Yankee Candle Christmas Memories Candle Collection

With less than two months now to go until Christmas I've been starting to think about what to buy my friends and family. Whilst browsing my local shopping centre, this little Yankee Candle boxset caught my eye, naturally I had to purchase it to "test" out all the different Christmas fragrances before being able to settle on one (or maybe two or three) to purchase full size as gifts.

The box set named "Christmas Memories" is a set of 12 votive sized candles which have an approximate burn time of 15 hours. These votive candles if bought separately cost £1.80 each but this complete set retails at £19.99. I think its a great idea having all the Christmas scents in one box and I have enjoyed picking out which ones I'm going to burn first. So far I've only tried two, Snow in Love and Sugared Apple, personally I wasn't too impressed with Snow in Love but Sugared Apple was really nice. The candles are displayed in a box which opens out into a book which has a cute little red ribbon Velcro attachment on the side. On the inside cover there is a description of each candle and what scent it has. I think this is a really nice idea, especially if you are planning on giving it to someone as a gift.

The only downside to these votive sizes are that obviously they don't give off the scent as well as the larger jars but if like me you're unsure about what someone will like its perfect for giving them all a try.

I'm really looking forward to trying Merry Marshmallow and Snowflake Cookie, two of the new scents for this year as I've smelt them in the shop and think they're going to be really nice. I'm saving them until nearer Christmas and hope that they will be one of the Yankee Fragrances of the Month (so you can get 25% off). I'm also saving Christmas Eve for Christmas Eve as I think its a lovely scent to get you in the mood for Christmas!

Have you got any of the Yankee Candle Christmas collection? What is your favourite scent?

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lastminute.com's Secret Hotel Deal | My experience

 As I mentioned in my last post, hubby and I recently headed up to Wembley for the NFL. With money a bit tight the past month we had to come up with a cheaper way of traveling and staying in London. We decided we would get the coach up this time instead of the train and after looking on National Express we were able to get a return for both of us for the great price of £36. 

As the game finished around 8-9pm we decided it would be best for us to stay in London overnight (it took us over two hours to get out of the stadium the first time we went and we didn't want the hassle of getting back to Waterloo and then another 2 plus hours on a train) so I took to the internet to find us a "cheap" deal. I scoured sites and went to individual hotels but nowhere was within our price range, so I went to lastminute.com to have a look at their Secret Hotel's section.

The way that the Secret Hotels deal works is that the name of the hotel is not revealed until after you make the booking. It's apparently because big name hotels don't want to advertise that they have empty rooms so they advertise them on these sites so they can get them filled. I put in the dates we needed and the number of people staying and a few deals came up.I was interested by the one that came up in Westminster as it is a nice area and we thought we could easily get to and from Wembley by hopping on the Jubilee line. Last minute provide a map with a shaded area so that you can see the area in which your hotel will be in. I checked with hubby and he said to go for it.

So off I went and paid the £89.25 and anxiously waited for the email which revealed our hotel, when it came through my jaw dropped, I couldn't believe how pretty the place looked. The hotel was called Dolphin Serviced Apartments and we had our own bedroom, bathroom, and mini kitchen! There was even a gym, swimming pool and champagne bar! As you can see from the photos it looked great! The bed was really comfy and it was so quiet! We didn't even hear the storm outside! The best thing of all is that we were staying in Keyes house (which if you didn't know, is our surname! Obviously we had to have an obligatory photo in front of the sign!)

I would definitely recommend doing a deal like this is you don't mind where you stay. I know i'll definitely be looking at deals like this again in the future.

Apologies for the quality of the photos, it was dark when we checked in and my camera isn't great in low light.

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Giraffe Restaurant | Victoria, London

As I mentioned in my last post, last week, hubby and I went up to London to see the NFL at Wembley. As we didn't want to pay obscene prices for food whilst we were there we decided that we would eat as soon as we got into London. I'd heard lots of good things about Giraffe from my bloggy friend, Jaye so when I saw that there was a Giraffe restaurant near Victoria coach station I decided this would be where we would head.

I had already booked a table online as we knew we were going here and it was a good job we did as the restaurant was quite busy, even though it was only midday! I had already looked at the menu online beforehand too so I knew exactly what I wanted!

The best thing about the drinks was that they serve the coke in a glass bottle, which seems really retro these days and I love it. I'm sure the coke tastes fresher and although I was given a glass to pour it into I really wanted to swig it out of the bottle! (very ladylike obviously!)

Food wise, I chose the Rodeo burger (if you didn't know I have a big obsession with BBQ sauce!) so this was the perfect burger for me. I had a side of fries which were yummy and some tomato based relish which was really nice too. Hubby had a risotto which some coleslaw, I don't normally like coleslaw but I tried a bit and it was really nice!

The atmosphere was great inside the restaurant and was clean and the staff were friendly (they even managed to remember no tomato in my burger, where so many other places forget) My only grumble was that it was difficult to hold a conversation over the table as it was quite noisy, but I think that's because I'm used to quiet restaurants where I live at home.

Overall, I'd definitely recommend a visit to Giraffe or their sister restaurant, Burgers & Cocktails which I visited previously which you can read about here.

Have you been to a Giraffe restaurant before? What did you think?

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