Vegan Tales from Gwendoline, Part 2

I've decided to split this day in to 2 posts, because I ate way too much for it to all fit in to one, but holidays are for eating yourself stupid after all. So... After a lovely long nights sleep we woke up and started a fire. On the instructions we were given for the cabin  it said that you could toast bread on the stove. 

Any excuse to start a fire and I'm there! I made some spelt bread at home using this recipe and it turned out okay, but after a few days you could have probably mistaken it for house building materials, so it was best toasted. In hindsight, I may have cut it a bit thick, but it made a good veggie bacon sandwich anyway, even if it did take me over an hour to toast it.

Then it was time to get showered. This is not so simple in the cabin, you're supposed to heat water in a giant kelly kettle, which I discovered the next day takes an actual age. So Emma and I, being the lazy people we are decided to heat a few kettles on the stove and transfer it to the shower. I say shower... it was actually a watering can hoisted in a tree. I was super excited about the shower, so I stood in the stream, Emma helped me hoist the watering can up, tipped it over my head and I had just about enough time to cover my body in shower gel when it ran out. My only option was a dip in the freezing cold stream... the best way to wake yourself up. We then decided to explore our surroundings and went for a ramble up the mountains, we ran around in fields, climbed trees, collected stick for fire and generally rambled around. Upon our return we had left over BBQ for lunch, with avocado on toast (Emma adds Tabasco, she is a genius) and come crisps and hummus. It was perfect for refuelling, and filling us up for a much needed nap.



I don't know if you get this after you nap, but I wake up either really grumpy or really hungry, or both. This day I woke up starving, luckily Emma and I stocked up on fruit from the market and I had my Abel and Cole veg box, so I had a large plate of fruit with some home-made vegan banana bread (recipe here) and was happy again.

After this it was time to prepare dinner, which, as mentioned was so epically long that it requires it's own post. 

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Vegan Tales from Gwendoline, Part 1

You may or may not remember that last year I went on a magical glamping adventure with vegan Emma to a wagon we dubbed 'The Creepy Death Cabin' if you don't remember you can read about it here, here and here. If you do, well then you'll remember that we had the best time ever and cooked loads and loads of yummy vegan food. This year we went to one we dubbed 'Gwendoline' (her actual name is Gwenol) in Wales and cooked even more yummy vegan food whilst also having another amazing adventure. This one was a bit more secluded so we had to plan our food wisely, we took an abundance of fresh fruit and veg and 16 avocados, which we got for £1 (yep really, and we ate every single one as well).

On the first night we wanted something relatively easy and saw that there was a BBQ at the cabin. I don't know if other people do this, or if Emma and I are a bit weird, but we sometimes like to pretend to be husband and wife. So I took on the role of the husband and started the fire (I really enjoy starting fires) while Emma whipped up some vegetable skewers and corn of the cob rubbed with chili and garlic.

I can't claim that I was the best at BBQing as the vegetables were still slighty (really) crunchy, but it was still a lovely meal, served up with some giant cous cous and a yummy salad.

After the BBQ it was pretty much pitch black and time to go to bed. We settled in to the most wondefully warm and cosy bed in our little cabin, blew out our tea lights and had a wonderful sleep, with only the sound of the stream in our heads.

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Cafe Boscanova, Bournemouth

I haven't posted in a really long time, but there is good reason for this. I've been off adventuring all across the land (England that is) The weekend before last I was in Bournemouth, then the weekend after that I was in Devon and I've just returned from the latest weekend in Wales. So I have a bit of catching up to do. So anyway, we're starting with Bournemouth. Bournemouth holds a special place in Mr Hefs and my heart, because way back, over 7 years ago we went there, before we were really a couple and had a little cuddle on the beach and a little kiss in the sea. Little did I know that 7 years later we would still be wanting to take trips to the beach together. A few weekends ago I begged him to take me back and camp in the new forest and go to Cafe Boscanova for breakfast. And as he is a super nice boyfriend, he agreed to all 3. 

So after work on Saturday, we hopped in the car, drove down to the campsite, set up camp, went to visit my friend Georgie, (this made me very happy) then got back to our tent, had a midnight snack and settled in to our blow up bed ready for the next day. After a good nights sleep we drove to Boscombe beach and parked there. It was at that point that I realised that the cafe was a 20 minute walk away, and we had already paid to park on the beach. So begrudgingly Mr Hef walked the 20 minute walk with me for breakfast. Cafe Boscanova is a super cute, kitsch cafe that serves what can only be described as incredible monster breakfasts. I had the Corn Stacks, organic polenta and sweetcorn pancakes
served on fresh greens, with cooked tomato and a poached egg, topped with chipotle mayo and chilli jam and also had a bit of extra halloumi on the side, because, why not! It was literally one of the best breakfasts I've ever had, I never wanted it to end. The flavours were amazing and it pretty much had all of the components I could ever need in a breakfast, so I was pretty happy. Mr Hef had the East End breakfast and said 'just those 2 bites were worth that stupid walk', so I guess he was pretty happy too! There are quite a few veggie and vegan options on the menu, so the next time I'm in Bournemouth (which I hope is really soon) I'll be trying something else on the menu!

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