St. Brelade, Jersey

I love bank holiday weekends but they always throw me off, hence the lack of post last night...

I've literally been so busy of late that my posts are half-assed anyway which is why I tend to just post reviews.

But, I did promise more on our time in Jersey and when better to sit down and write a proper post than on a bank holiday Monday?

We'd agreed that this time round we would get up early every day so we could fit as much in as possible (when we went to Oxford it kind of all went pear-shaped cause we overslept! Which also has to do with my weird thing where I cannot for the life of me sleep in a hotel. Strange, but I managed in this one!!).

So we started our day off nice and early, down for the breakfast and then out of the hotel between 10 and 11.

Before heading for St. Brelade, we quickly ran across the road to look at the beach again - we fell in love with it.

After taking a few - hundred - snaps, we took the car and made our way to St. Brelade Bay. It was absolutely stunning. The sun was out and I don't think I've ever seen the sea that blue before. Because it was early March as well it was so quiet and peaceful.

We wandered along the beach drinking in as much of the view as possible stopping in a tourist shop to by some fudge (they are very proud of their Jersey cows so really advertise it in all possible products!)

Next we drove to a golf country club (unbeknownst to us at the time - I just thought it was a regular golf place) in which we went on the driving range (I was so so awful) before having lunch at Rocco's.

Adeel took every opportunity to have steak as possible it seemed, but I stuck with a ham and cheese toasty as we had plans for a date night dinner that evening.

Another thing we also noted on was how nice everyone was. Nobody was in any hurry to get anywhere. The fastest speed you could go was 40mph, and everyone was just so polite and conversational - it was wonderful.

I think we had a short break at the hotel after that - somewhat of a siesta if you like - before heading to an arcade. We literally played air hockey and a shooting game, Adeel won a stuffed toy on a claw machine and we left.

We had a bit of down time before getting ready for dinner. We'd asked the receptionist at the time for a recommendation and she kindly booked us a reservation with her friend's restaurant The Paper Fig.

Now, I haven't put any photos in of the restaurant or food because I want to write a full post on it. It was just perfect. And that's all I'm saying about it in this post!

After we returned from our heavenly culinary experience we dipped into the pool once more before hitting the sheets...

🏝

St. Helier, Jersey

My God, it has been the busiest of weekends again!

I don't know how people are constantly keeping themselves busy, I'm so exhausted it's unbelievable.

Anyway, I promised posts on Jersey so I've decided to split them up sort of by day/location.

St. Helier was where we stayed, there will be a subsequent post on St. Brelade and then a standalone post for a restaurant review as it deserves a special mention.

For today though, St. Helier.

The flight from Gatwick is only 45-50 minutes. By the time the captain tells you to take your seatbelt off, half the flight is over. It was funny because Adeel got up to pee and as there was a queue he didn't actually get to go because the captain announced not long later that seatbelts were to be refastened!

It was a very windy, rainy day when we set off. Our flight was at around 9 in the morning so we landed near 10 and the airport is so tiny in Jersey and we only had hand luggage that we were literally out straightaway (except for the minor wait for the rental car).

Oh my God, just the drive to the hotel was amazing. Jersey is such a beautiful island!

However, we did have a few hours to kill before we could check in to the hotel so we left the car there and got a pointer towards the town centre.

Wandering through the town at a leisurely pace was great. We eyed up some beautiful properties advertised - dreaming only of course - before grabbing a bite to eat. Burger King was our one and only naughty choice and probably the worst of the food we had (not a single bad meal for the entire trip!)

We meandered back to the hotel by which time we could checkin and found ourselves in what seemed like an upgraded room. We originally booked the budget room (with a warning that you could hear the swimming pool pump). BUT, we were on the second floor, the room was massive and not a single noise could be heard from the pool. It was amazing.

We had a somewhat planned, somewhat improvised nap as we'd been up so early, before heading out for a lovely walk along the beach.

With clouds a-brewing and a roll of thunder in the distance, we quickly scarpered back to the hotel for dinner in the bar. I think Adeel had a burger and chips and I had scampi and chips.

The portions were massive, I definitely could not finish it all. After a half hour or so we decided to test out the pool facilities which was a nice way to end our first day in Jersey.

Climbing between those fresh white sheets after was equally as perfect.

More to come soon...

Feelin' Twenty Two

Okay, I don't really know how to start off this post because it happened so long ago. 

So I'm just gonna jump right in I guess.

To kickstart my twenty second birthday celebrations (17th March, St Patrick's Day), the team and I went to Nando's for lunch and my manager brought in two massive boxes of Krispy Kreme (yes, I went to work on my birthday, only a half day, as it happened to fall on a Thursday and that is my busiest day!)

So after Nando's, my usual lemon and herb butterfly chicken, with creamy mash and garlic bread (yum), I headed home with what was left of the Krispy Kreme's (there was no way I was leaving them at work, they would be demolished on the way to Oxford and in Oxford if needs must).

Now, this bit I cannot remember, so my helpful diary is assisting me. 

Once I got home, apparently I phoned my mum (standard), squeezed in a few episodes of Pretty Little Liars before Adeel came over and then we just watched Gogglebox. I don't even remember what we had for dinner (I don't think I wanted anything takeaway-ish because of the weekend ahead was sure to have lots of bad food).

The next day we woke up reasonably early and drove to Oxford. The drive was surprisingly short compared to what I thought it could have been.

We didn't need to check in until around 3 o'clock and we arrived in Oxford at about 12pm. So instead we went for a wander. Adeel showed me where he worked and we came across a few sites along the way to the town centre. It was absolutely freezing so we kept ducking into places before finally reaching Christ Church.

We  wanted to see this because of the Harry Potter scenes filmed here and it definitely did not disappoint. It was beautiful. We took a load of snaps and walked around the grounds (unfortunately we couldn't go into the hall as the students were on lunch or something).

Here are a few of the photos we took:

After that we were hungry and found a Burger King in the town centre. Because it was nearly Easter as well, I made Adeel keep stopping off so we could buy some nice eggs. We found a Harry Potter themed shop as well, am surprised I didn't buy anything from there too.

Heading to Eynsham Hall, our residence for the next few days, we found it was quite out of the way - the sat nav didn't even really know where it was (when we'd parked the image on the sat nav claimed we were sat in a big expanse of green in the middle of nowhere and told us to find a road so it could redirect us).

Eynsham Hall is a large manor, with stags heads lining the walls and olden furniture gracing every inch of floor. Our rooms were not in the manor itself but in a bunch of flat-like buildings a short walk away.

The rooms weren't all that impressive, pretty snug, but okay for just crashing in every evening.

After watching a couple of old episodes of Top Gear we decided to head back into Oxford to go bowling. I can't remember if we played one or two games, but it was quick with just the two of us. We then proceeded to play pool and air hockey in the arcade.

We almost went for dinner at Frankie and Benny's but there was a 45 minute wait and it was already about 9 o'clock so we grabbed some sandwiches/readymade pasta from Sainsbury's instead and headed back to the hotel to watch We're The Millers.

I didn't sleep all that well that night (I seem to have a weird thing where I have trouble sleeping in a new place for the first night) so the following morning we missed breakfast because of our unexpected lie-in.

Once we were up though, we got ready and drove to Bicester village. The shops were amazing, all lined out like neat little pastel coloured houses. We looked in quite a lot of them, me taking it all in in total awe as Adeel had seen it before.

I finally decided to purchase my first high end product - a DKNY handbag (I originally wanted a Michael Kors one but there was a queue outside the shop by the time I decided I wanted one and they were more expensive anyway!)

We stopped in one of their restaurants as we'd skipped breakfast and I had a really nice chicken and avocado burger thing (I think) with peppermint tea.

After we'd had our fill of browsing the shops (and going back to Ralph Lauren about 4 times before not actually buying anything), we headed back to Eynsham Hall and wandered around the grounds, taking lots of snaps and coming across a wedding party in the main hall.

Eynsham Hall is actually where an episode of Top Gear was filmed - or part of it. It was kind of why we ended up picking to stay here in the end, oddly enough.

It had a small maze by the water fountains which was creepy, but the grounds themselves were massive.

We stopped in the Gun Room Bar for a bit and ordered some food to take back to our room. Think I just had my usual, Chicken Caesar Salad. Adeel had a burger in which I stole his bacon from as he can't have it.

The Day After Tomorrow was on so we watched that and then called it a night.

The following morning, after a slightly better nights sleep, we made it to a buffet-style breakfast in time before we had to check out. I remember just having a pastry and some cheese and ham. Adeel went for a little bit more with hash browns, grapes, a pastry and a yoghurt.

We felt like the youngest people there, in fact I think we were, so we felt a little out of place the entire time but it was an enjoyable experience and a lovely way to celebrate my birthday.

Let's just hope if we ever revisit it's slightly warmer!



☘