easter egg sugar cookies

As I'm not the biggest fan of chocolate (shock horror!) I baked up some easter egg shaped sugar cookies this weekend instead. They're super easy to make and look ever so spring inspired. I always follow this Nigella recipe for sugar cookies, they come out a good shape without spreading out too much in the oven and taste buttery and soft. For the icing, I pipe an outline and then fill them in. To get these shades, I mixed Wilton Ivory into Pink, Violet and Leaf Green, to create dusty pastel colours. 

the salthouse harbour hotel, ipswich

On Sunday, I headed down to Ipswich for a one night stay at the Salthouse Harbour Hotel. I've only ever been to the city very briefly before and had never been down to the marina, so it was truly wonderful to have a room that looked right out onto the water. I felt right at home given the quirky styling and huge copper bath right next to one of the comfiest beds I've ever jumped into. 

With the hotel being so central, there's plenty to keep you occupied with in the city, or you can take a short drive to a beach in Suffolk for the day. I played it pretty chilled and relaxed in the room for most of the afternoon and then went out for a delicious meal at Aqua Eight. 

After the sun had gone down I ran myself a huge bubble bath and watched all of the lights twinkling from the boats in the marina. I've been in a fair few decadent baths in my time, but this one is by far my absolute favourite. 

The Sail Loft Marina room (with the copper bath!) is currently priced at £141 for a Sunday night, and I really do recommend a trip to discover the hotel for yourself. Plus I shouldn't forget to mention that they do a cracking breakfast too.

www.salthouseharbour.co.uk 

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basel fasnacht

A couple of weeks ago, a rather exciting email landed in my inbox asking if I'd like to travel to Basel to join in on the fun of the Fasnacht. I'd never heard of the carnival up until this point, but as I'd been to Basel before (blog post here) and absolutely loved the city, I eagerly accepted. The Fasnacht runs over the course of three days, and involves a mass of masked characters on floats, bikes and on foot marching through the city playing instruments. They are as mischievous as they look and throw confetti in your face at the fist chance they get, but reward you with a handful of sweets afterwards. Those in floats throw out sweets, oranges, flowers and as it's known as an 'everything goes' parade, you often see leeks and onions flying through the air too.

I wholeheartedly recommend a trip to both Basel and the Fasnacht to anyone looking for an alternative city break, I've already recommended all of my friends and family to make the trip and I definitely will be going back myself one year too. I flew over with Skywork from London City airport and found the entire process so quick and easy (the flight time is just 1hr 40 minutes) and my two night stay left plenty of time to completely enjoy the carnival. 

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