Another Lazy Day

After doing very little on Sunday we had another lovely meal at the Portmeirion hotel restaurant in the evening. We decided to visit Castell Deudraeth for Mondays evening meal. There are two hotels at Portmeirion Village and they are at opposite ends of the site. Castell Deudraeth has more bistro style food than the hotel restaurant and we fancied a change. 

Sunday nights meal was as beautiful as ever with a little bit of artistic drama with the desert. We both chose the same food for all three courses and we plumped for a starter of Tartar of Welsh beef with parsley caviar, Marmite egg yolk & charcoal emulsion. Pretentious or what? Followed by Halibut, aubergine caviar, king prawns, black olive braised potatoes and coconut. We were given an amuse bouche of scrambled egg with caviar and smoked salmon. This was delicious as was the halibut main course but the Welsh beef tartar dish tasted too much of charcoal. The beef was beautiful but overwhelmed by a burnt charcoal taste (I forgot to take a photo of this dish)

For desert we both had a chocolate & Grand Marnier tart with blood orange sorbet. A round chocolate dome was in the centre of my bowl when it arrived and was not what I was expecting as I thought it would be a flat slice of tart. The waitress then produced what looked a perfume atomiser and sprayed the chocolate dome and set it alight. A foot high flame was produced and made the chocolate warm and gooey - delicious. The photo I took does not quite catch the flame but it was pretty dramatic. 

We had been looking at the desert wines when we ordered the chocolate tarts and could not believe the price of a half bottle of wine - £400? Should it be £40? No it really was £400 and after surfing  the internet I found that there are other vintages for £5,000 - £10,000. I would not enjoy any glass of wine at this price as I would be mentally counting the cost of each sip. Who pays that much for a half bottle of wine? 

We strolled around the village Monday morning after breakfast and before the day visitors arrived. It is lovely to have the place to ourselves and walk through all the gates and doorways that say 'Residents Only' as you get to take in views and see areas of the buildings that you can't as a day visitor. I used to visit the village many years ago and dream of staying here. Now we come every year and just love it. 

There were gardeners out pruning the shrubs, other sweeping up leaves and cleaning the tops of benches and tables. It is immacutely well kept and a joy to walk around. At the bottom of the hill where the moored boat is I 'face timed' my father-in-law who lives in France to show him the view across the estuary and up to the top of the village. I asked "guess where we are" and he immediately said Portmeirion. I knew he would as we have visited here as a family for over 40 years. I have photographs of me in the gardens aged about six. 

We called into a couple of charity shops in Porthmadog and I bought 4 as new books for 50p each. Three are by one of my favourite authors, M C Beaton and they are from the Hamish Macbeth series (I normally go for the Agatha Raisin series). The fourth book is a hardback copy of Miranda Harts book Is it me? I think she is very talented and incredibly funny so I am looking forward to reading this. I also spent £2 on a DVD which is more than I usually pay but I do like any film that has Colin Firth in it so it was paid for and in my bag pronto.

Castell Deudraeth has the most fantastic crackling fire in the hall area where we sat having pre dinner drinks. The restaurant itself is just off the hall in a large and airy orangery and when we arrived a young guy (who turned out to be a guest) was playing the grand piano beautifully.

I had moules marinierre which were beautiful and served with toasted soda bread. Mains for both us was a ribeye steak with proper chips, watercress and rocket salad and bernaise sauce. We had a cheese board between us for desert. It was a lovely change to have large portions of simple food instead of lots of very fancy dishes.

After another cooked breakfast with the cutest little bottles of raspberry and banana smoothie with set off home at 11am.

We had the most fantastic break and will be visiting again next year for another 4 day/3 night stay. Where do you go for your weekend mini breaks?

Portmeirion Mini-break

We have been visiting Portmeirion village for a long weekend break in December for the past few years. We went in November last year because in December we were in New York for my 50th birthday but this year we are back to our usual mini-break in December.

How could you resist waking up to that view? For the first time we decided to book a village room rather than stay in the hotel. We were a little concerned that we would have a room looking over the back of another building but how wrong could we have been? We stayed in Bridge House at the top of the arched building with views over towards the village at the front and back and views out over the estuary and hills beyond from the side bay window. This also looks down towards the hotel and moored boat.

The room was perfect with a mini kitchen area for making hot drinks - Irish coffee anyone? and a decent sized fridge for keeping our champers cold. As always I love the travel sized L'Occitane products provided in the bathroom.

We have booked to eat in the hotel restaurant for the 3 nights  that we are staying and last night, after drinking the small carafe of complimentary sherry in our room, it was a short stroll down to the hotel. As we walked into the bar area there was the most angelic harp music playing and it was wonderful to have a chilled glass of wine next the crackling fire and listen to this music.

The hotel food is always beautiful. Lots of small portions of dainty loveliness. With pre-dinner drinks we were given a small snack plate with savoury crackers, 2 large pork scratching and herby popcorn. We had an amuse bouche of mushroom and chestnut soup and a Stilton meringue.

The bread & butter provided with the meal is fabulous. I had a slice of Parmesan loaf and David had a white herbed roll. These were served with two types of butter - a lava bread and a chive butter. Starters were a skate & quiche lorraine for me and seared swordfish & pak choi for David. We both went for duckbreast with bramble sauce for mains and a peanut butter cheesecake with salted caramel sauce and nougat ice cream for dessert.

It was back to our room for coffees and a nightcap in our jimjams as we were very tired after a long and busy day.

Breakfast is equally fantastic with a continental style breakfast available plus hot choices on top of the continental options. It is served in the restaurant so the tables have starched white linen and heavy  gauge cutlery with Sophie Conran crockery. Between the two of us our choices were fresh juice, cereal, croissant, cheese, ham. Followed by cooked Welsh breakfast (the sausage contained lava bread & leek as well as pork), toast with jams, marmalade & honey.

We are currently drinking brandy hot chocolates and reading the Sunday papers overlooking the fabulous view. David is delighted as he has just found the special Portmeirion channel on the TV which shows back-to-back episodes of The Prisoner which was filmed here in the 1960's.

I'll tell you more about our break in another posting with details about the village and surrounding woodland which has some beautiful walks. We've given these a miss today as it is constantly raining and we are feeling very lazy.

Festive Films

I know that Christmas is not greeted with great joy by everyone but I am one of those people who just loves this time of the year. My birthday is in December and I think that adds to the festivities. It is a busy month with a night out for my birthday, our annual visit for a short break at Portmeirion Village in North Wales and the Christmas Carol Service at Manchester Cathederal. 

There is all the hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping for food and last minute gifts, getting the house decorated and making our home ready for guests. We were busy all weekend with chores such as defrosting both small chest freezers in the garage to make room for festive food (they were both like igloos with the lids refusing to shut) and putting the tree up.

After all that busy work you need to put your feet up and relax a while. This is something I preach more than I practise (I struggle with doing nothing and am a 4am-5am riser who sleeps lightly). I am forcing myself to try to rest and take time out and at this time of year festive films cheer me up no end and force me to sit down and relax. So what have I (we) watched so far:

It's a Wonderful Life (I cry every time) I can't make up my mind over whether I prefer the black & white or colourised version.

The Polar Express (Wonderful Tom Hanks)

Flint Street Nativity (Laugh out loud British humour)

Miracle on 34th Street (Lovely Dickie Attenborough)

The Holiday (Heart warming rom com. I go more for Jack Black than Jude Law)

A Christmas Carol (Animated version with Jim Carrey)

The Santa Clause (Feel good family film)

What do we still have left to watch?

White Christmas (So glamorous - I always cry at the end)

Scrooged (Bill Murray at his best)

Love Actually (A British Classic)

The Nutcracker (I saw the ballet over 20 years ago and was enchanted)

We've watched more than we have left to watch but I am sure there will be some great films on TV over the next couple of weeks. Which are your favourites Christmas films?

Christmas Candles

At the end of November I has a major clutter-bust and corralled all my candles and candle holders from around the house into one large storage tub. I was a little shocked to find as much as I did as I had not noticed how many I had when there are just a few items stored in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the lounge and in the garage. When they were all together,  I realised I have a problem ... I confess I am a Yankee Candle  addict. I am thinking of setting up YCA - Yankee Candles Anonymous.

I found candles that I had forgotten I had bought but also ones that I had bought last year in the January sales with the intention of using this Christmas. I was so pleased to find boxes of tealights in a variety of Christmas scents. I wrote about buying them last year in this post. I have already finished a box of Fireside Treats and the tealights gave a lovely soft glow with a slightly sweet smell of marshmallow. It was not too overpowering, just a gentle fragrance.

I have now opened Snowflake Cookie and I love that they are a baby pink colour rather than the usual Christmas red and green colours. Just smelling them unlit they smelt good enough to eat but when lit they gave a home baked shortbread scent.

I am lucky to have a Yankee Candle shop not so far away at The Lowry Shopping Centre. In last years's sales I bought this cute wax tart burner. For those of you who have not used these before, you need a burner which holds a tealight underneath a bowl. You place the wax tart in the bowl, light the tealight underneath and as the wax tart melts it releases the aroma.

I have not used wax tarts for years but bought a huge bulk bag of mixed tarts from eBay a couple of years ago and then forgot about them. I didn't have a tart burner at the time and had planned to buy one but never got around to it. I bought this one in the January sales to put away for this Christmas and was so pleased to find quite a few Christmas themed tarts when I opened up the bulk bag again.

The wax tarts that I found are Christmas Wreath which is the green tart. This smells fresh with a hint of pine but so strong as to smell like a toilet freshener, it's more like a fresh Christmas tree scent. I also found Home for the Holidays which is the red tart. This has a soft warm slightly sweet scent like  mince pies.

The last Christmas themed one I found was Sparkling Angel which has that freshly washed laundry smell. I also found two more scents that are Cranberry Chutney and Cinnamon Stick which smell just like their name.

Nothing beats an evening with the fire lit, candles glowing and a glass of wine. We have two table lamps in our lounge and a matching standard lamp. We sometimes turn one or two of the lamps off to give a soft glow to the room just for a short while before we go to bed. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.