Browns in Oxford

This won't be a long post because I don't have enough photos to embellish it, and dense text posts are never fun to read. I think I need to get used to the blogger lifestyle, i.e. whacking the camera out in completely unnatural situations, because I always find when I want to write a lifestyle-y post that I never have enough photos! Sigh. Anyway, here's a snippet of what I was up to yesterday.

My brother's birthday is on Wednesday but as he no longer lives at home, we celebrated it yesterday by going out for lunch at Browns in Oxford because it's kind of the halfway point between where my mum and I live and where my brother lives. It's a chain of restaurants so if you fancy going, they're all around the UK, not just in Oxford. If you haven't been before, it's totally unfussy but delicious brasserie food in a really nice atmosphere - light and airy with an unobtrusive pianist playing in the background - lovely. We gave Jack his presents and then we all shared their sharing platter as a starter, which was an amazing mix of bite-sized pieces of meat, fish and peppers stuffed with goats' cheese. I had their salmon with chickpeas and red peppers for my main course which was delicious.

I now give you full permission to judge me and think of me as a failure: I decided at the start of Lent that I would have an amnesty on Jack's birthday so that I could have dessert in the restaurant. I know, I know, I've broken my Lent. But it was so worth it, and I'm going to get back on my no sugar streak now that Jack's birthday meal has passed. My mum and I both had their Eton mess which was yummy and really original - I always expect strawberries in Eton mess but this one had cherries, white chocolate and hazelnuts in it. Just look at it! Sorry, not sorry.

We had a really nice, relaxing day which brought an end to the equally relaxing half term I've had. It's back to school for me!

What did you do this weekend?