Swanson and Piper

The other week, I packed my bags and headed to Nottingham to see my bestie, Laura. Laura's just moved house, so I was looking forward to checking out her new place. She also has some new precious little additions in her life, who I was ridiculously excited to meet! Ohhh, the little pitter-patter of tiny feet... :o) 

Swanson and Piper are two beautiful little Egyptian Mau / Siberian cross kitties, brother and sister, that have stolen my heart. These two adorable little munchkins are the friendliest, most energetic balls of fluff I've ever met! I spent the weekend gleefully watching them tussle with each other (play out scenes from The Lion King...) stalk and hunt their favourite toys, and stick their nosy little faces in all the glasses, cups and buckets they could reach. Before they snuggled up to us for their naps, purring fiercely, and melting my heart. I'm in love. 

Swanson's the little boy...

...and Piper the little girl. Nice to meet you!

 Watching TV with Mama...

Between kitten-perving, Laura and I managed to tear ourselves away briefly to make a few (a lot of) nachos for dinner - which the kittens tried stealing, several times! They are the greediest little mites. I think they think they're dogs. Greedy, adventurous dogs.

Sneaky little kitty...

 "Excuse me, but I'm on a deadline".

 Swanson doesn't look overly impressed here... I think I was disturbing his nap time on my lap. 

Too cute! I'm desperate to get some! Sorry for all the photos - I couldn't stop snapping away!

The Day Of...

Well, I did say we love to stretch out the celebrations in our family for as looong as possible! So that's exactly what we did last weekend, on the day of Mum's birthday, after our night of singing, dancing and debauchery. The morning started with presents, family all around, and a cute little cupcake. Look how pleased Mum was! :o) I do love catching those happy expressions in photos.

It was off to Mum's favourite for lunch - and the Suffolk Food Hall did not disappoint. We all quickly got our drinks orders (refreshing ginger beers and coffees all round, for some reason!), and studied the menus greedily, in between birthday anecdotes and fits of giggles.

I could have happily eaten everything on the menu. Twice. Instead, we went for: the Broxtead Estate pork pie, with spiced apple chutney and mixed salad; the Broxtead onion, sage and Shipcord cheese tart, with dressed rocket and Aspalls cider dressing (my favourite); and the Tian of prawns and avocado, with a Bloody Mary dressing and wholemeal bread.

Next came mains: Broxstead Estate roast pheasant and pistachio stuffing, fondant potato, spring greens and thyme jus; Deben mussels in Aspalls cider and cream broth, with leeks, Suffolk bacon, and fresh herbs (oh... em... gee... the sauce these little monsters were swimming in was the best mussel sauce I've tasted in England!! So rich, creamy and salty... mmm...); Capel St. Mary lamb and mint burger with rocket, goats cheese, red onion marmalade, and hand cut potato wedges; and the roast beef from Broxstead butchery, with all the trimmings. Just look at that bad boy, piled tall and proud!

It was a lovely end to a lovely weekend. We may have left a little hamper behind for Mum for Mothers' Day, too, which she just loved discovering hidden away this weekend just gone! I hope you all had a nice time this weekend, and treated your mums like the queens they are! My friend made hers cry with joy by showing up unexpectedly. Which she quite rightly considered the ultimate of triumphs!