling baguettes, loaves and rolls, but they also do pastries, which often change as well, bar their staple scones and brownies.

J has a certain penchant for caramel, so when I saw this, not only was I rather excited (I lead a simple life) but I had to get it too.

On a side note, all their tasty treats in the deli or tea time goodies come in these little cardboard parcels.
Just be me that gets excited by things like this?

 

Anyway, I had got J a caramel and popcorn tart.

It was almost a bowl made out of sugar encrusted pastry, piled high with caramel topped with toffee popcorn and drizzled with more caramel.

 



Now, when I bought this I had expected the caramel to taste like boiled condensed milk, or dulche de leche, but in fact, it was quite odd and almost tasted alcoholic, I don't know if it was just because it wasn't what I was expecting but I was a little disappointed.
Someone managed to put it away though!

We attempted to walk off some of our lunch with a stroll along the Deben.

But that idea was halted when we spied a huge park and an ice cream stall, J got mint, and I got toffee.

Writing this has given me a real hankering for one of those tarts, I might have to stop off on the way to school tomorrow!

The Cookhouse

It seems that a lot of people around me have birthdays in April, on the last day of term I posted about celebrations for M's, A's and L's birthday, but it actually worked out that L's birthday was the today, the first day back, and so naturally, the celebrations continued in the classroom with the usual cheese pies and chocolate chew balls.

L had found out about her mum's well kept surprise lunch with our form but that didn't mean we couldn't go all out on the tasteful decorations which were not only hung up around the classroom, but also where we were having lunch, The Suffolk Food Hall's Cook House.

The Cook House has amazing views onto the Orwell River, and the Food Hall itself is a working farm, hence the cows in the foreground, or should I say middle ground, seeing as poor B unwittingly jumped in the photo!

H, L's mum had had some Buck's Fizz jazzed up for the ultimate embarrassment/hilarity factor.

Then, the food started arriving,

G, and the majority of the girls, had plumped for the chargrilled rump of beef with onion chutney
and dressed leaves on granary bread.

Another popular dish was B's, the Ploughman’s Platter consisting of honey roast ham, scotch egg, Suffolk Gold, brie, pickles, rocket and a cottage roll.

I had soup of the day, which I didn't get a photo of, but it came with an enormous basket of freshly baked bread which I rapidly devoured.

Next came pudding, only a couple of girls wanted pudding and all but me opted for a chocolate tart topped with caramel ice cream and chocolate sauce,

 but I chose rhubarb parfait accompanied by roasted rhubarb and tuille wafers.

And finally, a surprise for us all, the cake, or cakes, arrived.

My favourite bit are the envious couple in the corner, or maybe the couple who's meal we disturbed by being so excitable.

The most beautifully decorated cupcakes that H had ordered, with the softest and lightest sponge cake and lashings of flavoured buttercream, lemon, mint or strawberry were the ones we came up with.

H insisted that we all take one with our initial on, this proved difficult as there are two Ms, three As and two Ls. So we had to be creative, the birthday girl had the L and I turned my number 1 upside down, who could tell?!

 We all went back to school worn out from laughing and I for one know that I was wishing that I hadn't worn jeans because I ate far too much!
The food hall is absolutely brilliant and I can recommend The Cookhouse for their delicious food and their relaxed atmosphere with beautiful views of the river, not to mention the reasonable prices!

Birthday Meal

This weekend was my mum's birthday, and to celebrate on the actual day we had some family friends round for a meal.

We started off with venison carpaccio with Parmesan and salad on the side.
I never used to like carpaccio but after trying smoked venison, I was fully converted!

The main shebang was the most delicious, tender, pulled pork I have ever had, well done mum, which we kept simple with jacket potatoes and salad, so that we would, hopefully, have room for pudding.

 

Everyone had seconds, it was that good.
Mum had let it sit in lots of different spices so that it tasted almost oriental, I will have to post the recipe!

Then came the puddings, the main pudding was a delicious strawberry roulade, which went down really well.

 

I was given the job of the birthday cake and all morning I had been mixing up sponge cakes to make a three layered Victoria sponge, with tonnes of raspberry jam and cream.

Last but not least, we had a cheese board, sadly all I know that was on there was a camembert, sorry!

 

After dinner we went into the sitting room to play games, below is my only picture of this because we were too caught up in playing Articulate and the cereal box game!

It was a lovely evening and I hope my mum had a fab birthday x