I had a really healthy and fun start to the day.  Harvey and I met Annette for a walk in the woods over the road.  Last time we walked my route and today we chose Annette’s.

I had no idea the woods went so far!  Or took us past so many pretty places.

It was lovely outside today.  It was sunny and bright with clear blue skies.  Just glorious and with such a lovely walking companion I could have kept going all morning.

After the walk we went back to Annette’s and she made us a delicious rhubarb smoothie.

It was so refreshing.  I really like the taste of rhubarb and this was my first of the year.  I will definitely try making this smoothie and then I will share the recipe with you.  We sat in Annette’s beautiful garden, enjoying the sunshine.  What a wonderful start to the day – a walk, lovely company and then a healthy smoothie.  Perfect 🙂

When I got home I rushed around preparing lunch because my sister Abi and her family were coming.  On the menu today was:

Chicken drumsticks for the younger kids which I coated in a mixture of tomato ketchup and mango chutney (a 50/50 mix), left to marinate and then baked at about 190 ° C for 40 minutes.

We had chicken too which I marinated in oil, lemon juice, garlic and fresh thyme.  Served with an orange and brown tomato salad, served undressed with a light sprinkling of salt and fresh oregano,

purple potato salad

and roasted vegetables.

Oh yes, and Prosecco.  I lurve Prosecco in the sunshine.

I really love easy lazy family days in the sunshine too.

Drinking, chatting, catching up.

As it is Easter weekend we did a sweet hunt in the garden.  Harvey can’t eat dairy so we hunted for sweets instead of chocolate eggs.

Result!

Just showing off my wonderful chard and spinach.  We didn’t eat any today but I admired it  🙂

And so to lunch.

Lunch was colourful and tasty.

If I had just eaten that one plateful I could have been proud of myself.  I did quite well before lunch and only had about 3 crisps with humous and several olives.  Oh, and some of Harvey’s sweets.  But then I sat and ate more potato salad and sausages.  Too many sausages.

Then it was dessert time.

I didn’t just have berries though.  Lara made some wonderful chocolate cakes using the recipe from The Telegraph for Chocolate Easter Flower Cakes.

They were rich and moist and very chocolatey and moreish.

We had these with meringue, berries and berry cream, which is whipped cream, in to which I stirred a mixed berry coulis.  I buy bags of frozen mixed berries and look for the ones with blackcurrants in as I love the taste of blackcurrants.  I heated them in a saucepan with 1/2 tbsp icing sugar and mashed them lightly.  When they were cool I stirred them in to the whipped cream.

I had more than one portion of meringue and berry cream.  Eventually we had gorged enough so we waddled our full bellies in to the sitting room and sprawled on the sofa.  Astonishingly, a few hours later we managed some cheese and biscuits.  To be honest I hardly had any but I did have some of the cheese I had bought yesterday in the market.

Well, I definitely over ate today and by the evening I was still too full and too tired to go to Suzanne’s drinks party which was a shame.  But I am beached on the sofa and likely to be here for quite some time.

Happy Easter.