Eating Out - Food Story, Aberdeen

I drove up to Aberdeen on Friday to visit my gran as she had been feeling a bit poorly. She's 92 years old (and most certainly doesn't look her age) and I do wish I was a bit closer so that I could visit more often than I do. Anyway, I was staying with my sister for the night and on Saturday morning she took me along to The Foodstory Cafe on Thistle Street for breakfast; despite it being open since 2013 I was yet to visit. 

It was amazing and I will most certainly be back!!!

Firstly I love the concept of the cafe and the ethos behind the brand. The cafe itself has been built using recycled materials - the interior is right up my street; lots of fairy lights, reclaimed wood, concrete and grey paint. 

All the tables and chairs are quirky; I especially like the bench... oh and the fairy lights!

Did I tell you how much I love fairy lights!?

And then there's the food. It has to be said that it was the best breakfast I've had in a while. I chose the rye toast with avocado and it was served with fresh tomato salsa and basil leaves. I let Ali have a bite and she had proper food envy! She had chosen the House Porridge (although I don't think she realised it was served with raisins, which she doesn't like, so these were promptly removed - after I had taken a photo of course!).

My rye toast with avocado

Alison's House Porridge

There were plenty gluten free options available too and the raw vegan blueberry cheesecake which was gluten, dairy and sugar free looked delish!

Yummy!!

Next time I'm up, this is where I'll be headed for lunch as Ali tells me the salads are to die for.

Our October Holiday - Antics in Aberdeen and a trip to A&E

The kids and I had a super busy five nights for our half of the October holidays. We 'jumped in the car and broomed to Aberdeen' to stay with Auntie Ali and then we also managed to stop by my dad & Jo's for an overnight stay on the way back to Glasgow too.

On Friday we had lunch with my aunt, uncle and gran before heading back to Ali's house. We had a quiet night as we knew that Saturday was going to be a busy one...

Auntie Ali copied a YouTube tutorial to create a fishtail braid for the littlest's hair

We did some baking, thanks to Aldi. There's a competition to win a £50 voucher and a hamper with Aldi in this earlier blog post.

We did a photo shoot in Ali's home studio. I love this giggly photo of the littlest.

Next was time to face paint, and I let me daughter go crazy...

...and ended up at the park with this on my face!

My son with his face paint eye mask

Enjoying some silliness with friends :-)

The next day after breakfast we headed to Drum Castle for their Christmas craft fair...

It was a lovely crisp autumn day. Look at all the glorious colours in the fallen leaves!

The park at Drum Castle is fab - the kids loved it.

There was a zip slide, a willow maze, climbing frames etc all in gorgeous surroundings

I caught up with Life with Munchers for a bite to eat at Mains of Drum

And then this happened....

We had arrived at the car park at Hazlehead Park and we were very excited to be meeting lots of friends and family for a play which probably contributed to what happened next... My eldest tripped (if you know the car park, then you'll know it's not a good surface... it's loads of chuckies and is very bumpy) and literally fell flat on his face. I was pushing the buggy with littlest who was tired and he wasn't holding my hand. The crack was horrific. There was tonnes of screaming and blood was gushing from his nose, mouth and head. His forehead immediately stuck out in a massive lump, about 2cm out if not more. Another family stopped to help me which was so lovely of them, giving me baby wipes and helping me get back to my car. The wee man was complaining that his right eye was sore, so the littlest went with Granddad and Nanny Jo (when they arrived) to the park to meet the others whilst the eldest and I headed off to ARI A&E. He was an absolute star. He very quickly perked up thankfully and even more so once he got some ibuprofen mixture into him. The doctor, Marcus if I remember correctly, was fantastic and the nurses too. Lots of checks were done and then the cuts were cleaned up. Thankfully all was ok and we were sent home. I found the whole experience exhausting, terrifying and generally horrible. There were lots of tears...more mine than his! I felt like such a bad mummy.

 

Poor guy has two black eyes now :-(

But despite the black eyes, you wouldn't have known anything was wrong as he was just his usual self. He was even farting (loudly) on the hospital bed and laughing his head off and making me smell his sweaty socks during a silly game of 'I spy', and again laughing hysterically. 

Relaxing once the kids were in bed!

When did she get so grown up!?

At Granddad & Nanny Jo's in the garden. You'd think it was summer, but she insisted she was warm and didn't want a coat.

Relaxing in front of the fire... perfect end to the holiday.

{Monkeying Around in Aberdeenshire}

Last weekend R & I hit the road; we were headed north to Ballater in Aberdeenshire for a weekend with my sister Ali, her boyfriend Robin and a few of their friends.

We had an amazing time & lots of laughs. On Friday we ate chilli & rice followed by Cards Against Humanity & wine around the fire. On Saturday we cycled to Dinnet & back (about 14 miles) then had a browse round the local shops before heading back to the house for BBQ, cheese & wine tasting and more card games. On Sunday I'm amazed I wasn't hungover. Surprisingly I actually felt not too bad! Anyway, we left Ballater & drove to Crathes as we were booked for a session at Go Ape.

We arrived at the historic Crathes Castle with plenty of time to spare, so we had a bite to eat in the cafe before heading to the Go Ape reception to sign in. The Go Ape Tree Top Adventure is advertised as one of the best days out in Aberdeen so we were keen to check it out. If you haven't heard of it before, Go Ape takes you on a forest adventure where you enjoy 2-3 hours in the trees taking on Zip Wires, Tarzan Swings, Rope Ladders and a variety of other obstacles and crossings. You have to be over 10 years old, over 1.4m tall and under 130kg to participate.

There are three tree top adventure courses in Scotland. Aberfoyle in Stirlingshire which has two of Britain's longest zip wires. Glentress Forest near Peebles which has the highest zip wire in the country and Crathes Castle which features the skateboard zip wire.

We had a thorough safety briefing before we got started and my heart was racing as we were accompanied down to the first obstacle. The first part of the course is only a metre or so above the ground, just to give you a taster of what's to come and let you practice using the equipment. I however slipped on the first step up on the rope ladder and screamed a bit. How was I going to cope in the tree tops?! Much laughter ensued from the queue behind me!

Safety is obviously so important and there are warning signs etc at each platform with clear instructions

Well, I made it round the whole course in 2 hours and there was only one section that I couldn't manage but it's my own fault for choosing the 'extreme' route rather than the easy one!

I had anticipated it to be heart racing/adrenaline packed the whole way through which it wasn't, but it was certainly a decent workout (my arms ached the next day) and I did properly freak out in a couple of parts that were definitely a bit nervy. The final tarzan swing was epic... as you'll see from the videos we took. And you'll also spot my epic fail......(apologies in advance for the swearwords, it wasn't me!).


Despite having a great time, we felt the price was perhaps a bit steep for the experience (I wish now that we'd gone to one of the other Scottish sites with the longer zip wires). It's £30 for Gorillas (over 18 years) and £24 for Baboons (10-17 years), which meant it would have cost us £120 for the 4 of us. However, I've organised a 10% discount at all Scottish sites if you quote the code GLMUM10. This code is valid until 30th November 2014 and excludes Saturdays and corporate events.

I tried to mount the Go Ape monkey at the end for #mymonkeyselfie but I failed miserably! 

So, what do you think? Have you tried Go Ape before? I reckon it would be good fun for a corporate team building exercise!

We had a complimentary experience of Go Ape for four in exchange for an honest review. Opinions as always are my own.

{We're all going on a summer holiday...}

Last weekend the kids and I were in Aberdeen for our summer holiday...



Here are some of our photos:

Giggles with Great Gran

Meeting Me & My Munchie for coffee at the beach

Having fun at Hazlehead Park

Breakfast at Cup

With Auntie Ali

Apple tree in my dad & Jo's garden

BBQ in the rain

How Does Your Garden Grow?

You can find out what we got up to in Aberdeen during our Easter break here.

{Storybook Glen, Aberdeen}

I loved Storybook Glen when I was a wee girl.

I have very fond memories of days out there, and have always been keen to take my kids there for a visit.

If you haven't heard of it, Storybook Glen is a "magical world of make-believe" (their words, not mine) just outside Aberdeen with around 100 nursery rhyme and fairytale characters amidst its 28 acres of parklands.

Next door to Storybook Glen is 'The Den" which is an indoor soft play area and cafe. At the moment, visitors to "The Glen" get free access to "The Den" for a session (not sure if this is an ongoing offer or not). I'd advise that you go into "The Den" first if you're arriving at 10am for the park opening, as apparently the soft play soon gets busy (it's not that big compared to the Glasgow soft plays that I'm used to!).

We had a bite to eat at the cafe before we went into the park itself. (The food was alright, I've had better lunches as soft plays elsewhere and I thought it was a bit pricey. But it filled a hole and the kids seemed to enjoy it.). The facilities at the soft play and cafe were lovely... it's clearly new and everything was spacious and clean. My two absolutely loved the racing slides!!

Auntie Ali at the Cafe

I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed with the Storybook Glen itself though. A lot of the buildings were locked and the kids were unable to explore the houses, which I remember doing as a youngster. I think the park has loads of potential, but for me it just wasn't cutting the mustard (as a 32 year old grown up I appreciate that I'm not the target market, but I didn't enjoy the morning as much as I had thought I would). The kids however did love it (which was the point of our visit). 

My sister and I found the characters to be a bit more like drag queens than Cinderella princesses! I know, you'd think I was expecting Aberdeen's version of Disneyland... which I understand is totally unrealistic, but seriously I do think there is so much more potential to be had here. I'm assuming the lack of upgrades at the park is down to the admission prices, which I think are reasonable (given that entry to "The Den" was included) but I'd have happily paid a slightly higher entry fee for a more magical experience.

There was plenty of space for the kids to run around, and lots of chutes, swings etc for them to play on and our four hour visit at the soft play, cafe and Storybook Glen certainly tired them out! I'm not sure I was convinced with the safety of all of the climbing frames etc., so be sure to keep an eye on your little ones whilst they're playing. 

Admission Prices (correct at time of publishing):

Adult - £5.60

Child - £3.85

OAP - £4.30

If I was to go back to park, I think we'd go elsewhere for lunch (or take a picnic which is permitted on the grass area outside the park's front entrance) and I'd put together some kind of tick box scavenger hunt to make it more interactive for the little ones... maybe a prize of some sort if they can find all of the characters on my list!

Little Miss Muffet

The castle


Cinderella and her carriage


The leopard


Tellytubbies


Sitting on the fairy toadstools


The climbing frame


Humpty Dumpty!

Shrek

Old MacDonald's Farm

Pirate Ship

Have you been to Storybook Glen before - what were your thoughts?

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

{A Long Weekend in Aberdeen with the Kinder}

Last weekend we headed to Aberdeen to stay with my sister, catch up with family and do a bit of sightseeing. For all intents, we were on 'holiday' and the kids had a blast. For me, who was feeling under the weather somewhat due to my Crohn's flare, it was an opportunity to have family on hand to cook for us and to run around after the little ones! R even managed to come and join us for the Saturday antics :-)

During the day I did my best to stick a smile on my face despite my discomfort and in the evenings I rested.

Anyway, here are some of the pics and details of what we got up to... we were rather lucky with the sunny weather!!

Thursday

Ice Cream at Duthie Park with Grandad and Nanny Jo

Chocolate smiles all round!

Enjoying the big chutes!

Friday

Storybook Glen (full post on this later...)

Swimming @ the Beach Leisure Centre

Saturday

Breakfast at Prego 

Codonas Amusement Arcade

Walk along the Beach

Let me take a #selfie!