Having a rice THAIme

Get it? Thai? The best titles are ones you have to explain... sheesh.

Can I just say first of all, that the diet is going extremely well... no worries about that... the fact that I dined two nights in a row at Bring Your Own Booze Asian restaurants is of no concern... Ooops.

I'm trying to visit new places in the West Yorkshire area and have new experiences. It's hard sometimes when you've lived in a place for years to not get stuck in a rut. Time is so precious that it's tempting to stick with something you like because it's safe and you know you will enjoy it.

But that's not what life is for is it? The safe, the familiar? No no no no no no

So I felt like a traitor when I suggested trying a new place instead of our faithful Thai restaurant, Jino's in Headingley, where I've enjoyed many a good meal over the years.

A few friends had been raving about a place in the city centre that was BYOB. Now I am ALL ABOUT a BYOB place. Booze can be so expensive (for good reason I suppose) and can really drive the cost of a meal right up. I REALLY begrudge paying £5 for a glass of wine when I know I can get a decent bottle of Shiraz for the same price.

I don't have a drinking problem by the way...

So I arranged to meet a friend I've not seen in aaaaages and we met in The Pit for a catch up drink before heading to Thai Aroy Dee Leeds to check the place out. We had prawn crackers and sweet chilli sauce to start, then a mixed starter of prawns and mushrooms to really start, then I chose a pork Pad Thai for my main, all washed down with Sainsbury's finest red wine for under a fiver. Classic.

Dinner for two cost just £23, my bus fare home was almost as much as my main course...

When I arranged to go to Thai Aroy Dee on the Thursday, I completely forgot that I'd also arranged to go out for a Vietnamese meal the very next night. Gulp.

So we headed to Viet Thai in Stanningley, a teeny weeny restaurant that only seats 20 people, so it's pretty cosy with the waitress squeezing past to get to the kitchen. The toilet was outside of the building and round the back, interesting and very freezing but not off-putting at all.

I had a Vietnamese beef curry for my main and it was soooooooooooooo good! I ate every single bit of it which is not normal for me, I'm a talker so I usually eat half and take the cold half home for the next day's lunch.

Two amazing meals in two nights, both at BYO restaurants. I'd highly recommend them both for low cost, high taste options!

Wednesday musings

I seem to be relying on Pinterest a lot at the moment to give me inspiration and positivity - sigh.

Pinned from http://www.pinterest.com/pin/82964818108962421/

I just saw this and now I feel ready to go to bed and take on tomorrow with such a great vengeance...


Sweet dreams!

Autumn...

Oh November, you do make it hard for me to like you.

I much preferred October. October had it going onnnnnnn. Crisp Autumn afternoons, bright sunshine but frosty temperatures, scarves, hats, falling leaves and plenty of rainbows. No pots of gold though, sadly.

November in comparison can kick my ass. A rainy fireworks night, dark evenings from 5pm onwards and my best friend moving to New York. Boo.

I found some Autumnal photos on Pinterest to cheer me up...











All photos are from this page on Pinterest...

Have a good day now!

All images here came from this page on Pinterest - stay smiling now!

Sunday Photo Album - Isla Mujeres, Mexico

aHAAAAA it's Sunday and I remembered to put a photo album up AND I'm hungover. Win.

Today's album comes from our honeymoon in Mexico. We were so lazy and pretty much hung out on the beach for most of our trip drinking cocktails with breakfast because we could. We were in a wedding haze and completely thrilled with how amazing our wedding day was.

By the second week of our trip though we wanted a bit of adventure and to stretch our legs a little so we took a ferry over to Isla Mujeres (loosely translated to Island of Women).

The island itself is so small that you can drive around the whole thing in around an hour and the best thing is that you can rent a golf buggy for the day to drive around in. So much fun. Here's their version of a sat nav:

Enjoy the album!

I miss...

Feeling the love on Padlock Bridge, Cologne

Here's some photos from Padlock Bridge in Cologne in case you're in need of a little love tonight:

I wonder how many of the couples who chose to add their padlock to this bridge are still together? I like to think that a large percentage are still happily in love, but then I am a romantic, deep down under my hard icy exterior. HA.

And out of the couples who didn't make it, did they try hard enough to make it work? It's not easy staying in love for ever, things change, real life gets in the way and most romance fades dramatically when you live together and walk into your fella on the toilet.

But you have to TRY. You have to remember why you loved each other in the first place and work at that. It's not all dates and dinners and anything else romantic beginning with the letter D. Sometimes it's arguing about doing the washing up, going food shopping then getting angry because you forgot the bloody Bags For Life again, paying the bills and just having a shitty day at work and sitting on the sofa in your pyjamas.

But it's also knowing he is there for you. He'll hold your hand while you do the food shop, giggle over Billy Bear ham and buy a spontaneous bottle of red wine on a Tuesday.

It's kisses on the lips, it's walks in the rain, it's playing music loudly in the kitchen, it's hugging, it's laughing at a crap joke. It's love. It's finding a groove and enjoying it. It's having independence and not relying solely on each other.

I write this as The Boy is in the pub and I've enjoyed a dinner of super noodles having been at another pub and then coming home to keep up with the Kardashians (guilty pleasure).

Goodnight and lots of LOVE.