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Bargain skirt from m&s (£6 in the sale from Limited Collection!) and ranunculus from my garden. Ranuncs are my favourite flowers after peonies. 

Bought this book on all your recommendations! Can't wait to try some recipes. I've ordered some mexican chillis and chipotle ketchup from the Cool Chile Co and can't wait for them to arrive! The ketchup will be amazing on bbq'd meat once we get some bbq weather. 

Architecture porn. I love the houses on this road near us in Aigburth. They all have original features and the same 3 panel doors and cute door bells and sash windows. The other building is the oldest building in Liverpool city centre, the Bluecoat. We popped in the other day to look at the vintage fair but I didn't see any bargains really.

We spent a fair bit of time in the garden last weekend and used our new table & chairs for the first time to have a cup of tea outside and listen to the football. We have peas, potatoes, beetroot, carrots, spring onions and kale all growing in our humble yard. Can't wait to have our first harvest!

This week I was visited by the lovely teapigs office fairy in work and got some to sample myself at home. The green tea with mint is absolutely lovely as sometimes I find mint tea TOO much like toothpaste and not enough like tea, but the balance of this was perfect. The super fruit tea went down VERY well in work, all the samples were gone after a day! 

This weekend has been a bit quieter, I have spent today doing absolutely nothing except dosing up on cold remedies and praying that I shake off this sore throat so that I can get running again (had a long run scheduled for this weekend but have felt too rotten to go out, boo). I bought some new running clothes for the summer, nike tempo shorts and a lovely green nike t-shirt! I usually just buy the cheapest running stuff from Sports Direct, which does the job, but you can definitely tell the difference in the pricey stuff. I think I'll wear the shorts for the Mersey Tunnel 10k as no doubt it will be pretty hot in the tunnel. 

How has everyone else's week been? I hear we're in for some great weather this week so I am hoping we may be able to have our first ever bbq! So excited.

Mexican food at Lucha libre, Liverpool

A new Mexican restaurant has recently opened in Liverpool and it's been on our 'to try' list so we decided to go this weekend when I finished work. We arrived quite early, just before 6, and it wasn't busy but by the time we left it was getting quite bustling.

Modelo and tortilla chips with guacamole. I love any homemade guacamole and this was great. I wasn't so sure on the salsa as it seemed a bit too paprika-ey for my taste but Scott really liked it. 

Small plate of mixed grill - yum. This consisted of chicken wings and drummers, homemade chorizo and ribs. The ribs were a bit disappointing and slightly dry but the rest of it was amazing. Not sure if maybe the ribs were dry because they seemed a bit on the skinny side, maybe meatier ribs wouldn't have gone so dry.

Al Pastor taco - this is a taco with marinated belly pork and chargrilled pineapple. It was so lovely and the belly pork wasn't fatty or greasy at all, it was really fresh. 

Salpicon tostada - This was my favourite I think and could have happily ate about a dozen of these. It is beef  with caramelised parsnips and carrots. One thing I noticed at Lucha libre was how fresh tasting everything was. It definitely beat any other mexican food I've ate previously.

And the dessert, oh my god, the dessert. Crepes in a mexican dulce de leche style sauce (I've forgotten the name of this sauce, doh!). This was amazing, the sauce was really rich and had a hint of cinnamon to it. Perhaps could have been improved with the addition of some ice cream (cinnamon flavoured ice cream would be amazing with it). 

I think we will definitely be trying Lucha libre again - I really want to try the quesadillas and burritos. Oh and the margaritas too! 

I might have to try cooking some Mexican food at home too, especially now it's getting summerier (it's pure Summer food!) does anyone have any Mexican cookbooks or favourite recipes to share?

Liverpool women's 10k

Today was the women's 10k in Liverpool as part of the RunLiverpool festival of running. The women's 10k has been going for over 20 years and the first 7 runners of todays races had ran every Liverpool women's 10k. Pretty amazing really! The route goes around Sefton Park and Princes Park. I wasn't hoping to beat my time for last year's Great Manchester Run, but just to finish it really.

Setting off! Trying to get ahead of all the walkers, I probably spent the first 3k overtaking people because I'd joined the starting line so far back. 

At the 3k point, spotting Scott. Feeling quite good at this point! 

Just before the 5k point and about to go into Princes Park. 

Aaand, out of the park! Very red faced and warm at this point, around Princes Park was probably the hardest bit. We set off at 12 so we were running in the mid day sun. Although it didn't feel warm at first, once you've been running for half an hour you do get a bit warm & sweaty! I had to stop and walk for a bit, but I noticed quite a few other women doing this so didn't feel too bad. Then when I got out of Princes Park I started to run again as I knew that Scott would be there with his camera at the 7k point! Then we went back into Sefton Park for the final 3k.

Then, running the final few metres! The last 500m are on grass and it was quite hard, but I persevered. I knew I'd gone over an hour at this point so there was no point in aiming for a PB (not that I set out to do that anyway) so I just took it nice and easy. As you can see, the official gun time says about 1 hour 5 minutes. I'm yet to see what my official chip time says as they haven't been updated yet but my garmin said 1.03.52. Not bad!

Finished and with my medal! I'll be needing a special hook to display them all on soon I think haha.

I came home and had a big nap and have just generally lazed around since. Thank god it's a bank holiday tomorrow so I'm not in work! I'm going to have a very long soak in the bath and an early night after reading some blogs I think. Oh and I need to enter the Mersey tunnel 10k too, I'm aiming to smash my PB in that one!