Valerie's Visit

Valerie, my God mum, came to visit my city on Friday. Rosi and I met her at the station and we went to Starbucks for a catch up and a coffee - my mum was kind enough to buy a pay-£5-get-£10-to-spend voucher for me from... Groupon I think it was, so I was able to treat everyone without actually spending anything (which is really good at the moment!). Valerie is very open and certainly not a prude so we had some very interesting conversations, that I in fact forgot to warn Rosi about so she was slightly shocked but equally impressed, ha. Following the drinks, we moved on to an art gallery and library, as Valerie likes her art!

 

 

After a little look around we had lunch at the gallery, and then carried on to a different section. It was such a lovely day and I felt very special to have a visit from Valerie, as I don't get to see her very often! It was also nice for Rosi to meet someone from my family, as she hasn't had the opportunity to experience that just yet, although she should be visiting my home town later in the year :D

Skiing

So, for Michael's birthday (way back in February) I got him snowboarding lessons. Okay well I gave him the promise of snow-boarding lessons if he gave me a date that he was available. Seen as he's on some driving camp up in the North of England near me, we were able to do it this weekend!

So after a lot of confusion, it was decided that we would both go skiing at Xscape, as Michael is in Canada for my actual birthday, so this way we both get to do something cool. While I don't have any photos of us on the slopes or with ski's on or anything cool like that, I just have photo's of food ha.

This is what we had for tea the night before - chicken, bacon and cheese with peri peri wedges

Can you believe Michael is in there somewhere?!

We went for a bit of a rushed lunch with the girls on the Saturday afternoon (wagamama's of course), and then in between our ski lessons (one at 2:15pm, one at 7:15pm) we also had dinner at Frankie and Benny's.

This was the Hot Chocolate/poppy seed and lemon muffin/filtered coffee at Xscape

And my dinner at Frankie and Benny's, Steak salad (half eaten, I'm sorry I forgot you all!)

Skiing was A-MAZING. I have never been overly interested in skiing, and after the first lesson I was still a bit indifferent, but luckily, after the second lesson I am now hooked. I want to go every weekend! Lessons can be under £30 a go, so I can't go every weekend but I do think it's something I'd try and factor in once a month. 

So the moral of this post is, just give it a go. I didn't want to do it when I went in, I was hesitant and scared, but I'm so glad I did. And I'd advise loads of people to do it - but on real snow, not a dry slope. There's too much balance to learn and a dry slope would deprive you of that. OH I WANT TO GO AGAIN TODAY. On a side note, I ache in lots of places - triceps, calves, hips, bum. I understand the leg muscles but not the triceps... oh well, all in a days work :p