E is for...Einstein's

E was another hard letter to think of for a good date. I even googled it to find some ideas, but even then I had no luck. In the end we decided to go to a local bar called Einstein's. It's a gorgeous German style bar that serve amazing food.




We are regular visitors to Einstein's, as they do amazing cocktails and a great selection of German beers. When they first opened, Dan had a mission to try a different beer every time as they had that many. I'm not sure that he's actually managed to complete this! They also do large two pint steins if you're feeling brave.

The food really is gorgeous here. We rarely come to this place for a date, which is a shame as it is a really lovely atmosphere. I've sampled a few things on the menu, but this time I went for a currywurst pizza. Curry ketchup truly is a thing of the gods, and a pizza made with it, well there are no words really.



They also play old school music which I am a big fan of. I think this place is aimed more at the older generation, but I always enjoy going in for a cocktail or two.

I do apologise that E wasn't a more exciting date, but to be perfectly honest, they're not always going to be adventurous outings. I always have a great time no matter what we do, so to me I feel like anything beginning with E would have been nice, but it doesn't always make for great blog content I guess. I promise F will be more of an interesting date ;)

Let me know what you thought of this post. If you ever come across a German style restaurant, go in and sample the food. You may surprise yourself by trying something a bit different!

Thank you for reading :)

D is for...Driving Range

So we couldn't for the life of us think of a D date. I suggested we order a dominoes, which we did (they do sriracha as a topping now - it's a game changer), but we thought we can't really count that as a date. So after much debate, we decided to go to the driving range. Dan's a good golfer, he's been golfing since he was five, and I've never golfed in my life, so I thought this would be interesting to say the least...

We headed over to Grassmoor driving range, which Dan is a regular visitor to. If you're thinking of cheap date ideas, then the driving range is pretty good. Obviously different places will differ in prices, but for us it was £4 for 100 balls.

GOLF IS HARD.
Keep your arm straight, legs shoulder width apart, keep your knees bent, but not too bent, use your shoulders not your arms. I swear Dan could shadow as a golf instructor, but seriously I was a lost cause. I couldn't master how to swing without bending your arms! I eventually got slightly okay-ish at it towards the end. It really is all in the hips (there was a lot of Happy Gilmore referencing).

It also can hurt your hands quite a bit from gripping on the club, but even if you're useless like I am, it is a laugh and something different to do. The whole point in the alphabet dates is doing something that you wouldn't normally do, and I'm glad we went and experienced it, even though I was shockingly bad.

I'm really happy with this picture I got of Dan in action, he does look very pro. In the one Dan got of me, I look very useless and confused! So let's leave this one up and be happy.

Let me know if you think this is a good date idea, and PLEASE if you have any ideas for the E date, share them with me!

Thank you for reading!

C is for...Cubana and Casino

Our C date crossed over with Valentines Day, so Dan and I decided to go for an evening away. We booked a hotel, and had a lovely meal at Cubana.

Cubana is insane! It's this amazing Cuban restaurant (in case you couldn't figure that out), that serve tapas for a set price per person. They had a fancy Valentines Tapas menu, in which they bought out a million dishes! There was no way that we could finish it all, but it was really gorgeous. The red wine lamb and spicy prawns were particularly scrumptious. Although, as it was Valentines day, we were sat next to two other couples, which made the set-up feel a little bit like speed dating.

The restaurant was lovely, a nice romantic atmosphere, and gorgeous food/wine (good wine is important). Also if you're feeling brave, they have salsa dancing in the bar area, which I got excited over, but Dan rejected flatly. So we decided to go to the casino instead which was just down to road.

I always like going to the casino, as it feels very sophisticated and fun, so as we were all dressed up, this felt like a good choice. This went south quite literally, as on our way there I FELL OVER ON MY ARSE, followed by Dan bursting into hysterics, and 2 minutes of me with the face on. Not ideal.

(Here I am feeling very pretty in my new shirt dress and boots. This outfit is a mixture of Primark and Tesco as I am cheap, but I feel like it looks more expensive than it is!) 

When we got to the casino (I practically ran inside as it was bloody freezing), we got a few drinks, and went over to the blackjack tables, as that's the only game we have enough knowledge on, and feel brave enough to play. I proceeded to lose £20 instantly by losing every. single. hand. Getting the face on for the second time in one evening wasn't the plan, but I had another drink and got over it pretty quickly. Dan went on to lose all the money that he'd won. So we ended up two poor sad people on valentines day. I think we should have gone salsa dancing instead. 

On a lighter note, the evening wasn't as bad as I've made out. We had lots of lols and soppy moments where we felt incredibly happy and lucky to have each other, which is what Valentines is all about after all. 

I hope you had a lovely Valentines day, and thank you for reading! 

B is for...Brunch

B was a tough one to think of ideas for. We didn't want to go bowling, because we wanted to think slightly outside of the box. Also i'm ridiculously awful at bowling.

We decided to go for brunch somewhere fancy, which was meant to happen last week, but we were both hungover, and Dan couldn't keep anything down so we ended up having a lazy Saturday instead.

This weekend we were a bit fresher, and hungry for a lovely brunch at Maison Mes Amis. This is a local restaurant, which has a bit of a fancy reputation, so we thought it'd be a nice place for a brunch date. 

We both had Croque Madame, which was gorgeousss! Just looking at this picture makes me want to eat it all over again.

I'd like to take the opportunity to say, how amazing is brunch!? Let's just explore this for a moment:

• It's breakfast food, i mean come on. Who doesn't love a good breakfast?
• It's acceptable to have alcohol 
• You can pretend you're a bit fancy for an hour or so
• Most brunchy places serve breakfast until the afternoon (Mes Amis serves until 3pm), so you can have a lazy hungover morning in bed, and then go straight out for food, with time to spare!
• If you go on a brunch date, then you can keep the date going by doing something else afterwards without it being too late
• Alternatively, if your date is shit, then you can leave and you've not wasted the whole day
• It's brunch. Give me some downsides, cos honestly I can't see any negatives. Go with your friends, go with a date, have some drinks, eat some food, it'll set you up for a good day.

Overall, I was very happy with B. It was a nice change, which is really what this challenge is about, getting out there and doing different things.

Let me know your thoughts on brunch! Are you a crazy fanatic like me? If you've never had it, then I would definitely recommend that you try it!  

A is for...Arcades and Aquariums

So if you listen to Matt Edminson on Radio one, or follow Tom Fletcher on youtube, then you will probably have heard of alphabet dates. A concept that is sickeningly romantic and quirky, that I just had to give it a go. As you can gather, the basis is that you and your significant other make your way through the alphabet by going on dates that begin with A, then B, then C, and so on. Dan and I figured out if we start this in 2016, we can do one date every two weeks.

So we started with A (obviously), and let me tell you it’s harder than it looks to think of specific dates! Especially with Dan’s best efforts including “A drink” and “A meal”.

In the end we decided with aquarium as there is one near to us in Matlock Bath. With that we could also go to the arcades that are there. Two A’s, one stone.

I've been to Matlock Bath a handful of times in my childhood, but never before realised how actually bizarre it is. It is effectively a seaside town without any seaside. When we first got there, we went straight for some fish and chips, and I was commenting on how it was odd to come in January when it’s cold, but nice to do something outside the norm. I then realised how weird it actually was, as people usually come in the summer, and go for fish and chips, go on the arcades, etc. and why? Why not go to Scarborough or Skegness which has all of this and more, as they are actual seaside towns! Why do we have this random tourist place in the middle of the country? It’s still got me a little baffled if I'm honest. I'm grateful that Dan puts up with my meaningless ramblings, as this went on for about half an hour.

After fish and chips, (I had chips and gravy, and I was quite disappointed with the lack of thickness to my gravy if I'm honest. As a northerner I feel like I'm allowed to comment on this, but really no one likes watery gravy on chips, am I right?) we headed to the arcade which was gloriously tacky and entertaining. I am addicted to Zingy machines, so Dan had to pull me away from that, but we did win the jackpot of £10 on a Deal or no Deal fruity. Happy days.

Next was the aquarium. If you've ever been to the Matlock Bath aquarium, you’ll know it’s extremely disappointing. As a kid I used to love it, so despite it being slightly shit, it was nice and nostalgic to go to. Also I don’t think it really matters what you do on a date. The fact that you’re doing an activity gives you conversation and things to laugh at. Particularly  if what you’re doing is awful, they’ll always be things to find funny, for example moody af catfish, and turtle orgys.

So that was our A date. It was a lovely start to the challenge I think, and it was a perfect style of date for us. I am really looking forward to the rest of the alphabet, because it’ll allow us to do things that we wouldn't normally do, and I'm hoping we’ll find lots of new things that we enjoy. I may blog all of the dates we go on, or I may just do the interesting ones. I’ll have to decide as we go along.

What do you think of this idea? Is it something that you and your partner would try? If you’re single then you could easily just do this with your best friend, I think that’d be equally as fun! Let me know your thoughts.