A few weekends ago, myself (along with Catrinel, our SEO specialist and Laetitia our photographer) had a fabulous weekend away with some of the best bloggers the UK has to offer. Staying at Amberstone Manor (one of our fantastic UK properties), it was a weekend filled with relaxation, divine cake fromTwigg Studios, scrumptious home-cooked dinners and topped off with some minor nudity from some mums gone wild.
The brilliant caretaker Christine from Amberstone is a bot of a local celeb in Chulmleigh, as there isn’t a place you’ll go where her name isn’t well known! We were greeted at Amberstone and settled in by Chris. She later greeted us again at The Red Lion (the local pub) for dinner. We devoured some delicious stone-baked pizzas had some good conversation and then made our way back to bed to rest for the huge weekend ahead.
Stone Baked PizzasBacon and eggs for breakky
If we knew what the next day held, I think we’d have headed to bed even earlier! Our day started with bacon and eggs cooked by our very own Catrinel. After a hearty breakfast we all broke off to explore the property. We really needed the few hours in its entirety to get to know the grounds of Amberstone fully. This property has so many little pockets that are ready for adventure. You’d think we’d be put off by the wet weather but it somehow made it more romantic to experience – like a scene from Wuthering Heights.
View over Devon from the terraceSecret gardensExploring ChulmleighExploring Chulmleigh
After some time wandering around the property and village we all reconvened for a food-styling and photography session with Aimee of Twigg Studios. As you can imagine with a room full of bloggers, we had to stop every three minutes for everyone to take their photos…
Bloggers can’t help but take photos of everything!!Food styling demonstration with Twigg StudiosGramming the life out of the weekend
Our food styling session was followed by a delicious French style lasagne prepared by our very own Laetitia. It was perfect for warming our bellies as the weather began to turn chillier.
Laeti’s delicious lasagne – French style
Following lunch we sat down for a casual wine tasting game (as we’re not wine professionals we decided to get as much fun out of it as possible!) We were lucky enough to have some fantastic wine partners offer to take part.
We started with Gavi from La Raia, moved onto Venissa‘s delicious prosecco (my favourite!) and bisol and finished off with the divine chianti and monile from Fattoria Viticcio. The fantastic guys at Winerist coordinated the best wine they could get their hands on to be delivered to us!
Collage of WinesCollage of winesMore wine tasting
After our wine tasting game everyone went off to have some down-time, relax and get ready for the evenings event. As evening set in we let everyone into a secret room that they didn’t know existed for pre-dinner drinks, followed by a divine three course supper by La Belle Assiette. It was such a nice surprise seeing everyone’s faces as they walked in!
After dinner and perhaps a few too many gin and tonics everyone got a little on the giggly side of life and so began an evening full of mischief (further photographic proof of mischief apparently isn’t for the public eye!)….
Bloggers gone wild
Looking back on this blog post I notice how much of it was food and drink related. But let’s be honest, in miserable weather and a beautiful mansion – how else would you want to spend your weekend?!
If you’d like to be involved with any blogger events that we have in future please don’t hesitate to contact us on content@oliverstravels.com, and have a look at our video below to see what you could be in for.
With thanks to our partners:
Cath Kidston | Winerist | CLAW | Virtue Drinks | Yoogaia | Twigg Studio | La Belle Assiette | La Raia | Venissa | Fattoria Viticcio | Laurence, Leonie and Christine at Amberstone Manor
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