​I recently took a last minute decision to book a long summer weekend in London. The goal was to relax, take my mind off things for a bit and catch up with some lovely friends.
There was a long weekend here in Northern Ireland mid-July and I could have picked somewhere I had not visited before but I was in need of something familiar. Having been to London many times over the past few years, it was the perfect place to spend a mini break.

I mentioned it vaguely in my previous post and those of you following my instagram account @cremedecitron might already know: I recently moved to the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland.
When I say recently, it has actually been about three months already. Which is a good amount of time to get acquainted with my new surroundings and sort out a whole lot of paperwork. This is why I had to take a small break from blogging, because life priorities as important as these demand some attention.

A few months ago, our lovely Australian friends suggested we organise a weekend away together before their visa ended and they had to go back Down Under. After figuring out what would work or what wouldn't (it was planned for the August bank holiday weekend, at the height of Summer holidays in most European cities), we opted for a long weekend in Brussels in Belgium, city that none of us had visited before.
We settled on dates and accommodation, and then met at our hotel on a lovely Saturday morning (E. and I had flown over the day before so had had time to walk around and take notes). The sun was shining for the entire weekend, everybody was relaxed, happy and really well fed. What could you ask more of a mini holiday with great friends!
There was some sightseeing but food was definitely a very big part of our weekend. Brussels is really a perfect city for both of those things!

About two weeks ago, I was at Stansted Airport in London waiting for a flight back to Dublin after five days of really enjoyable holidays.  We were welcomed there by our lovely Australian friends and among all types of fun times together, I have to admit I did have some real tourist moments. The last time I had properly visited London was more than twelve years ago so it has effectively changed a lot in the meantime. Apart from a couple of rain drops, and me stepping right into a huge puddle of water (because I was marveling at the Anthropologie shop windows, so it's a good excuse), we were very lucky with the weather and managed to fit a lot of things in.
We started our holiday with an epic evening run through the many types of transportation London has to offer on a strike day. Our friend R. was in the Irish play 'Translations' by Brian Friel at the other side of town and we wanted to make sure we would be there and see him on stage.
What ensued were a few days filled with food, sight seeing, theatre, sunshine, happiness and friendship. What could you ask more of a holiday?!

For the last installment of my little trip to France, I continue the day trip in Noirmoutier and show you the salt marshes of Bonne Pogne.
After having eaten our galettes and crêpes and as we were making our way back towards the continent, we stopped at one of the many salt marshes as I wanted to bring back some coarse sea salt and fleur de sel. And what a better place to do that than in Noirmoutier!
The salt marshes where we stopped are called Marais Salants de Bonne Pogne and owned by the family Petitgas. We were only going to stop for a few minutes to buy some salt but were told we could get a visit of the salt marshes too. Learning more about an ingredient I use everyday was definitely a great thing.