Early Birthday, Jubilee Celebrations and Rescuing Goslings!

With a hen party during my birthday weekend, I celebrated with family a little early. I also had a friend come to stay for the weekend! 

Click here to watch the vlog or see below. 

With my cousin having her hen party during my birthday weekend, and my other cousin last minute having a birthday party the weekend before, I ended up coming back a few weekends prior to celebrate my birthday a little early with close family. Of course, the majority of the time I tried to relax and chill more than anything, but I did get in plenty of little dog cuddles. 

We did go for a few dog walks, including Newmiller Dam, which is my favourite place to go. We went for some food first which the dogs didn't totally enjo, and sadly for some reason they had finished doing the toasties, so we got some sandwiches/salads and cake instead. 

The next day, we had a girly day out in Leeds. We did a little bit of shopping and had a lovely lunch at The Ivy which was delicious. They even brought me out a little profiterole with chocolate mousse, which was delicious. 

Then it was sadly time to return back to work. Because of a shift swap, I ended up having a long day shift, followed by 3 night shifts. I did a bank shift on both the Jubilee bank holidays, and was so frustrated to be woken up just 30 minutes after I first went to sleep with the loudest most annoying cherry picker and hand held chain saw. Of course, for the first time in 2 years, they decided to cut my off road hedge. It was an absolute nightmare. They finished about 4pm, so I had a grand total of 2 hours sleep in almost 48 hours by the time I returned from shift. 

Work had a few lovely celebrations. We decorated the wards, wore crowns, had cupcakes and so much yummy food at the fuddle. It was lovely! Of course, I had to decorate my house myself. I got some cheap bunting from work, then bought a balloon pack from Amazon. I was initially having a barbeque party on the Sunday, but when the weather forecast changed to rain, that quickly got cancelled! 

My friend Hannah came down to stay the weekend, which was so lovely. We don't see each other very often at all anymore. It's quite sad, but she's now becoming a GP so at least she'll be free most weekends. On the Saturday, I booked for us to have a little afternoon tea in a local village. They had a fun fair going on and a live concert too, so it was a lovely day to watch, listen and eat outdoors. 

We drove past my new house on the way back, before finishing the afternoon with scones. We ended up watching a film because we were both pretty tired. I was clearly far more tired (understandable after 3 night shifts!) and fell asleep. When I woke up, it had just finished and then we watched the Jubilee concert to finish the night! 

On Sunday, like I said it was dreary weather and pretty miserable. We still wanted to enjoy the day and get out of the house, so we walked along the canal and saw lots of ducks, geese and swans. There were a lot of babies but surprisingly all on the older side, despite spring only really just starting. There was one unfortunate gosling, who must have had an abnormality, or even an injury, because it really struggled to weight bare, and even at one point fell down the hill and couldn't get back up. On the way back, it was so sad because it had fallen down into a run off canal and was chirping, alongside the big extended family. We tried to help it, but after 15 - 20 minutes, we called it a day. 

We eventually made it to the restaurant. I'd heard such great things about Gusto - a new Italian. I was so excited for the roast! I first ordered the garlic dough petal and they sadly came with onion and cheese, which it defintely did not mention on the menu. The roast had a small portion, poor quality vegetables and the carrots were push. The dessert was a yummy cheesecake and even that was disgusting. I even got Hannah to try it because I genuinely thought it was out of date - it was so sour! - and she agreed. By this point, I couldn't not complain so I discussed it with the manager. She apologised for the misprint of the menu, the lack of quality vegetables and the disgusting dessert. She even said they'd looked at all the ingredients and they were all in date, which must mean she also thought it tasted poorly. In the end, we got the dessert and starter taken off the bill, but I don't think I'll be going back. 

We also walked past the little Nottingham memorial display. It was small but cute, with purple flowers and a crown displayed on the council building. They'd also got a picture from every visit the Queen has had in Nottingham which was  a lovely idea, albeit I think they could have blown them up and spread them out a little across the market square, and not just on 3 small stands. 

All in all, a very busy couple of weeks but I loved celebrating the Jubilee. Did you do anything fun for the event?