The White Cross Pub

September 23, 2017 Anca Leave a comment

Yesterday my husband and I went to Lancaster and we stopped for coffee at The White Cross Pub. The pub is near the canal, more info on their website. It is in an 130 years old cotton mill.

The name of the pub comes from the original stone white cross, that was just 200 meters away. It was a place were people travelling would stop and give thanks. It’s possible they would stop for food and drinks in the area too.

Storey’s Mill was finished in 1880. The building where the pub is now, used to be a storage place for raw materials. In the mill oil cloth and linoleum was made. In 1987 the area was transformed from a former industrial boundary to a lovely place with pub and offices, a short walk from the city centre.
The pub is independent and, on their website, they mention that they use local produce as much as possible. We will go there for a meal soon, as I really loved the feel of the pub.

A post shared by Luke Meeks (@whitecrosspublancaster) on Jul 8, 2017 at 2:14pm PDT

It was raining, so I didn’t get any pictures from outside. I looked on their Instagram account and I saw this one. The pub is really lovely.

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Celebrations, Life

My boy turns 8: 8 things you didn’t know about him

September 21, 2017 Anca 3 Comments

Today is Festus’s birthday. As my boy turns 8, I though I would share 8 things you didn’t know about him.

1. He is ambidextrous.
You might think how to tell if a dog is right or left handed. There are a few tests, like recording which paw the dog uses to go down the stairs. You have to record at least 30-40 times to make it clear. Festus uses both in almost equal measures.
There are a few studies about this. Basically, the dogs are mostly right-pawed or left-pawed and only a small percentage are ambidextrous. I think this makes him a bit more special, while he is incredibly special for us.

2. He hates parsley.
Because he loves mint so much, I though I should try to see if he likes parsley too. He spit it out immediately, it was quite funny.

3. He loves mint.
As a pup, he got mint tea instead of water from his breeder. When we got him at 3 months old, I continued to give him mint tea for another 6 months. Even now, at 8, he still loves mint. He is not eager to have mint tea as he did as a pup, but he will eat mint leaves. See picture below.

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Style

Vitamin E Moisture Cream

September 19, 2017 Anca Leave a comment

Today I’m going to talk about the Vitamin E Moisture Cream by The Body Shop. I saw recently that The Body Shop was bought in June by Natura from L’Oreal. I was delighted to see this. I had reservations promoting products under the L’Oreal umbrella as they test on animals in order to be able to sell in China. Specifically, The Body Shop products aren’t sold in China and are cruelty-free. This means that I would have used them if gifted, but I wouldn’t buy them because of L’Oreal. Now everything changed and I can buy The Body Shop products without a second though. Natura is a cruelty-free brand from Brazil. They aren’t selling in China and they stopped animal testing in 2001, according to their website.

I mentioned it briefly last month when I reviewed their Peppermint Intensive Cooling Foot Rescue cream. Now almost 2 months had passed since I started using it and I’m very happy with it.

Vitamin E Moisture Cream can be used for day or night time. I’ve used it mainly for night time as I have another day face cream. The texture of the Vitamin E is very nice, not oily at all and lightweight. The cream absorbs easily and it moisturizes the skin.
The colour of the cream is nice too and the smell is not too powerful. I use a bit more than I used before with other creams that were more oily. Even so, a 50ml cream is enough for 3 months for me, used once a day, in the evenings. I think it’s great value for money.

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England, Travel

Lion Salt Works

September 18, 2017 Anca 1 Comment

Lion Salt Works is a museum, voted the UK’s Best Heritage Project, and it can be found in Cheshire.

We’ve visited it as part of Heritage Open Days (it was free) and, unfortunately, we booked a volunteer led tour. It was the most boring thing I’ve been to. In a room, she stopped and said “have a look around, as we’ll spend 5 minutes here”. Lion Salt Works is a fascinating museum though and I would recommend visiting it. Maybe other tours are more engaging, but for us was a waste of time in a busy day.

The Lion Salt Works is a restored historic open-pan salt making site. Three types of salt were produced there, from table salt to salt used for agricultural purposes.

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Home, My food

What’s cooking

September 16, 2017 Anca 5 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve made an What’s Cooking roundup. I talked in July about my weekly shopping, but I didn’t share any recipes. So, today I’m going to talk about the last things I’ve cooked. This week I’ve been invited to the Chef Challenge at Shoryu Ramen in Manchester and I made my own Japanese bun. It was so exciting that I plan to get a steamer and make my own buns.

Besides the recipes with pictures, I baked bread a few times, I’ve made pizza using the same dough as the one for the Thick Danish Pancakes and it was delicious. I made basic houmous too, lots of smoothies. A few days ago I’ve made a cottage pie with a huge marrow (it weighted 1.6 kg), I’ve used a can of baked beans and lots of spices, on top I put mash potatoes. It was almost vegan, but I’ve added leftover cream to the potatoes (so I don’t waste the unused cream). Next time I’m making it vegan.

From top left: Vegan Ramen, Carrot houmous, Orange and Strawberries Cake, Upsidedown Pear Cake with Port, Deviled Eggs and Danish Thick Pancakes.

I love Ramen, but I’m not making it as often as I want. This week I had it twice though. I tried carrot houmous after seeing the idea in a TV show with Michel Roux Jr. called Hidden Restaurants. The cake was made for a special occassion and this time I’ve used a whole orange, boiled. The cake turned out delicious. So did the Pear cake. The last two recipes are for stuffed eggs, something both my husband and I enjoy a lot and it reminds us of our childhood, and danish pancakes. I think everybody should try those pancakes, they are so different to make, the recipe is quite unique.

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England, Travel

St. Mary’s Church Weaverham

September 13, 2017 Anca Leave a comment

I’ve visited St. Mary’s Church Weaverham on Heritage Open Days last week. It was a guided tour and I enjoyed it a lot, as the guide told us so many interesting facts about the church. In Weaverham people have worshipped in a church on the spot where is St. Mary’s Church for over 1,000 years.

The site is mentioned in Domesday survey, 1086. Before that, it was a Saxon church that stood there until 1277. In its place a new church was built from the 13th to the 14th century. The new church was long and narrow. The Tower that we can see today, the one where we saw the bells (more about this later in the post), is from that church. In the 16th century, during the reign of Elizabeth I, the church was extended to, approximately, the size that is today. In 2000 an addition was made to the church to include facilities.

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Life, Thoughts

Questions about the past and the future

September 11, 2017 Anca 7 Comments

In this post I’m going to talk about Questions about the past and the future. This is part of the 365 Provoking questions I’m doing this year. I’ve started in February with 28 Provoking Questions and I might finish it by the end of the year. I looked through the remaining questions and I picked 30 about the past and 20 about the future. As they are so many in total, I’m going to keep the answers short.

30 Questions about the past

1. When you look back over the past month, what single moment stands out?
I’ve started volunteering at a local stately home, so that is pretty special.

2. What is your happiest memory?
There are so many that it’s hard to pick the one that is the happiest. When I’ve entered high school (I had to take a difficult exam to get in), when I was admitted to University (again, difficult exam-interview), when I’ve got married, when we got Festus, when we bought our home.

3. What is your saddest memory?
When someone close to me died.

4. What’s the best decision you’ve ever made?
I think moving to UK was the best decision.

5. What’s your favorite true story that you enjoy sharing with others?
I hope I don’t keep repeating the same story.

6. What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in the last year?
Even in business people can take illogical emotional decisions, but I knew that from before.

7. What was your last major accomplishment?
Buying the house must be the last one.

8. Through all of life’s twists and turns who has been there for you?
My husband.

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