I wrote a guest post for the Yes and Yes blog, a mini travel guide of England. I focused on the North because, well, why wouldn’t I? I could’ve written so much more, and even had to miss out some of my favourite places!
You should definitely head over there and read it :)
If you’d like me to guest post for your blog please drop me an email, kim@finestimaginary.com
I love Islands of Adventure, it has the best roller coasters! I only took a few photos while we were there, I was way too into having fun… I’m going to do a separate post about the Wizarding World part of the park, it really deserves it.
I’m finally getting around to sorting through and processing the photos I took when we were in Florida, it’s a mammoth task!! The first theme park we hit was Universal Studios, an old favourite with a few changes. It really didn’t take us long to make our way around it though, we got there first thing and ended up heading to Islands of Adventure for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Without further ado, and with barely any descriptions…
(these were some of the best fries I’ve ever had, amazing!)
(Playing with a ‘vintage’ action that I just created in photoshop, thought it was quite fitting with the diner jukebox!)
As sad as I was that back to the future has gone, I have to say the new Simpsons ride was really good! The building looks totally different, and the inside has been re-branded so well!
I believe I’d just seen that the Starbucks wasn’t open yet, so a frappuccino fix wasn’t gonna happen any time soon…
Next up Islands of Adventure, and an entire post dedicated to Wizarding World!
Those of you who visit the website will have noticed a few changes around here, as in, a full on redesign! Yep, I got really bored and frustrated with the previous design, in all honesty it was just something that I knocked up one evening. I guess it’s like the thing about hairdressers who have bad hair, web developers (or busy ones at least) have a hard time updating their websites. But no more! I’m actually really happy with the new design, apart from a few little tweaks and browser bug fixes that I’ve noticed need doing.
What do you think? If you do spot anything that looks borked, let me know!!
I’m going to be adding more banners, too, just as soon as I make some images for it!
For those who are interested I’ll also be offering some knock-down advertising in the sidebar, see the finestimaginary advert? just under there. Email me for information! The finestimaginary advert has gotten quite a bit of click-through these past couple of days, great spot for bloggers & small businesses :) kim@finestimaginary.com
As one of the greatest inspirations for loads of my favourite authors, it’s about time I read more HP Lovecraft. A few years ago we bought a hardback edition of the Necronomicon: The Best Weird Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, which is a bountiful collection of short stories. It’s one of those books that I’ve never taken off the shelf, it’s so big! too big to carry around for sure. My plan is to keep it by the side of my bed and read when I can. Starting now!
HP Lovecraft is a master of strange fiction, science fiction, horror, fantasty and make-believe. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to read this book!!
You just can’t beat a book with a map, am I right?? All the best books have maps!! (see Lord of the Rings, Wicked, Wheel of Time).
I was riffling through the ephemera stall on the market this Tuesday and came across this cute Christmas card. It’s so weirdly wonderful that I couldn’t leave without it, and I’m still in Disney mode after Orlando. There were some other equally strange things that I could’ve quite easily bought, maybe next week…
“May you have a Royal time this Christmas and every day of the year to come”
Who’s the guy? Royal? What?
I’ll be coming back to you shortly with a bunch of Florida posts, still trying to get my shit together at home (ie. catching up with EVERYTHING and doing hundreds of laundry loads).
Well, we’re here! The drive today wasn’t too bad, straight down the US1 from Key Largo, a short and sweet 90ish miles. It took us little over 2 hours, and we dropped the car off at the airport before checking in at our plush hotel/motel, Orchid Key Inn. We spent this afternoon strolling around, doing a bit of bar hopping, kicking back at the hotel, and eating some great meals. I just had the biggest dish of jambalaya evvveeerrr.
This is one of the reasons I love Key West:
There are so many just wandering the streets! And as we were walking back from dinner they were just starting to roost in the trees, ah!
We drove through the Everglades & Big Cypress park today on the Tamiami trail, we got stuck at one point for 3 hours due to a car wreck… that kinda sucked :/
At one rest stop we walked along a half-mile board walk with the promise of a gator look out spot at the end, when we got there it was all dried up and we weren’t expecting to see anything… BUT we caught a glimpse of a gator hiding in the nearby grasses, and just below the boardwalk I saw two baby gators! Amazing! It was pretty creepy walking the boardwalk on our own, it was pretty deep undergrowth and the wildlife sounds were crazy O_O
All in all the journey took 6 hours, we stopped at another visitor centre with a boardwalk and saw LOADS of gators, they’re scary huge. Currently relaxing in our Key Largo hotel room with a beer after feasting on crab cakes and mojitos.Tomorrow we’re driving down the rest of the keys and finishing up in Key West.
I’m sat in a hotel room in Naples, we drove down here from Orlando this morning with a little stop off at the Dalí museum in St Petersburg. It seemed like we were in Orlando for weeks, we did so much! We hit our favourite theme parks (Epcot, both Universals, Disney Hollywood Studios & Typhoon Lagoon), and did plenty of shopping. I’ll be catching up on the parks when I get back, but here are a few photos from the past week.
Tomorrow we’re driving from here to Key Largo, down the tamiami trail through the everglades national park. I’m pretty excited!
Despite it’s grand sounding name, this is such a simple dessert to make, there’s hardly any real cooking involved, no measuring or weighing, and very little to go wrong!
Ingredients
Pack of ready-made puff pastry
Half a slab of 70% dark chocolate
Fresh Strawberries
Fresh Raspberries
Tub of Whipping cream (or double cream if you’re feeling naughty)
Rose water (optional!)
Makes around 8 desserts
The main beauty of this dessert is in the construction, prepping all the components is pretty simple. Firstly preheat your oven to 200ºc and roll your puff pastry into a roughly rectangular shape, around 1cm thick, on a surface dusted with icing sugar.
Grab your chocolate and cut it into rough shards, just run a knife through it until you have smallish bits. Sprinkle the chocolate over half of the pastry, fold the pastry in half and roll again into a rough rectangle. Finally, fold and roll a second time to around 1cm thick. Now, cut your pastry around the edges to remove the fold lines… I didn’t do this, and you’ll see why I’m telling you to do this later on! Cut the pastry into smaller rectangle pieces, this isn’t an exact science, and it basically depends on how big you want your dessert to be, I went for a custard slice sized pieces (approx.10x5cm)!
Arrange these pastry rectangles on a baking tray, sprinkle them all with icing sugar, and bake for approximately 15 minutes or until golden.
Whilst they’re baking you can get the other bits and pieces prepared. Slice your strawberries, leave your raspberries whole. Whip your cream, I added a little rose water to mine for a fragrant flavour, but there’s certainly no need for this! If you like, you can add sugar to the cream for sweetness.
When the pastry’s ready, take it from the oven and allow to cool. When they’ve cooled, pull the top off, it should come off quite easily, this is why I told you to trim it earlier, not doing so would make it super difficult to prise the top and bottom apart!
To construct the Mille Fuille sprinkle the pastry base with a little icing sugar if you want a bit more sweetness, then add a layer of cream, then strawberries and raspberries, a final layer of cream, and then the top. Finish off with a dusting of icing sugar!
Super simple, and super tastey!
I'm Kim, a 28 year old freelance web designer & maker of things in the UK. I believe in doing what you love, getting paid for it, and having adventures.
