Photo diary: Cornish holidays

And whoosh, our week in Cornwall whizzed by in a flash... you count weeks and days until the holiday arrives, and then it's all done and it's time to go home...

I hope we can still go all together to Cornwall for another couple of years, but then who knows. Children grow up, have their own lives to live and their own plans and ideas.

We've been staying for holidays in Perranuthnoe every summer since Eddie turned one year old. That year my Mum visited with us. We stayed in a small cramped cottage, and I have fond memories of Eddie seeing the sea for the very first time. He wasn't impressed. 

Sasha loves Cornwall. We have a social story (photos, symbols and short text) about going to Cornwall, which he enjoys to read on a daily basis. He is mesmerised by the sea. The waves tell hims stories, and he waves his own arms as a conductor to the sea orchestra.

For Saturday evening we booked a table at the Godolphin Arms in Marazion, just opposite St Michael's Mount. The view is amazing, and the food was decent.

We ordered drinks (I had half a pint of the local ale called Tribute, as it made me think of Hunger Games and the tributes), and were admiring the view. There was a light breeze from the open window.

Whenever I am going to look at this tranquil image, I will remember what happened next during our dinner. My husband coughed and startled Sash, who got scared and flew into one of his anxiety attacks, hitting himself on the head, shouting and crying.

We were sitting in a kind of a side room, with just one long table for our company, and nobody directly next to us. I was very upset that such a lovely evening turned ugly so fast, and even more upset on Sasha's behalf as he was genuinely distressed.

Thankfully, the anxiety attack didn't last more than ten minutes, but we hastened to finish the meal and leave the place. And then my darling boy was calm and smiling, as if nothing has happened.

Our days in Cornwall fall under the same routine. In the first half of the day we go to the sandy beach in the village for surfing, running, football etc. 

In the evening we often take a scenic walk along the coast towards Marazion and St Michael's Mount towards the rocky beach.

I'm sure it's not called the rocky beach, but that's what we call it. It's a beautiful walk with the views over the Mount's Bay. It might be a bit repetetive, but the familiarity is part of Sasha's equilibrium, he doesn't easily take to changes, and we do love this walk. 

Sometimes we stop by in the local church of St Michael and St Piran. This is the image of St Piran above the entrance door inside the church.

I can never get bored of looking at St Michael's Mount.

A couple of years ago I read a book about the raid on Penzance by the Barbary pirates in 1640, when 60 locals including women and children were taken captive during the church service and taken as Christian slaves to Algiers. The pirates sailed past St Michael's Mount, but deemed it too much trouble to attack and instead went into town for an easy prey.

Eddie had a blast, surfing, laughing with his friend P, who stayed with us.

For years now, ever since Eddie was three years old, he and I have been doing an "obligatory" jumping on the beach photo. One of us is getting taller and more handsome, another one is getting shorter and chunkier, but at least I can still jump. 

I'm glad that my boy doesn't mind taking part in something silly like that and doesn't seem to be embarrassed by his mother.

On Friday we packed our bags and said Good bye to our cottage and Perranuthnoe. For the last several years we went to Newlyn to have brunch before a long journey back home. 

This time we decided to visit Padstow instead. The town was just one seething mass of tourists. We did manage to get a table at the Greens of Padstow, with the lovely views over the estuary. It was stifling hot to sit outside, however, the food was tasty.

I didn't want anything too heavy, and opted for a salad of burrata and tomatoes. 

This photo was taken on the last evening of our holiday - the sunset over the Mount's Bay. Eddie said the sun looked like something out of Star Wars.

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Photo diary: week 12 (project 365)

Yet another week has whizzed past. On Sunday we still had plenty of snow for us to worry if the schools would be open the next day, and whether Sasha's respite stay was going to happen. He has to travel for an hour by car to the respite centre, and if the roads were unpassable, he would have had to stay at home, and he was very eager to go. Every time I mention the place where he stays he gestures that he wants to go.
I've been postponing a post on Oreos for BritMums, but the deadline was looming the next day. We love Oreos, we truly do, and buy them regularly, but I just couldn't feign much enthusiasm to do a cookie quest around the house. Eddie wasn't keen either.

On Monday the snow was still on the ground, but roads were clear enough and schools were open in town. Thankfully, Sasha was able to travel to his favourite respite home to stay overnight, and my husband and I took Eddie out to Pizza Express. This was his first visit there.
He loved the dough balls with garlic butter and the ice cream with chocolate sauce and fresh strawberries the best, but deemed their pizza not as good as Domino's (a declaration which I completely disagree with).

This was my pizza, with spinach and egg. The crust was just as I like it, thin and crispy.

One of the houses in our street is a home to at least a dozen of white doves. They have several nests in the creeper branches over the house. The house looks so eerie, and we call it the ghost house.
It would make a good setting for an episode of Goosebumps.

The new Moon on Wednesday: I just liked the juxtaposition of the old house's chimney with the modern aerial and the eternal presence of the Moon.

On Thursday we had to get up very early, as Eddie's class travelled to Bath to visit the Roman Baths.
They study ancient Rome this term, and this was part of the programme. The tour itself was splendid, and I am going to do a separate post about it.
The trip by coach was a big trial. It was about 2 hours each way, and so many kids were sick. The poor heroic teachers were running around with sick bags and cleaning up.

Eddie loved dressing up in Roman toga.

I am drawn to this house with a red post/letter box in Woodgreen square. I think I have a red post box envy. I wish we had one in our house.

Today we walked through the fields, past the old woolen blanket factory buildings with a huge chimney. The road is new and shiny as it has just been redone this week.

The Alchemist, Oxford: visuals over substance

- What was the best part of dinner out?
- The smoke...

I don't often go out for dinner, but this week I'm celebrating my big fat birthday, and I've been looking for ideas online. I fancied trying something new and different, and having read Mary's from Over40AndMumtoOne blog review of The Alchemist, I thought it could be one of the possible options.
We were planning to go out with our 7-year-old son, when our elder son was staying overnight in the respite home. I showed Eddie the post with the photos and video and he was very enthusiastic about trying a cocktail for kids.

The Alchemist is situated on the roof floor of the newly rebuilt West Gate centre. The people behind the concept of The Alchemist proclaim they "dispense a bewitching blend of molecular mixology, innovative dining and a dash of our trademark theatrical presentation".
Bold and brave promises. But do they deliver?

We booked a table online for 6.15pm, as this was the only available option for an earlier dinner. We didn't want to eat out late, as it was a school night, and we still had to travel from Oxford.
By the time we arrived - the bus we planned to take never came, and the one which came later was very slow - we had max 5 minutes before our booked time, so we had no time to explore anything in West Gate centre.

We still had to wait a little bit before our table was ready. We looked at the snow storm against the dark sky, and were glad to be inside.

First impressions of The Alchemist? Too dark and too loud. I don't like having dinner, when you can hardly hear your friends over a din of music.
It was packed full, and looks like a busy place. If you are thinking of visiting it, I'd recommend booking in advance.

The design of menus was stylish, clever and quirky. The drinks menu is styled as the Mendeleev's periodic table.
There were some classic cocktails like Mojito, Daiquiri or Screwball, and there were cocktails with unconventional names like Barrel Aged Corpse Reviver, Bubblebath or Shrub a Dub Dub.

I have chosen their much-hyped Lightbulb Moment, which is a combination of Tanqueray gin, Pimms, ginger beer, raspberry, lemon and mint.

My husband opted for Lady Marmalade - a mix of Chase marmalade vodka, Belsazar Vermouth, bergamot, lemon, orange and grapefruit.

The presentation of cocktails was very impressive: they were served in chemical lab-style glassware (or in a lighbulb-shaped glass in my case), with dry ice.

Once you pour the drinks over ice, it looks pretty spectacular, with the smoke wafting over the table.

Regarding the taste, I'm on the fence. My cocktail tasted mostly of ginger beer, which at £9 felt like a rather pricey ginger beer, albeit a fortified one. It was OK, but nothing special.
The same could be said about all our cocktails: it was a case of visuals over substance.

Our friends had a drink called Mad Hatters Tea, it was a very strange concoction of vodka, Cointreau, elderflower, fresh fruit and veg (there was a sliced passion fruit, strawberry, cucumber) in a big glassware, set over fire. It looked cool, but there was not much of it, once all the smoke was gone.
As a piece of showmanship it was top marks.

Eddie was pleased with his cocktail for children, called Bubblygum (£4.85). He felt like a young Harry Potter doing his magic lesson, pouring drink over ice.
You cannot deny the theatrical aspect, it is well done. It's an entertainment for both grown-ups and children alike.

I think this might be the place to go for cocktails, when you want to impress someone you're dating.

The food was average. Again, nice presentation, but rather mediocre cooking skills.
For a starter I had vegetable gyozas with sweet chilli sauce. Other starters included Thai salmon fish cakes and Feta & pesto filo rolls.

Children can choose either a Bento box with fish fingers, mini burgers or chicken, fries, peas or beans and crudites or wraps.
Our starters were served, but poor Eddie was sitting without any food. I offered him gyozas, he had a bite but didn't like it. Why did they think it was a good idea to serve grown-ups first and then for a child to wait for his meal until the adults had mains?

I have chosen a Tandoori Seabass fillet with vegetables. Now, seabass is a tasty fish on its own, it does not need much of added flavours. The spices were a total overkill. All I could taste was spice, not fish.

Beetroot risotto looked not very appetising.

Eddie ate most of his Bento box. He loved the presentation, but said my burgers were better.

We could not fault the wine we had with our dinner - Rioja Blanco was beautiful.

The list of desserts is short: Pornstar posset with prosecco foam, Cinnamon waffles with vanilla ice cream, Baked lemon cheesecake, Chocolate fudge cake, Chocolate brownie and Sticky toffee pudding, all with vanilla ice cream.

I didn't fancy anything stodgy and asked for a bit of ice cream, which Eddie was happy to help me with.

Children's menu dessert choice was between a brownie and a lolly (those which you can buy a dozen for a pound in a Poundland shop).

I imagine in summer it is a great place to sit outside on the veranda and watch the town lights from above.
It was a fun experience, we loved meeting our friends and sampling novelty cocktails, but I don't think I would want to dine there again.
If you are curious about the total sum, we paid just over £158 (that's for 4 adults and a child).

When we were leaving, I asked Eddie, what was the best part of eating out at The Alchemist. He replied: the smoke. Out of the mouths of the babes...

Birthday lunch at Frankie & Benny's

To celebrate Federico's birthday today, we decided to go out for lunch to Frankie & Benny's in Marriotts Walk. We visit it a couple of times a year.
The menu is a typical American-Italian food, quite heavy on meat, with a big choice of burgers, pasta and pizzas. Most of the things come with fries.
There are some vegetarian dishes on the menu, which I have tried in the past, but they were a bit boring. I don't think salads are their forte.

Going out with Sash is always tricky. If it's too noisy, he might get stressed and want to leave at once, but we decided we'd still go out together, as we wanted to celebrate Fede's birthday as a family.
Thankfully, Sash was in a good mood.

At some point, there was a young child running around and screeching at the top of her voice, and I braced myself, thinking Sash would get anxious, but the child was soon removed somewhere else to annoy the other people.

When the time came to order, first they didn't have prosecco, then champagne was only available as a bottle (at £35+), which we didn't want.
Steak was all gone, except the biggest size.
In the end we ordered a pina colada cocktail, a glass of rose for me, pepsi and blackcurrant drinks for kids.

Bruschetta looked pretty, but I'd prefer it more toasted.

For me pasta is not a celebratory meal at all, but our birthday boy opted for a plate of carbonara.

A Triple Cheese Burger is as full of calories as it sounds. It has mozzarella sticks inside and lots of mustard, and comes with fries. I should go on a diet tomorrow, shouldn't I?! And no dinner tonight.

Eddie wanted burger slides from children's menu, with fries and peas.

Desserts' list was full of temptations. My guys fancied milkshakes with all sorts of toppings, like cookies, waffles and donuts, but I was wondering if the stodgy bits get soggy in milk.
Have you ever tried those Freakshakes and would you recommend them?

In the end we picked a Can't Decider dessert, which is a perfect option for those who cannot make up their minds. You get four small slices of different cakes - a lemon tart, a pecan pie, a chocolate fudge cake and an Oreo cheesecake, and a mini bowl of vanilla ice cream.

Children's meal deal includes a dessert. Eddie liked the sound of fruit skewers with a chocolate dip.

He said he wished there were more strawberries rather than apples.

We enjoyed our meal together, which is even more precious because Sasha was with us and appeared to be happy and smiley. Simple things like that - eating out together - are often fraught with stress for families with special needs children, so we appreciate these times even more when everything goes without any trouble.

Eddie loves going to Frankie & Benny's, and we had a good laugh together, taking selfies and telling jokes.
The bill was £60+ for four of us.
Our birthday boy got three balloons to take home.
On the way home I was singing aloud "Ding dong merrily on high... Hosanna in excelsis" which left Eddie in stitches, though he kept looking back if anyone could hear us. And I only had one glass of rose, honestly.