07/07/2015

Little Green Riding Hood | Picnic Time

Sunday was the first day in ages that N and I had a free day together to enjoy the summer weather. We planned a lovely day out by the coast complete with a picnic lunch but woke up to looming gray clouds which soon brought rain. Boo.

Feeling rather hard done by, I headed into Peterborough for a spot of retail therapy. When I got back, however, I found that N had decided to make up all the picnic bits anyway so as not to waste it all. As we debated whether to ‘picnic’ in the lounge or the kitchen, the rain subsided and the sun began to peek through the clouds. We hastilly packed the food into a hamper, grabbed a bottle of Prosecco and headed 5 minutes down the road to a local nature reserve, chancing that the rain might hold off just long enough for us.

It was perfect timing! The clouds parted and the sun beat down. We strolled along the path until we found a little clearing just right to set down our blanket.

N popped the cork which flew all the way into the field opposite in a magnificent arc! (By the way I detest littering but there was no way of finding this one, otherwise I assure you I would have retrieved it!).

Instead of laying all the food out on a blanket as we’d originally planned to, we kept most of it in the cool of the hamper until it was needed to stop it going warm and soggy. We kept our picnic traditional with ploughmans sandwiches, pork pies, cheese and biscuits.

2 seconds after this photo was taken, the biscuit crumbled and it all ended up in my lap. Oh well, that’s what wet wipes are for!

Corkers Crisps, who hand bake their crisps right here in the Cambridgeshire fenlands, had sent me a selection of their crisps to try*.

We tried to take some ‘we are serious food reviewer’ photos… we failed!

Oh well, suffice to say they were lovely and crunchy, or as N would helpfully describe them: ‘crispy’.

Let’s talk now about some of the realities of a picnic:

Wildlife. It wants your food and drink. We were quite lucky and only got interrupted once by this little chancer!

Dogs. As we were lounging back lazilly looking up at the clouds I heard “Bella – NO!” and then an eager, rather rotund Labrador descended upon us. She nuzzled at my face, then snuffled inside the hamper before knocking over my Prosecco in a big puddle on the grass. She lapped it up in 2 seconds flat before I or her owner could stop her! Luckilly there wasn’t much left in the glass or we could have had an inebriated pooch on our hands.

Mess is inevitable…. especially where I’m involved! I managed to knock over my glass of Prosecco several times during the course of our little picnic as the ground wasn’t very flat and yet I still kept trying to balance my glass on it!

..this is all part of the fun however, just make sure you pack napkins, wet wipes and a carrier bag for your rubbish!

Then we reached the part we’d been waiting for – our dessert skewers. Brownies, marshmallows and strawberries on a stick – does life get any better?

Plus this was what I’d managed to spill my Prosecco onto, so they were booze infused too – beautiful!

Our eyes turned out to be bigger than our bellies and we couldn’t eat everything we’d packed, but it made dinner that evening incredibly easy as we just indulged in the leftovers.

As we were packing up the sky suddenly darkened and stormy gray clouds returned.

I pulled on my new lightweight parka*. It has turned out to be perfect to sling on if a muggy summer’s day turns a bit wet or windy. I recommend picking up something like this for the festival season as it’s light enough to ~~stuff~~ fold neatly in a bag as an extra layer when needed, whilst keeping you nice and cool.

Red Herring Khaki Parka* £40 Debenhams | Pearl Cuff Bracelet* £4 Debenhams | Gc White Ceramic Watch (similar here) £195 sale price | Jeggings (old, similar here) £19.50 M&S | Vest £5 M&S

Big splotchy droplets started to fall; refreshing after the intense afternoon sun. I pulled up the hood and became Little Green Riding Hood!