Ok, so it wasn’t an official “minimoon” but I’m definitely taking it as one. Recently, I attended Britmums Live where I took part in a few competitions, one of those being with the lovely Boots – and believe it or not, I won! This was one of my pictures from the collage where I’m pictured with the lovely Emma from Our Fairytale Adventure;
Unbeknownst to me I had won a night away in a luxury hotel and a hamper of Soltan goodies. Woohoo! (You can read more about Boots Soltan in my Britmums Live post!)Jamie and I managed to have two nights away in York, staying at The Grand Hotel – Yorkshire’s only 5 star hotel, very swish indeed. Nanny and Pop had kindly agreed to look after Toby and Ted while we went on our own and we had such an amazing time.
The best thing about having had some time away is that you don’t realise how much you needed it, until you’ve had it. It’s so nice to spend that time talking to each other, reconnecting on an adult level and just spending time with each other without the distraction of children.
The first thing we did was stop at the designer outlet in York to do a little bit of shopping. We headed straight for the food hall and ended up having a really lovely Pizza Express lunch, followed by plenty of walking around the shops – my personal favourite being the Lindt store (yum yum!) and then we even stopped to have a super amazing Fro Yo.
Once we were all shopped out we headed for the hotel to check in, settle in and work out what we were going to do. I felt like a little bit of a celebrity with the valet parking and our luggage being taken to our room for us. We ended up exploring our room, which was massive, and do you know what we decided to do? Nothing. We were just chilling out enjoying the quiet before we headed out for a meal that evening; we’d been recommended a little restaurant called Delrio’s.
I’ve got to be honest, it didn’t look like much from the outside but the food was beautiful. It’s a little family run Italian and even though the presentation wasn’t amazing, it tasted amazing and that’s all that matters to me with food. We even walked from The Grand to the restaurant along the wall – which I hear is very famous! It’s a really lovely walk and the weather was beautiful!
Inside the hotel, Boots had left me a parcel which was full of Boots Soltan goodies, a sun hat, a selfie stick, some yummy bodywash and a beach towel and bag, which actually came in really handy as my little bag wasn’t quite as big as I’d hoped! Thank you Boots Soltan!
We then headed back to the hotel and got into our huge bed, which made me realise that if we ever buy a new bed, I want one that big!
After having a rather lovely lay in until 8.30am we got up, showered and headed down for breakfast in The Grand. We didn’t have anything too fancy, just a little continental bite, but it was rather delicious. Although I would’ve preferred salted butter to put on my toast.
We then headed straight toward York Minster where we spent a good couple of hours looking around and we even braved the million and one steps (that’s what it felt like anyway!) to the top of one of the towers. If you’re ever going to do it, the views are absolutely amazing, but do not go first like we did! You literally can’t stop moving because there are people behind you and there’s no room to overtake. Breathless doesn’t quite do it any justice. Secondly, there were pigeons loitering in the bottom of one of the stairwells which ended up flying over my head. I panicked obviously, even after Jamie had specifically said ‘Jade, don’t panic. But…”
After looking at the views we came back down and went to the undercrofts where there were lots of artefacts and ruins which were really cool to look at. Jamie’s favourite bit was probably the timeline that ran the whole course and if we went back I’d definitely take more time reading over that, but I was just too interested in all the coins, jewellery and bones they’d collected up.
After we’d finished in the Minster we headed for the shops and did yet more shopping. It was more a case of just exploring and walking around holding hands and seeing what York had to offer, but we ended up buying a few bits along the way. We stopped for a quick coffee and hot chocolate as it had started to rain a little, but it soon passed and we were back on track. After this we headed towards the York Castle museum but decided to save that for another day as time was getting on and we really wanted to rest our feet before we ate out at Filmore and Union in the evening.
Other stuff we did included visiting the big lookout on the hill, which Jamie jokingly said that’s the hill that the Grand Old Duke of York marched his 10,000 men up and down in the nursery rhyme. I believed him, obviously. We also managed to visit The Shambles and came across the Natures Purest store which was absolutely beautiful and made me want another baby pronto, just so I could have all of the things!
Our meal at Filmore and Union was so lovely we decided to head back the very next day to have breakfast there before we left! It was so filling and seriously yummy.
I can’t recommend York enough, if you’re based centrally enough literally everything is within walking distance. We didn’t have to use any public transport to get about whatsoever! And we had an absolutely amazing time together!