52 New Things - Week Nineteen

So when I first put together this list of 52 New Things I was pretty excited about one of the items; Stay in a 5 star hotel. As soon as I started the project I searched to see when and where I could do this. Perhaps for the New Year, or Stuart's birthday? Maybe my birthday? Turns out 5 star hotels, particularly in the UK are really expensive! I was beginning to think that this task would be the one I'd save until last and then spend all my money on, but luckily this didn't happen. I had to go away for a week with work and my boss had booked us into a 5 star hotel! Win, I get to tick something off my list and didn't have to pay for it! We were staying in the Quanzhou C&D hotel in Fujian, China. 

One thing to note is the price of staying in a 5 star hotel in Quanzhou is a lot less than anywhere in the UK. The Quanzhou C&D was picked because it was central to where our meetings would happen, and it had a few home comforts. I arrived at the hotel, knackered after a long flight so just swept through the big, bright and clean lobby straight into the room ready to sleep for a few hours.

The room wasn't too different to 4 star hotels that I've stayed in before, but the bed was so comfy. I woke the next morning ready to check out view.

And then, more importantly check out the mini bar and tea selections. In my opinion these are the cornerstones of a good hotel room, and I wasn't disappointed. We had tea, wine and snacks.

There was a lot in the hotel that I didn't have time to check out, including the gym, pool and sauna, but everything seemed well run. There were lots of staff around to help and everyone was always smiling. Perhaps the best part of the stay was the buffet breakfast, which had a huge range of traditional Chinese and more western options too. I didn't take any photos but even after three days there I hadn't been able to try everything on offer.

Quanzhou was an interesting place to visit. I would have enjoyed more time to explore but I was there for work so free time was limited. If I ever have to visit China again with work I will definitely consider taking holiday time afterwards so I can travel around to see more of the country. Staying in a 5 star hotel was a new experience, but I don't think it was much different to 3 or 4 star places I have visited, so unless I can get a really good deal I'm not worried if I never stay in one again. But it's one more thing off the list!

52 New Things - Week Eighteen

It's no secret that in my house I don't do much cooking. I can make a pretty good chilli and I can pop a pizza in the oven, but that is pretty much all I do. It's not that I can't cook, it's that Stuart is so good at it, and more importantly he enjoys it. He cooks, and I get the great task of doing the dishes, so it's pretty fair. However this means, in all our years together, I have never ever cooked a Sunday lunch, so this was my task for the week. 

I started by deciding we should have some beef brisket as the meat. Stuart has told me many times that the most difficult thing about cooking a dinner is the timings, so I picked brisket because I could slow cook it, and just keep it warm when I focused on everything else.

It was just a case of adding some salt and pepper and popping it in the over for a couple of hours. And ta-da, it was done.

Whilst the beef was resting, I peeled and part boiled (par-boiled?) some potatoes, and prepped the veg.

So far this whole cooking thing was turning out to be pretty easy. With the potatoes part boiled I sprayed them with some oil and popped them in the oven to roast. I also made up some stuffing balls (using a packet I'm afraid) and they went in the oven too.

Finally I boiled the veg and we were almost ready. When we were buying the ingredients I was a little worried that my whole dinner would be terrible so I brought some ready made, massive Yorkshire puddings. In hindsight I definitely didn't need them, but they did make the whole meal more impressive.

Turns out, making a Sunday lunch isn't so difficult. That also means that I will probably have to make dinner more often now, but I did enjoy it, and it also means I don't have to do any dishes! A win-win situation.

52 New Things - Week Seventeen

This week was Stuart's birthday so I decided I'd push the boat out for his birthday present - and also complete something off the list of 52 New Things. For years Stuart and I have talked about going to Bath, but we'd never got round to it. Therefore I decided we would have a spa day, at the famous Thermae Bath Spa.

We arrived in Bath, and wandered around for a while before heading along the cobbled streets to the Spa.

We choose to go for the standard entry, which includes entrance to the rooftop pool, the Aroma steamrooms, and the Minerva baths. And as it was a special occasion I added on a neck and back massage for us both. We grabbed our complimentary towels and gowns and got ready to relax. The spa has a strict policy of no phones or cameras so the pictures going forward are all taken from the spa's website. We started at the top, going straight to the roof top pool to enjoy the views across Bath

The view was pretty nice, but I think it might be better in the evening with all the city lights on. It was fun to be in a warm pool whilst it was so cold outside but it was a lot busier than the stock photos show, with most people in the jacuzzi section. We relaxed here for sometime but after a while it was time to warm up in the steamrooms downstairs.

There are four different steam rooms, each with a different aromatherapy scent. When we were there, there was a frankincense room (too overpowering) rose room (too flowery) ginger and lemongrass (smelt amazing, but the room was far too hot) and finally a mint and eucalyptus room. This was the room we spent most our time in, the heat was okay, and I hoped the scent would help clear my stuffy nose. To be honest though, I'm not really a steamroom fan. I don't know how you can relax when it's so hot you're sweating from every pore, but having different scents and rooms to go in and out of made it more interesting. However, after all that steam we were ready to head to the final floor, the Minerva bath.

This was my favourite room. It wasn't as busy as the rooftop pool, it had a little jacuzzi, and a lazy river. As it wasn't as busy as the roof it meant I could really relax and switch off. The lazy river had a gentle current which took you gently round the pool and I really felt quite serene. So now the spa had done its job of helping me unwind it was time for our massage. I felt this would be the icing on the cake for a gentle and restful day. 

We started by completing a little form saying what kind of massage we needed (I put one to help me destress and unwind) and the therapist had a quick chat to see where I thought my stress was held. As I spend most days switching between sitting at a computer and moving boxes I said my shoulders might need some extra attention. And with that I started to have my first ever massage. To begin with, it was quite nice, there was some pressure, but light music and sweet smelling oils distracted me. Then the torture began. Now, as I've said, I have never had a massage before so I don't know if this is normal or not, or if the therapist decided I had so much stress she would beat it out of me, but man, did it hurt. She used her forearms to roll down my back, pushed with all her body weight, and generally made me want to ask her to stop. But as I am British and would never complain about a haircut, nevermind a massage, I just lay there and waited for her to finish. Once it was over the therapist was so nice and helpful; explaining what she did, giving me shoulder exercises to do at the computer, and generally making me forget the pain I had just endured.  She definitely knew what she was talking about, which leads me to believe massages are meant to feel like that one had. All I know is, although I will take her advice and do some shoulder rolls at my desk, I am not a massage convert. I headed out of the room to find Stuart had endured similar pain, which reinforced my idea that massages hurt!

Feeling a little more tender than we had started the day we decided it was time to head out, and get a big fat burger to recover with. Once we had taken a final selfie outside the spa of course.

Overall I thought the spa day was interesting. It's a little too expensive to do again, unless it was a special occasion, and if I do have to attend one in future, I might go for a body wrap or facial, rather than a massage!

52 New Things - Week Sixteen

It's a New Year and I still have lots left on my list of 52 New Things to do. To kick off 2016 it was a fun one - Eat at a Michelin starred restaurant. For Christmas I asked Stuart to pick something off the list and organise it for me. He brought some discount vouchers from Time Out for a four course meal at Heston Blumenthal's new Hind's Head restaurant in Bray.

It's a lovely 15th century pub, which means it has a huge fireplace, low ceilings and a lot of character. With my love of the Tudor era I felt very much at home. It is the type of place I can imagine the locals heading to warm up or relax in after a hard days work. We arrived a bit before our seating time so we had time to check out their cocktail list. I recommend the one below. Unfortunately I can't remember what it was called (I need start taking notes!) but it had something about 'Grog' in it's name.

Soon it was time for us to sit down. As we were cheap voucher users we were shuffled off to the back to enjoy our set menu. In hindsight, and checking their website we probably would have got a better deal, and obviously more choice, if we had gone and brought a main and a dessert (or starter). However our set menu was four course, and was a good starting place for someone like me, who had never been to a Michelin starred restaurant before. We began with a welcome drink (a delicious bakewell martini) and a small scotch egg. The scotch egg was good, the meat was really tasty, but the egg wasn't runny in the middle, and I couldn't really taste it with the strong meat flavour.  Then it was on to our starter. On the set menu was a crab soup and sandwich. I don't like crab, but they let me change it - for an extra £5! - to a ham terrine.

I tried a sip of the crab soup and wasn't keen. It was very crabby, which I guess is the point with a crab soup. Stuart said the sandwich was quite bland, and I imagine this is to contrast with the soup, but I was glad I had the terrine. Saying that, the terrine was okay, but it didn't blow me away. To be honest, I'm not a fan of terrine anyway, I prefer my meat hot, but for me it was better than crab. I'm still a bit pissed I had to pay extra for diverting from the set menu. I thought most set menus would give you at least two options to pick from, but this wasn't the case at the Hind's Head. Therefore if you like choice or even if you're a vegetarian I definitely wouldn't recommend the set menu! Next up was our main, more meat with a chicken, ham and leek pie.

This was definitely my favourite dish. The mash potato was more like puréed potato but I hate lumpy potato so this was perfect for me. The pie was very nicely flavoured, and I really enjoyed the wholegain mustard cream (basically a tasty gravy). Stuart was disappointed that the pastry was only over the top, not down the sides. In his mind it's not a proper pie if you only use pastry over the top. I agree and think that having a proper pie (with more pastry) would have been better as it would have soaked up the flavour more. By the end of the dish I felt like there was a salty after-taste, but it was still best of all the courses we tried. To be honest, so far none of the dishes had blown us away. Perhaps we were expecting too much, but they were all just okay. Dessert however had to be the dish to win us over, which was a treacle tart ice-cream with lemon and yoghurt. 

I wish I could say something nice about it, but Stuart put it best when he said 'never, in my life have I been so disappointed in a dessert'. It wasn't terrible, we both finished them but it was just a bit unsatisfying. Stuart described it as a rusk biscuit with a lump of sour ice-cream on top, which I feel is a bit harsh, but it wasn't a dessert I'd recommend. Overall it was an interesting experience. I wouldn't recommend the set menu, but I am tempted to head back one day to try a different main, as some of the dishes other people had looked really good. Also as it was dark and rainy when we arrived we didn't get to explore the area, if one day I'm feeling a but flush with cash I might consider heading to Bray, wandering around the town, when it's sunny and bright, and then popping into The Hind's Head to give it another go. But for now - Thank you for my Christmas present Stuart, the food may not have been to my taste but the company definitely was!