Strawberry Picking

Yesterday, Josh and I went to Friday Street Farm in Suffolk.

Punnets in hand, we headed off into the rows of poly tunnels, which were like giant ovens in the heat.
Luckily for our backs, we didn't have to crawl along the rows of fruit bushes like I've done at previous pick your owns, the strawberry bushes are planted in raised beds.

My sunglasses are from ASOS and my dress is a really light floaty one which was perfect in the heat, from River Island.

Strawberries are by far my favourite fruit, and it's safe to say that between the two of us we filled up on at least a kilo whilst picking away.

 Some of the strawberries were huge!

And so, so scrummy! (I'm snaffling as I type.)

At last we filled both punnets (and our tummies), and headed to the shop to weigh and pay, the farm was quite quiet due to the fact that the school holidays hadn't started so we nearly had the place to ourselves, but one downside we found was that the pricing wasn't obvious and we happily filled up our punnets without realising it was £4.50 a kg, whoops!!

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!