Ten happy things – April 19

At the end of every month I look back and reflect on ten things that made me happy. Here are my Ten happy things for April!

Dinner at Aqua Shard

Earlier in the month I had dinner with a friend I’ve not seen for ages. I met Mignon years ago at a mutual friend’s Hen party and we’ve been friends ever since, although we don’t get to see each other that often. Mignon was in London for work so we decided to meet up for dinner and treated ourselves to Aqua Shard.

We had a wonderful evening with a fabulous view! The food – apart from dessert – was great. I’m really glad we got to spend some quality time together.

I was on a podcast!

Recently I wrote a post on podcasts in the charity sector and was then invited to be on one! I had a great time chatting to Kenneth and James on all things charity comms on their Do More Good podcast. My top tip was to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. You can have a listen here.

The best pork chop ever

My lovely friend Nadia had a baby recently – mentioned in last month’s Ten happy things! So one Friday in April, I met up with her and baby Ed for lunch at Casse-Croûte in Bermondsey. Luckily the weather was ok because little Ed was sleeping in his pram, which was too big to fit inside the tiny restaurant so we dined outside. It was wonderful! The food is DIVINE. I really recommend it and I’m still thinking about the pork chop!

Fancy lunch at Murano

So far my April highlights are all about food! We enjoyed a delicious lunch at Murano, Angela Hartnett’s Michelin-starred restaurant in Mayfair. My husband took me there years ago for my birthday so it wasn’t my first visit. We had the set Spring menu, which we thought was reasonably priced at £37 for three courses. We also loved the complimentary bread basket with coppa (ham) and also a couple of fabulous pea tartlets.

Easter weekend in Copenhagen

We spent the Easter weekend in beautiful Copenhagen! We’ve never been to Denmark so it was great to not only explore a new city but also a new country. Copenhagen is such a pretty city and I was also surprised by the food – everything we ate was delicious! It’s fairly small so the Easter weekend was plenty of time to see most of it. I’ll be writing a blog post on it soon but for now I’ll leave you with this picture of Nyhavn…

Running milestone

I am not a runner… but I’m determined to change this because I promised myself to never diet again and I’d like to lose some weight and get fitter. So I’ve started running at the gym. I started slowly but I’ve been increasing both my pace and time spent running as well as introducing intervals of walking and running. And it’s going brilliantly! In just three weeks I have increased my pace from 7.5 to 9.5 (when running) and increased my pace to 10.5 on my intervals. I have also downloaded the Couch to 5k app and am on week 2 although I’m probably more at week 5 level! I’m really proud of myself because running does not come naturally to me!

Exploring Castilla – La Mancha in London

I was invited along to an event by the Spanish Tourist Office, at Hispania in Bank, to discover the Spanish region of Castilla – La Mancha. To be honest, I’d never heard of it (although it’s one of Spain’s biggest regions) but it’s when the legendary Don Quixote and Manchego cheese is from. We were shown a video of the region, as well as what’s coming up in summer, and it looks amazing! The historic town of Cuenca was the one that really stood out for me. You can’t fly directly, however there are high speed trains from Madrid.

We were treated to wine and food from the region. A real treat was that the canapes were created by Michelin Starred Chef Jesús Segura from Trivio Restaurant in Cuenca!

Game of Thrones is back

So Season 8 of Game of Thrones has started and I’m so excited! Don’t worry – no spoilers here, I promise. We’d prefer to just watch the whole series when it’s available but because of so many spoilers (on social media, in the paper etc), it’s safer to just watch them on Monday nights! We actually re-watched all the series in preparation. So far I’m loving it and will be sad when it ends. Although I’ve heard there is potentially a prequel?

Cooking with Comté

I was invited along to a cooking class with Comté cheese and chef Laura Pope last week. We were served some delicious filo parcels of Comté, Prosciutto and sage whilst we watched Laura demonstrate the first dish we were going to make – Baked Comté with asparagus. We then got into teams to start cooking! After the delicious asparagus dish we made a lovely Comté, broad bean, pancetta and hazelnut salad, which is a perfect dish for summer!

We were also given some recipe cards and I’ve already made the Comté rice gratin dish twice!

Found some new podcasts

As you may know, I love a good podcast! This month I’ve discovered three new ones that I’m really enjoying – Dr Death (about a really awful surgeon), Over my dead body (a murder mystery) and The Dream (about multi-level marketing). If you have any great podcast suggestions, let me know!

So that was my April! How did your month go and what are you thankful for?