Celtic Manor Festive Afternoon Tea

Hey all!

Today's post is from a wonderful event that we were lucky enough to attend last weekend. Unfortunately M was still in the process of moving so she couldn't attend but I couldn't turn the opportunity down - afternoon tea with a festive twist at the fabulous Celtic Manor.

So now you know the order of the event, how does the menu size up to the occasion?

Check out the multiple courses below - so droolworthy!



Wooaaaah there, I certainly needed to do a fair few laps around the block to work off these treats!

Don't feel too overwhelmed though, I'll take you through each course and it will feel just like you were there with me. First of all, take a look at this table decoration, so classic and beautiful. The flowers are so perfect:







The first part of the event was a talk through how Celtic Manor make their mulled wine. They normally use a red wine such as Claret and Port and then warm through the wine with some orange and cloves, and spice the wine with cinnamon. We had a demonstration of this and were allowed to taste the first batch for this year.

So for someone who normally doesn't drink wine I tend to not have any issues with mulled wine (for some reason after 1 glass I get quite ill for a few days - and no this isn't because I'm instantly drunk and hungover!). Maybe it's the heating but it doesn't seem to affect me so I gladly tried some of this.

Not only was it lovely and warm, it was like Christmas in a cup! Soothing and spiced to perfection I would highly recommend this if you are going to Celtic Manor for absolutely anything over the festive period.

Before long Carl the Head Pastry chef arrived to tell us all about the treats on the menu.

Above shows the first basket of the day - the savoury treats. The crayfish, mango and chilli blini is probably my favourite of the four, with the Welsh rarebit with Y-Fenni cheese and tomato chutney coming in a close second. The other two were also great but my love of cheese and crayfish wins out this time!

Just as a refresher, here's the full menu. so far we have have the mulled wine and the Festive Savoury Treats. Next arrived the 'Tower of Wonder' as I will now affectionately be calling it. Take a look



So many beautiful treats!!! Where on earth do you start?!





I'm pretty set on my routine, I have to eat the sandwiches first and then proceed to the sweet things. It's just ingrained in me that sweet follows savoury, but I'm getting more open to mixing things up for multiple courses next time as there were so many sweet treats to choose from!

I'd say that the smoked salmon and lemon mayonnaise were my favourite, but the surprise favourite was the egg mayo with shallots and chives - surprisingly good and I'd take a whole plate of them next time.

After I'd polished those off it was time to start on the Hand Made Cakes and Pastries.



They are quite honestly afternoon tea perfection - small and perfectly formed but each one packing a punch. These were hands down the most exciting part of the meal and so I'll briefly talk through each one in a clockwise direction.

The mince pie has a little twist with a shortbread top and dustings of sugar, I've not eaten mince pies for a few years after overdosing on them in 2012. This was a gorgeous start to my plate and has put mince pies back onto my menu - although I'm not sure they will measure up to this one again.

Next is the Florentine slice which has a thick cake base instead of a biscuit. I really liked this as I'm a fan of almonds and the cake base was a lovely twist.

The Carrot Cake cupcake had an apricot jam centre and a huge dollop of cinnamon buttercream. This was very yummy and might have been my favourite of the cakes and pastries. Carrot cake is my favourite type of cake and in cupcake form like this it's almost possible to put it in your mouth in one bite - it's gorgeous!



So from left to right:

The waffle cone with pistachio and marzipan cream was super sweet, this was again gorgeous but for someone who doesn't eat much cream nowadays this was a little too sweet for me personally.

The Christmas pudding is actually a truffle. They make over 3500 Christmas puddings at Celtic Manor each year, containing 56L of Guinness and unknown amounts of rum. They decided this year to create a little more and add it to a white chocolate ganache and then roll it in chocolate to create the exterior seen above. I have to say this was a surprising addition to the afternoon tea, no one really expects a truffle as part of their afternoon tea do they?!
It was hard to break through the chocolate as I didn't want to ruin it but the truffle inside was really nice and tasted sweet but not overly so and tasted just like Christmas pudding. Definitely worth a try.

Last but not least was the Bara Brith with Penderyn Whiskey and marmalade, topped with marzipan and icing and a lovely Christmas tree. I could taste the whiskey and marmalade as soon as I put it into my mouth and I thought it was really good.

Super full? I was totally overwhelmed with goodies by this point - and then the scones arrived!

A basket was delivered with a Cranberry and mixed spice scone and a Vanilla and Chestnut scone, both warm with pots of jam and cream for you to help yourself.

The Vanilla and Chestnut scone was a lovely change and the chestnut was a great festive addition. However the Cranberry and spice scone was by far my favourite and tasted of Christmas as soon as I could get near it! It was so fruity and smelt so amazing.

All of this was also supplied with a wealth of freshly brewed tea, 6 varieties were available including English Breakfast tea and Peppermint which is what I ordered. I think I had 7 cups in total as it was all so refreshing.

The afternoon was absolutely amazing and it was such a privilege to be invited, here we were altogether for a group photo. It was great to meet some bloggers I have met before and heard of from twitter, and also some new faces.





So what do you think of the utterly fabulous Festive Afternoon tea???

How much do you want to tuck into it and try all of the treats?

You can book yourself in for this Festive Afternoon tea from the 1st of December until mid January, midweek will cost you £26, and Saturday and Sunday will cost £36.

L xxx

Dior Christmas Collection

Good morning lovelies!

Today we have a quick post on a lovely blogger event that we went to in Dior in Debenhams Cardiff. The lovely Anthony who we have previously met when he worked for Benefit put on a lovely product showcase for the latest collection for the festive season.

So without further ado here are some pictures!

I absolutely love Anthony, he's so cute and has the most perfect eyebrows - he's exactly the kind of person you want to do your make up! He took us through a look on a model who also has the most amazing brows, you can see the look being created in the image below.

On arrival we were given champagne and a luminous pink wristband to identify us as VIPs - this was a lovely touch!

However the most important thing is the new range:

How many beautiful products are there! The highlighters are so soft and shimmery and the two types of eyeshadow palettes are perfect for the festive season.

The range of lipsticks is also really really good - I mean look at them there is a colour for everyone. I'd personally choose Magique by default but Troublante is a lovely dark colour for winter seasons.

We both now have our eyes on the Dior Addict Fluid Shadow in Univers - such a beautiful bronzey rose gold. It's perfect for day and night and just so perfectly smooth in consistency. This is a real winner for the festive season full of parties and events.

As always we were obsessing over the lipsticks, the colour range for the full collection is also great and I've long lusted over them. One day I will own them all!

One of the products we couldn't wait to try out was the Airflash Spray Foundation. This can be used as a quick spray in the morning for a thin coating of foundation, or over your normal face of make up for an airbrush finish. When Anthony sprayed this onto the models face it was truly amazing - every tiny flaw that was still present was completely blurred out and the finish was perfection!

It felt wonderfully light on the skin and was such an easy step to finish any make up look. I picked up the Dior Skin foundation as I've bought it previously and loved it, however I am 100% sure that I will be back very soon to pick up a few more goodies.

Have you purchased anything from the Dior Festive Collection? Have you seen anything you might want to pick up?

L and M xxx

Lush Needles and Pine Shower Jelly

Good morning!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, me and M went to our friend's beautiful baby's christening this weekend and also indulged at the Celtic Manor's Festive Afternoon Tea - post coming very soon!

Today's post is from a shopping trip a few weeks ago to Lush - I picked up quite a few goodies and have been working my way through them. I was sold on Needles and Pine Shower Jelly as soon as I heard it was inspired by Game of Thrones!

Needles and Pine smells of Finnish woodlands and pine trees, courtesy of the Pine Needles and Cypress Leaf Infusion. The smell is so calming and refreshing, it's just like showering outside amongst a forest full of Christmas trees. If you've ever seen the Hunger Games and remember the window that Katniss chooses in the Capitol to look out of during the first film, that's exactly the image you get in your mind.

It also contains Cedarwood Oil and Grapefruit Oil to tone and uplift, it's generally a very refreshing experience!

 A tip that a lot of Lush employees suggested was to freeze the shower jelly, I haven't tried this yet as it has been so cold but I can imagine in the summer this would be a lovely way to start the day or cool down after a day of sunbathing.
It is a bit of a weird item to use though, a ball of jelly that really is squishy and slippery - I've ended up chasing it around my bath and shower quite a few times! It's just like being a kid again with novelty bath items but this one smells much more grown up and why shouldn't you make showering more fun?!

They have a few different Shower Jellies in store including Refresher and 93,000 Miles from their standard range. They also have a special Christmas edition of Santa's Belly, a wonderfully red and glittery shower jelly, and also Snowman which as you can guess is white and shaped like a Snowman. They're pretty good and won't be available for long so snap them up!

The standard range is £3.75 and the festive range is £3.95 each.

Have you tried the Shower Jellies? Will you be picking up one of the festive range?

There are still so many things I want to try from Lush and their seasonal ranges are so good!

L xxx

Life Lately

Hey All

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've recently moved house so I'm without internet. That will be changing on Saturday. Can't wait to have it back sorted. I've also managed to catch a cold so feeling a little under the weather. I've got so many posts I've been wanting to write but I thought I'd just do a little catch up post!!

On Monday it was one of my brothers birthday's so I popped home for the evening to see him and catch up. I also made him a cake as I'm now out of shared accommodation I have room for all of my baking stuff. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted but it wasn't too bad!

L and I have been lucky enough to head to a few events the last week so we will be sharing some bits from these next week. First up we went to see the new products Dior have released for Christmas and then off to Lush. I couldn't resist some purchasing from both places and I've definitely discovered a few amazing new bits!

As I've just moved in with C we're enjoying making our new place feel homely. We've got most bits from Ikea or TK maxx. I still need to grab a few bits. These are the pots we got for the bathroom. I love the colour and look of these and they were a TK maxx bargain. One was £3 and one was £4. An even better but was the fact they are candles so I lit the candles every night till they were gone and then cleaned the jars. Candle pots are so pretty when I couldn't find what I wanted in the bathroom section I thought I'd check there!

 

Now I'm in a new place I'm hoping I can get a pet. I just need to convince C I should get one. This little guy won me over and even convinced C we can go and look together!

After resisting the urge to dye my hair for two months I couldn't wait to get some colour back on it. I really do love my hair purple but it always disappoints me how quickly it fades out. I need to decide what to do with it next. I think I need something more low maintenance for now.

I also had a great whirlwind weekend in London catching up with some of my closest friends from back home. We opted for London so we could see our amazing friend in Mamma Mia. He's sky in it at the moment. The show is awesome and it was amazing to see him on the big stage again!

L, C and I all headed out for Halloween. He was lucky to get stuck with us for the night ;). We originally got tickets for the Splott Warehouse Halloween party but after queueing for over an hour to get in, being squished in the process then being totally disappointed when we got in (you had to then enter a massive queue to get tokens to then queue again to get drinks!!), spending the night queueing in ridiculous queues didn't appeal to us so we headed into town and ended up having an awesome night!

I'm now counting down till C gets back from his latest work trip! The house does feel strange without him there but I'm hoping to change the colour scheme in our bedroom whilst he's away to make it pretty! ha!

It's been a crazy busy few weeks and with Christmas fast approaching it's not slowing down! I'm so excited for Christmas this year though and luckily I'm off to Copenhagen for new year. If you have any travel tips let me know :).

Love M

xxx