Last time I visited the Netherlands our one and only day out was to an animal sanctuary that had a cafe that did very tasty pancakes. We decided to visit it again on this trip, especially since last time we went there were no monkeys out in the monkey area.

As you can see from these photos, this time the monkeys were out and about! Last time we went on a Wednesday and didn't realise at the time that that was the cleaning day for the whole sanctuary, so we only saw a few goats and a pig. This time the monkeys were out, along with sheep and pigs, and a swan and ducks in the river.

My boyfriend emailed me last night to tell me he wasn't sure what he'd prefer, a photo of me being terrorised by monkeys, or a photo of me enjoying my holiday. You can't get close enough to be terrorised by the monkeys (thankfully!!) so I went with looking vaguely worried as close to the fence as you can get.

While this may not look like a tasty pancake, I can assure you it was actually very delicious. I had a cheese and bacon one, while Eva had a cheese one and then an apple one. I had learned from previous experience that bacon and cheese was plenty to fill me up, so didn't bother with a dessert pancake. I also won't need any dinner after this, just some Pringles and a bit of toast to fill in the gaps.

Have a nice evening everyone!

Pancake Day!

Today is Pancake Day! More traditionally known as Shrove Tuesday, the day before the start of Lent.

Pancakes were the way to use up "rich" foods, during Lent worshippers were expected to eat plainer foods. Along with giving up eggs and milk they also stopped eating certain meats and sweets, so there were plenty of things to wrap up in the pancake!

My favourite pancakes are French crepes, and galettes for the savoury option. Whenever I have a proper French crepe I always find it's so warm that the sugar has melted slightly, closer to syrup than sugar, and seriously delicious.

This evening I'm going to be making my own pancakes, although I never make them as nice as the French. I also need to remember to halve the recipe as I'll only be cooking them for myself and I've learned in the past that I cannot eat 12 large pancakes on my own, not without feeling a bit ill afterwards XD

I would put up my recipe but it's the standard one you can get off the BBC website. So instead have an adorable pancake plushie!

Pancake Kawaii Plushie by TheCraftyButtonUK

Have a lovely Pancake Day everyone!

Kew Fete

Yesterday was an event I’ve been looking forward to for weeks! The Kew Fete. I’m a big fan of fairs and fetes, most of them are focused on the local community so it’s quite interesting to see which small businesses are around in your area that you may not have realised existed!

Unfortunately it rained in the morning while I was there, but this is England and it’s summer so I pretty much expected it.

Along with stalls hosted by both businesses and charities there were also some traditional fairground rides!

 Tibidabo Carousel by bomobob

I love carousels, but I’m 25 years old and I think it would have looked very odd if I had gone on it all on my own. And sadly my family were in Cornwall this week so I couldn’t persuade them to visit me and go to the fair as well (I could have dragged my sisters on easily).

Since I couldn’t splurge my money on rides I decided to fill up my stomach instead!

 Crepe Divine by LipSmackinCreations

One thing I’ve been craving recently is crepes, French pancakes. Not quite like the one above (which also looks delicious) but simply filled with sugar. You can imagine my delight when I found a stall making them fresh!

I also had a delicious homemade burger from the stand run by “The Naked Turtle” (and ended up walking down to Richmond feeling like I might explode if I ate much else).

 Candy Floss Lip Balm by morganstreet

And then finally I bought a bag of candy floss, which I am currently eating (well, letting it melt on my tongue) as I write this.

Overall I had a lovely day. Obviously the appearance of sunshine in the morning would have been good but frankly I was walking around on my own so even that wouldn’t have kept me out much longer. Everyone there was very friendly, while I was waiting for my crepe to be made (by the company Opera Ice Cream) I had a nice chat with the owner’s wife, who’s an opera singer, and a gentleman passing by told me he’d had a crepe last year and it had been “brilliant”. And he was right, it was seriously delicious, if you ever see this stall at a fete, fair or market around London I really can’t recommend them highly enough!

I’m now desperately Googling to find more similar events in London XD

Have a nice day!