Alphabet Dates Z to V.

I'm hardly an expert when it comes to relationships, I've sobbed into my pillow on multiple occasions over some tool who 'broke my heart' and, realising last October that I would in fact be happier by myself, I swore off men for the foreseeable future . But of course, in the funny way that life works, I met a guy who is, in my opinion at least, pretty darn special. Having only been an item for 3 months I can't say Ben and I are in a rut, but at the beginning of this year we decided to do something to make things a little bit more fun- and so our journey into alphabet dates was born! This idea struck just after we'd been to the zoo so we decided to do things backwards and work Z-A. The general plan is that we do these dates every Sunday and take turns planning.


Z is for Zoo

Glaringly obvious I know, but don't judge. I find the zoo to be a wonderful place for a date (despite the huge ethical dilemma it presents to me every time I go, but that's for another post) for a multitude of reasons-  you get to wander around hand in hand cooing at cute animals, there's always something to talk about and at the end of the day you can try to convince your partner to treat you to a toy of your favourite animal from the gift shop. We went to Colchester Zoo for two reasons- geographically it makes sense and it's just generally a great zoo but you can try some of the bigger zoos such as Whipsnade or Banham.

Y is for Youth

Y was my letter so I decided it would be nice to take Ben on a little walk down memory lane, I got his favourite film from his childhood (Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers in case you're interested!), made his favourite dessert (chocolate crunch using this recipe) and took him to McDonalds for his lunch. It was a silly thing to do but, as far as he told me, Ben appreciated the thought and it definitely rekindled his desire to be a Power Ranger.

X is for X Marks the Spot

Ben really pulled it out the bag with this one, he went downstairs one Sunday morning and then came running back up because he'd 'found' a glass bottle with a treasure map inside. The map was of the town where Ben lives and he had placed clues in his house and garden, around a local park and in his mum and dad's house- he went to an awful lot of effort! All of the clues were written on the back of James Bond postcards (his favourite character) and trust me, treasure hunts are as fun at the age of 23 as they are at 3! The treasure was a bunch of yellow roses, two big bars of chocolate and Monsters University on DVD, not a bad haul I'd say. I've scrapbooked the map and the clues so I can look back in the future and remember just how touching it was to have someone go to so much effort.

W is for Wicked

My dad very kindly gave me two tickets to see Wicked for Christmas and told me to take whoever I wanted. Naturally I chose Ben because there's something I find quite romantic about a night at the theatre, and I also knew he would thoroughly enjoy my singing along to all of the songs. The show lived up to the hype and was just wonderful, I would definitely recommend it. Perhaps if Wicked isn't your kind of show, or if you've already seen it and don't want to go again, you could change it to a night in the West End?

V is for Vineyard 

The Sunday just gone, Ben took me to a Vineyard for a late breakfast. It was in a lovely setting, despite being a little bit chilly outside, and the food was gorgeous. Ben opted for eggs benedict while I had blueberry pancakes with bacon- sounds weird but trust me, it just works. I so rarely go out for breakfast, mainly because I'm not functioning properly until 11am at the earliest, so it's nice to do something we wouldn't normally do. Where we went does offer a little walk around the vineyard but we think we're going to go back when the weather improves a bit. They also had an adorable shop next door that sold all sorts of kitschy home bits meaning I spent the rest of the day mentally decorating.


And that's as far as we've got with our dates, I've got to decide what to do for U next week- any suggestions would be greatly appreciated because I am struggling!