Oddly, this year our spring break at Edinburgh doesn't officially start until the week after Easter. I had a class on Good Friday and had a final presentation this Tuesday. On top of that, I have an essay due this week and one final tutorial. So it's been a bit disjointed with having a holiday over the weekend and then uni finishing a week later.
Awkward uni schedule aside, I had a great Easter weekend! I obviously wasn't able to see my own family for the holiday, so instead I headed down to St. Albans to celebrate with Ben and his family. It's really nice being in any family environment for a major holiday, and I'm so glad Ben's family welcomed me!
Since I had a lot on my plate for the week ahead, I was smart about getting a lot of my work done before I left. I finished up the majority (and by that I mean all but about 300 words) of my essay by Friday afternoon and hopped on an EasyJet flight to Luton on Friday evening. There was a bit of a delay (typical) but I made it in for a decent hour, and Ben and I had some wine and cheese while I introduced him to Queer Eye (we binged the entire show over the weekend- there were many tears).
On Saturday, we slept in and then headed out of the house around noon to take Ben's family's dog Bess for a long walk. St. Albans is great because although it's a fairly busy and big place, there's lots of countryside to roam around. We walked about 3.5 miles from Ben's house up to a pub called the John Bunyan. It was super cozy with the fire on, and there were lots of other dogs around for Bess to get to know. I've heard great things about the traditional pub grub at the John Bunyan, but we didn't end up trying any (we just had some drinks).
We walked just a bit further up the road to Farr Brew, a brewery and taphouse that is literally in someone's farmhouse. We headed into the barn, a warm, windowless room with rug-covered floors, for a pint. I'm not really a beer person, but when I do drink beer, I always go for a porter. I find that they have so much more flavor than light beers (though any beer connoisseur would probably scoff at that suggestion).
The best part? THE DOGS. There were so many dogs at this little taphouse. A labrador, a curly one, a scruffy one, and the one and only Bess made up some of the crowd. But my favorite pup? (other than Bess, of course) Well, that had to be little Biscuit. Biscuit is the brewer's spaniel who's only a few months old and she's just a ball of energy! She was sprinting around the room making friends with everyone. When we left, she came outside with us (which was fine by her owner) but then she followed us down the road and was getting in the way of some incoming cars! Ben had to scoop her up and bring her back to the barn.
On Sunday, we had a day of eating, opening easter eggs, and eating of said easter eggs. Ben's mom made a lovely roast lunch of lamb and all of the fixings. She also made a cauliflower and broccoli cheesy bake which I adored. As if the big lunch wasn't enough, we had a little late-night snack of wine and cheese while watching movies later on. I thought our setup was pretty nice.
On Monday, we didn't get up to much. Just a little bit of shopping around town. But we did manage to make our way to a pretty legendary dessert spot in St. Albans. The Pudding Stop is known for having insanely good desserts, and we were not disappointed. The two of us shared a sticky toffee pudding with banana ice cream and it was just heavenly. It was that perfect balance of sweet, salty, sticky, and creamy. If I could only eat one dessert for the rest of my life it would probably be that one. And what a great way to wrap up a relaxing weekend!
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