Botanist, belgian and a garden buffet

I hate to sound like a grandma, but as I get older, I get more and more sick of nights out in town, being surrounded by 17 year olds on fake ID and wondering how I ever drank the baa bar shots that taste like warm blackcurrant squash. So many bars and clubs in town are filled with teenagers and even though it's only a few years, for some reason it makes all the difference. So me and Sophia decided to give a west bridgford night out a try, in the hopes it was a little more sophisticated. I thought trousers and heels were a better bet than going too dressy so I wore black culottes, black strappy bralet and new yellow bodysuit from boohoo. I added mule heels, gucci bag and mustard yellow eyeshadow (of course). So after a few drinks at Sophia's, we headed to the Botanist and I couldn't believe how busy it was! I've been to the Botanist a few times before but to the Sheffield and Birmingham branches; I've actually only been to the Nottingham one once and it was for dinner on a week night. We had a couple of drinks there (including the signature botanist cocktail) before deciding to give somewhere else a try. We went to Copper for a drink but quickly headed back to the Botanist, which was much busier and had live music too. It was a really fun night and so nice to do something different! Although not something I'll be doing on the regular because the drinks were like £8 - way more expensive than in town! Probably explains the sophistication...

Then on saturday night, we finally went out as a family to celebrate my grandmas birthday (which was actually 6 months ago now). Me and her had been to Belgo before and wanted to take the others so that's where we booked. I wore white pirate shirt (my own association, not the literal name of it), khaki mini skirt with white and red stripes, new white strappy mule heels from simmi shoes, and new gucci-dupe queen bee bag. I got this juvia's place palette for my birthday and am so obsessed with it. The eyeshadows are way bigger than any others I've seen and they're a really nice quality - super pigmented. I decided to do an eyeshadow look using only that palette and given it's quite a statement one (not a neutral or a brown in sight), I went for quite a statement look. I blended Mmanwu through my crease and under my eyes and then added Izafa to the outer parts of both. I packed Aba onto my lid on the inner and outer parts and then pressed Odogwu on to the very centre of my lid. At the restaurant, I ordered an elderflower cooler (so good) and then went for the fillet steak with peppercorn sauce and oh my god it was cooked perfectly. It was on par with the best steak I've ever had which was in Tenerife last year.The real highlight of the meal though was a true belgian classic; a waffle. Done in a bubble iron to create what is essentially a load of donut holes all joined together, I got mine with honeycomb ice cream, strawberry ice cream, white chocolate sauce and speculoos crumble. Each of us had one (with a variety of flavours and toppings) and went home happy and very very full.

But the next day, the family eating fest was far from over as we headed to my uncles house for a garden buffet. Now I'm a girl who loves to photograph her food almost as much as I love to eat it and so a true testament to how cute their dog Sally is, is that I completely forgot to photograph the food! It was all lovely though, especially the pulled pork sausage rolls and homemade amaretto and white chocolate trifle. And like the true brits that we are, when it started raining we simply huddled closer under his state-of-the-art parasol and waited for it to pass. Go inside? Never.