Island Retreat.

Last weekend's adventure location was the Isle of Wight and we had the best time!

I guess I will end up having to eat a few of my words about my views on engagement and marriage, where I stand in my relationship is still the same but the first of our friends announced their engagement this weekend and I'm so excited! Please excuse the following friend-bumming below. ♥

You'll be hard pressed to find a better place to propose than in the middle of a National Park in Canada, and that's how our friends, Stacy and Pip, did it, so lovely! They'd kept it a bit of a secret since they'd returned but I had my suspicions that a trip-up on Pinterest only confirmed - what can I say? I'm an excellent sleuther. :)

Not only did our little weekend trip to the Isle of Wight bring fantastic news, Stacy and Pip were also excellent tour guides and we had such a great time being shown around places that we hadn't really been able to go before since we usually visit them around Christmas time instead.

It made all the difference arriving on Friday night, even if we did stay up super-late once we got there anyway - there was a lot of catching up to do.



Saturday morning was spent eating a tasty, mapley pancake breakfast before heading to Seaview Wildlife Encounter - which for just £7 was really worth it, for the ducks alone I'd say.
My favourite were the wallabies because it's hard not to choose them. I've been in enclosures at zoos where you walk through where they are but these guys willing come up to be petted and one even licked me!




I've never seen such a swarm of ducks!



Pretty good idea, especially for those zoo-goers who are a bit more snap-happy.






See? So tame. ♥



Teddy-faced Sheep :)





My new favourite kind of duck, adorable short beak and the best quack!




I've never seen a pelican do this... so gross and creepy.


After petting all the animals (a good weekend would be complete without them), we convoyed to the Isle of Wight Garlic Farm. We stopped there for a delicious lunch after sampling so many garlicky products.





Two words: GARLIC. SAUSAGE.


We finished up our afternoon with a stop off at a vineyard to sample some fruity wine before swinging by the donkey sanctuary, a slightly more legitimate affair than the offerings we have up this way. 'Affair' might be the wrong choice of word given that we saw some quite intense 'almost-action' while we were there, that was something else but this is a family-friendly place.





The evening was spent playing fun and fancy quiz games, celebrating and laughing a lot. Needless to say, our heads needed a bit of clearing on Sunday morning - which involved eating sausages, a walk along the beach and a KFC lunch before waving goodbye.


Stacy and Pip have resident foxes at the bottom of their garden, so cute!


Fancy Canadian dessert wine and champagne to kick off the celebrations.


Posey Puss – she definitely tried to make out with me the following morning, one of the neediest cats.















It's kind of hard to accept that it might be a while before I get to paddle in the sea again. I've been the luckiest with it this month and in September no less!

I feel like last weekend really made a few great memories and I went into the rest of this week just feeling happy and that's just fine with me! ♥